Our State’s Never Had Better Friends

Abstract

We demonstrate that senators use office allowances to create positive constituent service and policy expert impressions among voters, but the effects depend on the representational expectations of constituents and the nature of dual representation. Whether a senator shares the same party and represents a densely populated state in part determines the effectiveness of constituent service activities and efforts to establish policy expertise. The representational challenge faced by senators is more complicated than those faced by House members and more nuanced than the existing literature suggests. We conclude by examining the different challenges senators and representatives face in building representational relationships.

Keywords

Senate franking travel congressional staff home styles dual representation office allowances constituent impressions

Introduction

Much of what we know about representation in the United States comes from studies of the House of Representatives, but the nature of representation in the Senate is starkly different.¹ Senators represent entire states, which in addition to having larger populations than most congressional districts, are often more heterogeneous on measures of race, income, and economic development. Binder, Malzman, and Sigelman (1998) find senators from less-populous states are more popular than senators from more populous states and Lee and Oppenheimer (1999) find that constituents are more likely to contact their senators and seek assistance from them in more lightly populated states. An oft-neglected difference affecting representation is the fact that each state receives two senators. Schiller (2000) argues that this dual representation has important consequences and rather than senators behaving identically, the system of dual representation provides incentives for senators to diverge in their legislative activities. We build on this line of work by exploring how the interaction between each of the senators in allocating their official office resources influences the perceptions of the constituents they represent. These interactions are critical because constituents do not evaluate each senator in isolation, so the representational choices of each senator are affected by whether their constituents view them as policy experts or constituent servants.

Using data from the Pooled Senate Election Study, we examine how constituents in each state view the activities of their senators and integrate that data with the representational choices that senators make. Each senator receives an official office allowance enabling them to fulfill their representational responsibilities. Our findings paint a picture of representation in the Senate that is more complex than what occurs in the House of Representatives. The critical point is that while senators have flexibility in deciding how to represent their constituents, state size and dual representation complicate these relationships and make certain representational choices more advantageous. Dual representation encourages cooperation among shared partisan delegations, particularly where constituent service activities are concerned in less densely populated states. Population density does not affect constituent impressions concerning a senator’s policy expertise, while serving in a split partisan delegation suggests the benefits of creating an independent legislative portfolio. In order to tell the complete story of Senate representation, the interaction between each pair of senators must be taken seriously.

Building Relationships with Constituencies

Richard Fenno (1978) argues that constituencies are central to reelection for senators and representatives. From constituencies, members assemble support by allocating personal and staff resources, presenting their “self” to others, and explaining Washington activities. The allocation of personal and staff resources involves decisions about how frequently members travel home, how members deploy congressional staffers, and how much franked mail to send. Presentation of self captures the interactions that members have with their constituents in various settings. The final component, explaining Washington activity, extends beyond communicating roll call votes to a broader discussion of how a member’s work benefits the district. Fenno terms these activities collectively as a member’s “home style,” and they are designed to build constituent trust.

Fenno suggests that members influence their electoral fate through their official actions. Specifically, members develop a personal vote, which Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina (1987, 9) describe “as a candidate’s electoral support attributed to her personal qualities, qualifications, activities, and record.” Members of Congress travel home, highlight legislative accomplishments, or bring federal dollars to the state so as to “control the images that constituents have of them” (47, emphasis added). The official activities of members and senators increase the probability that constituents can recall/recognize incumbents, report personal contacts with them, positively evaluate them, and offer an evaluation of the incumbent’s service to the district or state (166). This personal vote often brings electoral benefits (Alford and Brady 1993; Herrera and Yawn 1999).

The notion that senators and representatives have particular home styles is well accepted (Parker 1986; Hill and Hurley 2002; Miler 2007; Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina 1987). It is less clear that home styles matter. Much of the literature about use of official resources focuses on whether their use generates greater electoral security in the House. The evidence is mixed (Fenno 1978; Yiannakis 1981; Cover and Brumberg 1982; Parker 1980, 1986; Parker and Parker 1985; McAdams and Johannes 1988; Johannes and McAdams 1981; Cover 1985; Serra and Cover 1992). Like Parker and Goodman (2009), we focus not on electoral security, but on how the activities of senators directly affect constituent impressions.

