When we talk about legislative representation (or the lack thereof) of con- stituencies, Fenno (1978) advises that we should be cognizant of which constituencies legislators are or are not representing. Representation of group interests depends on whether a legislator expects a group to impose future repercussions for legislative behavior in opposition to the group’s preferences (Arnold, 1990; Fiorina, 1977). In general, these groups tend to be attentive publics with the resources to consistently communicate their interests and to support legislators through financial contributions (Miler, 2007). Constituents with greater levels of education, income, and occupational prestige tend to participate more often than those with lower socioeconomic status (Leighley and Vedlitz, 1999; Verba et al., 1993; Verba and Nie, 1972; Schlozman and Tierney, 1986). Participation by racial and ethnic minorities is greater in districts with minority representation (Bobo and Gilliam, 1990), when minorities have higher levels of trust and efficacy (Hajnal and Lee, 2011; Soss, 1999; Bobo and Gilliam, 1990) or when they are asked to participate (Philpot, Shaw and McGowen, 2009).
Furthermore, participation and accordingly representation are higher when the issue is salient to the group (Ansolabehere and Jones, 2010; Hutchings, 1998). This is particularly true when legislative behavior is easily observable. While leg- islators can pursue their true preferences in oversight hearings, floor speeches, and other less observable legislative behavior, it is in easily observable behaviors, like final roll call voting, that legislators strategically respond to salient constituent inter- ests that diverge from what legislators desire to do in office (Hutchings, McClerking and Charles, 2004; Hall, 1996; Fiorina, 1977). How strategic a legislator must be in
responding to particular constituency preferences depends on the electoral context. Fiorina (1974) classifies two distinctive representative types: maximizers and maintainers. The distinction between the two relates to how much each type of leg- islator is likely to be beholden to her reelection constituency (Fenno, 1978). Vote maximizers seek to enlarge their probability of reelection by voting almost exclu- sively with their reelection constituency. They do so because they are uncertain about who their loyal supporters will be, they are overly ambitious, or they have non-conflicting personal goals (Fiorina, 1974). On the latter, if legislators have per- sonal policy preferences that align with their homogenous district’s preferences, their personal preferences reflect those of their party, and they are influential members of the party with great prestige, then they are likely to behave as vote maximizers. This is true even if their goal is not to maximize their probability of reelection as a vote cast to maximize the probability of reelection is observationally equivalent to a vote cast in line with party and personal preferences for a legislator with non-conflicting personal goals.
Legislators representing heterogenous constituencies also behave as vote max- imizers. In heterogeneous districts, or in districts with conflicting opinions, any vote has the potential to alienate those in the reelection constituency, or those in a district who a legislator believes will vote for her (Fenno, 1978). This is particularly true when Democrats represent districts with racially conservative whites and racially liberal blacks. In these districts, electoral insecurity leads to less stable legislative support of black interests, especially on low profile roll call votes (Hutchings, McClerking and Charles, 2004). Notwithstanding, electoral insecurity is what makes legislators most responsive to the preferences of black collective action participants relative to their higher resource counterparts because legislators are apprehensive about the conse- quential electoral participation of a voting block with salient concerns.
Voting decisions are less complicated for legislators as constituency prefer- ences within a district converge, such as when districts are racially and ideologically
homogenous. In these districts, a legislator’s reelection concerns are less constrain- ing so long as she votes with the median voter in the district (Gerber and Lewis, 2004). At least this is the case for final passage votes, which are less susceptible to party pressures than procedural votes (Crespin, 2010). Indeed, maintainers engage in a mixed strategy of representing their reelection constituency on some votes and representing other interests that misalign with those of the reelection constituency on other votes (Fiorina, 1974). As legislators seek to cast votes that garner enough support from sub-constituencies to win reelection, even if only by a small margin, they can abandon their reelection constituency in efforts to secure other goals, like greater prestige, making good public policy, or having greater influence within their respective parties.
Electoral context is important when determining how legislators will respond to collective action by different groups. Some legislators are more sensitive to the salient demands of constituents than others, but as the theory below will demon- strate, even as legislators vary in the degree of pressure they encounter from their party, their constituents, and their own personal goals, the electoral context influ- ences the degree but not the direction of legislative bias in favor of lower resource groups (in this case, black participants) relative to higher resource groups (white collective action participants). All legislators are at least marginally more likely to respond to lower resource collective action participants relative to equal levels of col- lective action by higher resource participants because lower resource participants face greater participation costs relating to their lower socioeconomic statuses (Leighley and Vedlitz, 1999) or the stigmatization of certain issues by dominant communities (see, for instance Gilens, 2012; Strolovitch, 2005; Cohen, 1999) or a number of other factors.