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Objective. Previous models of roll‐call voting have either ignored the role of legislator ideology or have employed questionable measures of it. A defensible measure of legislator ideology is needed.Methods. This study surveys former members of Congress (MCs) to obtain a new measure of legislator preferences. The measure has several attractive properties, appears to be valid, and is unique compared to a preference measure others have used.Results. Validating the measure in a model of roll‐call voting reveals that the importance of legislators' ideologies is similar to that of their party affiliations.Conclusions. A useful measure of legislators' ideologies can be generated using a postretirement instrument.

Prerogative is the devolution of power to a single legislator over decisions in her district. In cities with a prerogative regime, when the city council votes on an issue or an administrative agency makes a decision concerning a specific district, decision-makers defer to that district's legislator. This deference gives the legislator exclusive executive authority over her district. In Chicago and Philadelphia, legislators have infamously wielded prerogative and tied the practice to corruption. But in addition to corruption, prerogative gives rise to another, more pernicious issue. When applied to decisions related to affordable housing, prerogative perpetuates racial segregation through legislator vetoes. Prerogative empowers legislators to unilaterally block the land use and financing approvals necessary to develop affordable housing in their districts. As legislators from wealthy districts block affordable housing through prerogative, affordable housing remains concentrated in racially isolated communities, thereby further entrenching existing patterns of housing segregation. Prerogative's opponents have proposed legislative reform to curb the practice, but these proposals do not sufficiently account for political inertia: legislators are unlikely to curtail their own power. In the absence of legislative reform, housing advocates should turn to the courts. Judicial intervention can serve as the catalyst to effectuate land use reform that constrains prerogative and promotes equitably sited affordable housing.

A growing body of research shows that women legislators outperform their male counterparts in the legislative arena, but scholars have yet to examine whether this pattern emerges in non-policy aspects of representation. We conducted an audit study of 6,000 U.S. state legislators to analyze whether women outperform or underperform men on constituency service in light of the extra effort they spend on policy. We find that women are more likely to respond to constituent requests than men, even after accounting for their heightened level of policy activity. Female legislators are the most responsive in conservative districts, where women may see the barriers to their election as especially high. We then demonstrate that our findings are not a function of staff responsiveness, legislator ideology, or responsiveness to female constituents or gender issues. The results provide additional evidence that women perform better than their male counterparts across a range of representational activities.

AbstractIt isn't rascally politicians who corrupt, it's the citizens who are eager to sell their votes.

Interviews with legislators in 4 US states indicate that some of them become specialists in important subject-matter fields. The member-specialist functions as a communication channel to the society: he simplifies for his fellows the complexities of admin've, sci'ific, educ'al, legal & fiscal problems. This informal expertise system develops alongside the standing committee system despite the difficulty experienced by an elective body in recruiting, training & retaining specialists. It persists apparently because the members need the assistance of someone who (1) has a greater knowledge than they of the matters they regulate but (2) is one of their ingroup & subject to pressures they experience & understand. The appearance of this informal division of labor throws into question the theory that the legislator in a system of separation of powers should & does act primarily as the generalist, the layman & the omnicompetent representative. AA-IPSA.