Few studies examine Senate representational styles and allocation strategies (Bennett and DiLorenzo 1982; Parker 1985). Fenno (1982) describes how senators approach the question of the representational relationship over their careers, but does not systematically examine their use of official resources like the frank or travel home. He does touch on the question of population size and representation, but his conclusions are impressionistic. Lee and Oppenheimer (1999) find that population size affects how senators are perceived by constituents, but other than a series of interviews with senators, they do not explore whether a state’s size affects the representational choices senators make. Wendy Schiller (2000) examines representation within Senate delegations. Each House member represents a discrete geographic entity, but senators share the same geographic constituency. This creates opportunities and conflicts for senators as they attempt to build trust and win reelection. She finds that constituents do evaluate their senators differently, and this yields electoral benefits. We build on Lee and Oppenheimer and Schiller by examining how the allocation of official resources by senators, dual representation, and a state’s representational expectations as measured by state size produce positive and particular constituent impressions.

Hypotheses

Scholars have devoted little systematic attention to the practices of representation in the Senate. Fenno (1982, 1996) and others (Schiller 2000) provide some insights as to how senators make decisions about representing their constituents, but the impetus for hypotheses necessarily comes from the House of Representatives. While there are important structural differences between the two chambers, we can reasonably extrapolate from the patterns observed in one chamber to the other. Do the activities of senators affect constituent perceptions, and if so, how does dual representation and state size condition these impressions in ways different from the House? We utilize measures of constituent impressions of their senators as dependent variables to test this and hypothesize that the different activities senators undertake influence the number of constituent responses falling into each category. Some senators take pride in their relationships with their state and see themselves as staunch defenders of its interests in Washington. We offer three hypotheses for impressions regarding constituent service:

Hypothesis 1: Senators who spend more money on travel are more likely to be perceived as constituent servants.

Hypothesis 2: Senators who spend more money on franked mail are more likely to be perceived as constituent servants.

Hypothesis 3: Senators who have held more state offices are more likely to be seen as constituent servants.

Scholars have long noted the linkage between member travel and attention to constituents. In fact, travel back home is often described synonymously with district attention and constituent service in the literature (e.g., McAdams and Johannes 1985). Parker and Parker (1985) note that traveling back to the district is “a style that emphasizes personal attention to constituents,” while Glenn Parker writes that “when the amount of time a senator spends in his or her state increases significantly, there is reason to suspect that the emphasis on constituency affairs has been altered to promote the image that the incumbent senator is attentive to the interests of the state and its people” (1985, 1191). It is reasonable to conjecture that the outcome of this travel home is additional credit for attention to constituency service.

Franked mail should generate additional perceptions of attention to constituency service for two reasons. First, Cover and Brumberg (1982) document that recipients of franked mail have more positive impressions of their members of Congress than those who do not receive franked mail. Second, franked mail allows members to claim credit for accomplishments and to advertise services available through their offices. Yiannakis (1982) found that these activities accounted for 33 percent of the content in press releases and newsletters while Frisch (1998) noted that 59 percent of newsletters in 1998 mentioned distributive programs and earmarks. As a result, members’ communications are likely to generate positive constituent service impressions.

Staff back in the state or district work almost exclusively on casework and serving constituents. Staff titles listed in CQ’s Staff Directory confirms this: state staff members are often listed as field representatives or caseworkers, while Washington staff members usually have press or legislative duties. For example, all eleven of Senator Pete Domenici’s (R-NM) field representatives and caseworkers in 1989 worked in the state. In studying the attentiveness of House members to casework, Bond (1985) uses district staff as one measure among several and notes that “incumbents who list district staff and use the caseworker title probably place greater emphasis on district-based activities and casework” (337). We use the number of state offices as a measure of member attentiveness to district concerns and casework.

Our second set of hypotheses concerns constituent impressions of their senators as policy experts. Some senators are more deeply interested in the production of good policy, while others are more invested in retail politics (Fenno 1992, 1996). We develop two hypotheses concerning the number of mentions of a senator as a policy expert.

Hypothesis 4: Senators who spend more money on franking are more likely to be perceived as policy experts.

Hypothesis 5: Senators who spend more money on staff are more likely to be perceived as policy experts.

