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In this article, I examine how term limits affect the amount of time that legislators focus on constituency service and fundraising. I use data from the 2002 U.S. State Legislative Survey conducted by Carey, Niemi, Powell, and Moncrief to provide support for my hypotheses. The results from the data analysis suggest that in the presence of term limits, legislators with long‐term career goals in politics spend less time on constituency service activities and more time on fundraising with their caucus. For legislators with short‐term career goals in politics, there is very little evidence to suggest that term limits have an effect on how much time they spend on constituency service activities and fundraising activities.

Examines the cue selection process, and assumes that choosing a cue-source is functional and designed to help legislators accomplish their goals. Argues that intense policy preferences predispose legislators to seek cues from policy specialists, while those who believe that an issue is salient to their district will be more likely to seek cues from sources who can provide information about the district's preferences. (Abstract amended)

Effect of women legislators on public policy.

Can ideological inconsistency in legislators' voting records be explained by uncertainty about constituent preferences? Do legislators 'hedge their bets' ideologically when faced with constituency uncertainty? This article presents an uncertainty-based theory of ideological hedging. Legislators faced with uncertainty about their constituent preferences have an incentive to present ideologically inconsistent roll-call records. Legislators experiment with a variety of roll-call positions in order to learn the preferences of their constituents. An examination of US senators during 1961–2004 shows that uncertainty due to black enfranchisement and mobilization led to higher ideological inconsistency in legislative voting records. Ideologically inconsistent behaviour by elected officials can be characterized as best responses to a changing and uncertain environment. These results have implications for representation and the stability of democracy.

Theoretical work assumes that legislators use ex ante design to gain bureaucratic influence, not only at an agency's appointment stage but also as an ongoing tactic. Yet no empirical work has investigated whether or not legislators prefer to use design to exert influence after an agency's appointment stage. Using a mail survey of more than 2,500 legislators, we model legislators' preferences for ex ante design as a function of both institutional factors and individual legislators' characteristics. Our results suggest that the feasibility of agency design as an ongoing tactic of bureaucratic influence is more limited than theoretical work indicates and that both institutional‐ and individual‐level factors explain legislators' preferences.

An analysis of U.S. budgetary changes shows that, among subaccounts that are cut, Democrats make more large cuts when they control more lawmaking institutions. This surprising finding is consistent with legislators who are subject to motivated reasoning. In an information-rich world, they disproportionately respond to information in line with their bias unless they must make a large accuracy correction. This article tests, for the first time, motivated information processing among legislators. It finds evidence that Democrats engage in motivated information processing and that the effects of it are felt more on social spending and in off-election years. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

Despite the centrality of the median voter prediction in political economy models, overwhelming empirical evidence shows that legislators regularly take positions that diverge significantly from the preferences of the median voter in their districts. However, all these empirical studies to date lack the necessary data to directly measure the preferences of the median voter. We utilize a unique data set consisting of individual-level voting data that allows us to construct direct measures of voter preferences. We find that legislators are most constrained by the preferences of the median voter in homogeneous districts. 5 Tables, 1 Appendix, 50 References. Adapted from the source document.

Finds that women legislators in Argentina and the US emphasize social issues, but otherwise have objectives similar to those of male legislators; based on analysis of the bills they introduced, 1993-94.

Examines legislators' personal attributes, institutional role, and legislative commitment to explain perceived legislative effectiveness. Also finds legislative effectiveness ratings to be good predictors of electoral and legislative success. (Abstract amended)