Be gone, peasants

It’s increasingly clear that descriptive representation matters, particularly as related to race and gender. Political Scientists Robert R. Preuhs and Eric Gonzalez Juenke find that black and Hispanic legislators are more responsive to the interests of black and Hispanic constituents than white legislators, after controlling for party. Legislators of color also serve an important veto function — preventing laws from passing that would disproportionately harm communities of color. Daniel Butler and David Broockman find that politicians are more responsive to letters from constituents of the same race. This is confirmed by a study that finds legislators that support voter ID laws are less likely to respond to inquiries from Latino constituents. Further, black legislators are also more likely to hire black staffers. In addition, Economist Ebonya Washington finds that having a daughter makes a congressperson more liberal, particularly on reproductive rights. Some studies suggest that female representatives are more likely to set an agenda around women’s issues.

Given this, should we worry that more than half of all members of the House of Representatives are millionaires? Further, while two-thirds of the population don’t have a college degree, only two House members (Robert Brady of Pennsylvania and Stephen Fincher of Tennessee) and one senator (outgoing Mark Begich of Alaska) lack one.

Nicholas Carnes of Duke University has recently taken up the question of how class affects votes. In a 2012 paper, he finds that “representative from working-class occupations exhibit more liberal economic preferences than other legislators, especially those from profit-oriented professions.” Other research has confirmed this. Christopher Witko and Sally Friedman find that “House members with business backgrounds have closer relationships with business interests… and demonstrate more probusiness roll call voting.”

While descriptive representation of women and people of color has increased dramatically, the descriptive representation of working-class people has remained stubbornly flat.