Yiannakis’s (1982) review of House member newsletters and press releases found that—far from avoiding issue positions and focusing on constituent service or advertising—57 percent of the content focused on position-taking on issues. As Lipinski’s (2001, 2004) more recent work with member newsletters demonstrates, members do communicate their positions on highly salient issues. Efforts by members to publicize their vote on the 1991 Gulf War and the 1993 Budget Reconciliation helped constituents to more accurately perceive their member’s position on these votes (2001, 2004). Members do not shy away from tackling even the most controversial issues in their newsletters, and the more they do not, the more likely they will be perceived as policy experts by constituents receiving their mail (but see Parker and Goodman 2009). The amount spent on staff should also be associated with increased attention to policy by a senator, and should also yield positive policy expert impressions among constituents.

Do constituents perceive their members as “one of us”? We develop the following hypotheses concerning the final category of home styles.

Hypothesis 6: The allocation of resources is not related to “one of us” impressions.

Hypothesis 7: Senators with roots in the state are more likely to be seen as “one of us.”

A “one of us” style is about accentuating a senator’s relationship to a state (Fenno 1978; Parker and Goodman 2009). It is difficult to allocate resources to create this type of relationship, so we do not expect that spending on staff, travel, or the frank will increase the likelihood of eliciting these comments from constituents. More likely, constituents will draw the connection themselves from their knowledge of the senator’s relationship with his state. As Johnston and Shafer (2006) argue, southern Democratic candidates with deeper connections to an area better understood local politics and, as a result, withstood the rising Republican tide in the 1970s and the 1980s. “One of us” is about biography and connection, which is difficult to change with official resources.

Finally, we test whether state size affects constituent comments about their senators as constituent servants. Lee and Oppenheimer (1999) and Hibbing and Alford (1990) find that constituent impressions of their senators as constituent servants and the willingness to contact a senator to seek help with a problem are related to state size. As one small-state senator reports, “You have more opportunity to develop personal, not media relations [in a small-population state]” (Lee and Oppenheimer 1999, 68). The personal touch is demanded in smaller states, and meeting with constituents often generates constituent service work. In addition to state size, we believe that population density also conditions the representational relationship. More densely populated areas have more efficient media markets making it easier to communicate with constituents. This has two effects. First, it is less necessary in densely populated states to rely extensively on personal contacts to establish relationships. Second, relying on the media to communicate with constituents affects the type of constituent perceptions generated. Media outlets are more apt to cover policy rather than constituent service activities; hence a media-heavy strategy of reputation building will lead to more policy-centered comments from constituents. Schiller’s (2000) content analysis provides some support: her analysis of the local newspaper coverage of eight senators between 1988 and 1992 shows no more than 30 percent of stories focused on non–issue-related content (with an average coverage of non–issue-related coverage over the six-year period at 18 percent). Population density and state size together affect the styles senators chose to adopt and how those styles are communicated to constituents.

Hypothesis 8: Senators representing smaller states and less densely populated states are more likely to receive positive constituent service comments.

Our hypotheses point to a model of Senate representation where each senator allocates his official resources in particular ways in order to develop specific impressions among constituents much like House members do. Schiller (2000) demonstrated that dual representation influenced senators’ legislative portfolios, and Schaffner, Schiller, and Sellers (2003) found evidence that senators’ job approval ratings were affected by the other senator in state and legislative activities and media events were also influenced by the other senator. As a result, representation in the Senate is much more complicated than it is in the House because each senator’s activities are evaluated in the context of the other senator from the state. Furthermore, unified versus split delegations, state size, and population density all affect how constituents evaluate their senators.² Thus, a simple analysis treating each senator as independent provides an incomplete investigation of representational practices in the Senate. As a result, the story of representation in the U.S. Senate is one where constituents evaluate the movements of both members of the delegation who are each seeking attention and constituents’ responses are exacerbated by whether the senators are working together as partisan partners or competing as partisan rivals.

Data: Dependent Variables

To determine if constituents perceive the home styles that senators communicate, we use the like and dislike questions employed by the Pooled Senate Election Study in 1988, 1990, and 1992. The NES Senate Election Study is perhaps the only study available allowing full examination of our core question. It provides two immediate advantages. Unlike most national surveys, including the biennial American National Election Study, the sampling unit is each state. Between fifty and seventy respondents were surveyed in each of the studies’ three years, allowing us to develop a more meaningful view of how senators are perceived by their constituents. Second, the study asks respondents about both senators serving the state (excepting retiring senators). To examine how respondents perceive their senators collectively, we “stacked” the NES Senate Study. We simply duplicated the respondents in the study, pairing each set of the duplicated respondents with one of the state’s senators and the appropriate set of responses associated with that senator.

