Do More Professionalized Legislatures Discriminate Less? The Role of Staffers in Constituency Service

• Author: Michelangelo Landgrave,Nicholas Weller
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X20923588
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Date: 01 September 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X20923588

American Politics Research

2020, Vol. 48(5) 571 –578

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X20923588

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Article

Introduction

Legislative professionalization affects a host of different out-

comes involving both legislative behavior (Berry et al.,

2000; Maestas, 2000; Squire, 1992) and policy output

(Kousser & Phillips, 2009). Despite the various effects of

professionalization, scholars have not yet examined whether

it might influence discrimination against constituents.

Literature across a number of fields suggests that organiza-

tional professionalization could reduce discrimination

(Andersen & Guul, 2019; Banerjee et al., 2018; Hirschman

& Bosk, 2019; Lipsky, 1983; Mladenka, 1977; Thomas,

1986; Weber, 1922). Several features associated with profes-

sionalism, in particular the increased role staffers play in

constituent communications (Herrick, 2011), could play a

role in reducing discrimination against constituents. Given

the plausibility that professionalization could reduce dis-

crimination, we re-analyzed data from a prior field experi-

ment about discrimination against hypothetical constituents,

and we also coded for the first time approximately 3,000

emails received in the original study allowing us to examine

who responded and some characteristics of their responses.

Our data analysis suggests that professionalization, and

specifically an increase in staffer’s involvement in the legis-

lative enterprise, reduces discrimination in both the rate of

replies to hypothetical constituents and in the content of the

emails that legislative offices send. This is the first evidence

we are aware of suggesting that legislative professionaliza-

tion can play a role in reducing discrimination against

constituents. The substantive importance of these findings

suggests scholars should further investigate the relationship

between discrimination and legislative professionalization,

including explicitly trying to understand the mechanisms

that might lead to reduced discrimination. In addition, our

results suggest that increases in professionalism and the

increase in staffer support increases a legislatures’ capacity

to better represent constituents.

We contribute to a growing literature on the importance

of staffers in the legislative enterprise (Hertel-Fernandez

et al., 2018; McCrain, 2018; Montgomery & Nyhan, 2017;

Pertschuk, 2017) by studying staffers in state legislatures

and their role in constituency service. Early research theo-

rized the importance of staffers in increasing legislative

capacity in Congress (DeGregorio, 1995; Fox & Hammond,

1977; Salisbury & Shepsle, 1981), but it is only recently

that the field has studied the importance of staffers in state

legislatures (Weissert & Weissert, 2000). State legislatures

present an opportunity to advance the study of staffers

because of the variation in their roles and utilization across

states. Likewise, prior literature has discussed the role of

staffers in constituency service (Ziniel, 2009), and we

923588APRXXX10.1177/1532673X20923588American Politics ResearchLandgrave and Weller

research-article2020

1University of California, Riverside, USA

Corresponding Author:

Michelangelo Landgrave, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Political

Science, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA.

Email: mland014@ucr.edu

Do More Professionalized Legislatures

Discriminate Less? The Role of Staffers

in Constituency Service

Michelangelo Landgrave1 and Nicholas Weller1

Abstract

Research suggests that organizational structure can influence the ability of actors to discriminate. In this research note, we

examine whether the structure of state legislatures affects observed discrimination in correspondent audit studies. We find

that increased legislative professionalization is associated with reduced discrimination against racial minorities. By analyzing

thousands of emails collected in a prior study, we find that legislative professionalization is related to a higher likelihood that

staffers respond to email contacts and staffers are less likely to discriminate against racial minorities across multiple measures

of discrimination. Our findings emphasize the importance of substantively relevant heterogeneity in audit studies and identify

a potential mitigator of discrimination—legislative professionalism. Our results also highlight the importance of staffers in

representation and the legislative process.

Keywords

discrimination, staffers, constituency service, state legislatures