Respondents were allowed ten responses maximum (five likes and five dislikes). An advantage score is created by subtracting the total number of dislikes from the total number of likes, indicating how much a respondent likes or dislikes each of their senators. If a respondent answered “Don’t Know” or “No” to the screening question asking if there was anything the respondent liked or disliked about each senator, then we coded the response as neutral. If an individual volunteered either one like or dislike but no others, we coded the other four response opportunities as neutral (0).

Following Parker and Goodman (2009), we assign each response to one of four discrete categories serving as our Senate home style dependent variables: Constituent Servant, Policy Expert, “One of Us,” and Miscellaneous. Responses relating to a senator’s pork barrel prowess or assisting constituents with their problems are coded as Constituent Service. A mention of a senator’s issue stance is classified as Policy Expert. Personal characteristics, group connections, or broadly construed links to the state fell into the “One of Us” category. Remaining responses are designated as Miscellaneous. Summarizing, our measures of Senate representational style range from +5 to −5 where positive scores indicate a positive impression of the senator in that particular area and negative scores represent a negative impression among constituents. We restrict our analysis to Constituent Service, Policy Expert, and “One of Us” and find that 60 percent of respondents offer at least one positive or negative comment about their senators on the three measures of home style.³ Despite the advantages of additional media attention and increased visibility of the office, the ability of senators to form impressions among their constituents is similar to House members (Parker and Goodman 2009).

Table 1 provides a first look at whether respondents perceive their senators as having particular home styles. There is wide variance in the types of impressions senators form in the minds of constituents. Only 10 percent of respondents either positively or negatively view either of their senators as a constituent servant. One or both of their state’s delegation is viewed as a policy expert by 20 percent, and 42 percent see their senators as “one of us.” How does this compare to House members? Parker and Goodman (2009) find that between 1996 and 2000, 17 percent of respondents saw their House member as a constituent servant, 27 percent as a policy expert, and 43 percent as “one of us.”⁴ The evidence collectively suggests that senators and members of the House are viewed similarly by their constituents with the exception of constituent service. Respondents are more likely to view their House member—either positively or negatively—as a constituent servant.

Table 1.

Constituent Impressions of their Senators.

Relative Likes/Dislikes	Cases (N)	Percentage of Total
A. Senator as constituent servant
−2	13	0%
−1	205	1%
0	15,186	90%
1	1,355	8%
2	130	1%
3	6	0%
Total	16,895	100%
B. Senator as policy expert
−4	1	0%
−3	20	0%
−2	96	1%
−1	733	4%
0	13,496	80%
1	2,118	13%
2	367	2%
3	56	0%
4	8	0%
5	0	0%
Total	16,895	100%
C. Senator as “One of Us”
−4	7	0%
−3	38	0%
−2	234	1%
−1	1,055	6%
0	11,439	68%
1	2,849	17%
2	951	6%
3	251	1%
4	60	0%
5	11	0%
Total	16,895	100%

Another approach is to compare the constituent reputations of senators. We summed each senator’s advantage scores across our three home style categories (“one of us,” constituent servant, and policy expert) for all the respondents in the senator’s state. The raw totals are not useful; the number of respondents varies from year to year and state to state. To make them comparable, we create percentage scores in each category and divide by the number of respondents. One way to think of this score is, a 100 percent would represent 1 positive comment from every respondent in that reputation area. We should note that there is a tendency for constituents to make more “one of us” statements about their senators as opposed to policy expert or constituent servant. The ease by which general impressions can be recalled (e.g., he’s a good person) as opposed to more specific ones (e.g., she’s brought money back to the state) is likely why.

Table 2 lists senators scoring in the top three (“In Touch”) and the bottom three in each category (“Out of Touch”). The results confirm the existence of Senate home styles and the general impressions scholars and the media have of particular senators. It also suggests a high degree of face validity. Senator Nancy Kassebaum (R-KS) is the daughter of popular former Kansas governor Alf Landon. When she announced her retirement, a profile called her a “gentle lady” who “exhibits a straightforward simplicity of style that bespeaks dignity and restraint” (Collogan 1996). Senator David Boren (D-OK) was “a universally revered figure” in Oklahoma (Belier 1994). It is no surprise that both were considered “one of us” by their constituents. Senator Al Gore’s (D-TN) prominence as “one of us” may surprise, but recall that his father was a long serving senator from the state, as well as the many characterizations of Gore as a local southern boy with a populist message when he first ran for president in 1988.

Table 2.

Summary advantage score for each senator reported in parentheses.

In Touch
“One of Us”		Constituent Servant		Policy Expert
Nancy Kassebaum (R-KS)	80% (159)	Robert Byrd (D-WV)	31% (64)	Claiborne Pell (D-RI)	52% (87)
Al Gore (D-TN)	53% (108)	Pete Domenici (R-NM)	24% (43)	John Chafee (R-RI)	38% (64)
David Boren (D-OK)	51% (105)	Strom Thurmond (R-SC)	21% (39)	William Roth (R-DE)	26% (50)
Out of Touch
Not “One of Us”		Not a Constituent Servant		Not a Policy Expert
Steve Symms (R-ID)	−7% (–11)	Jesse Helms (R-NC)	0% (–1)	Don Riegle (D-MI)	−8% (–16)
Quentin Burdick (R-ND)	−5% (–9)	Alan Cranston (D-CA)	−1% (–1)	Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ)	−2% (–13)
Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ)	−1% (–3)	Dan Quayle (R-IN)	−1% (0)	William Armstrong (R-CO)	−5% (–3)

Number of respondents reported in parentheses.

The constituent servant senators, Strom Thurmond (R-SC), Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), and Pete Domenici (R-NM), also had widely touted constituent service operations and crack staffs. Senator Byrd reputedly called home to West Virginia every night, calling constituents to wish them a happy birthday or congratulate them on a wedding anniversary. Senator Domenici’s strong constituent service operation was documented both by Fenno (1991) and Taggart and Durant (1983). In the policy expertise category, we also see no surprises. All three senators were quite senior and had undoubtedly involved themselves extensively in legislative affairs. Two senators, Claiborne Pell (R-RI) and William Roth (R-DE), had their names associated with prominent legislation (Pell grants and the Kemp-Roth Tax plan), while Senator John Chafee (R-RI) had served as governor and Secretary of the Navy before joining the Senate in 1976. His New York Times obituary notes that his “major domestic efforts involved the environment and health policy, and he was responsible for a vast expansion of Medicare” (Clymer 1999).

The bottom part of Table 2 lists senators with net negative constituent impressions in each home style category. Again, there are few surprises. Senators Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), and Donald Riegle (D-MI) were undoubtedly hurt by their involvement in the “Keating Five” scandal, which involved undue pressure put on federal regulators at the behest of Charles Keating and his Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. Senator Dan Quayle (R-IN) appears in the data for 1988 only, but the negative publicity associated with his vice presidential nomination and the long fall campaign likely rubbed off on Hoosiers. Senator Steve Symms (R-ID) received negative media attention in 1988 for falsely alleging that Kitty Dukakis had burned the American flag while protesting Vietnam in the 1960s (Lewis 1988). Finally, Senator William Armstrong (R-CO) retired from office in 1990 and Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) appeared in the news frequently as a foreign policy critic and obstructionist. Both were also ideologically extreme senators, and hence, may have been hurt among some of their constituents as a result.

Schiller (2000) finds that senators compete with each other to build unique constituencies, particularly when representing the same party. Do we see similar patterns in our measures of home style? Table 3 partially answers this question. We pulled out six Senate delegations from these data, three sharing the same partisan affiliation and three not. A review of the table confirms that constituents do develop clear and distinct impressions of their senators. Lee and Oppenheimer note that Senators Alphonse D’Amato and Daniel Patrick Moynihan had very different reputations: Moynihan as concerned with “national” issues and D’Amato as a “ward heeler.” We see that impression clearly in the home style measures. Moynihan’s 21 percent rating on the policy expert measure is nearly double that of D’Amato’s, while D’Amato receives a 13 percent rating as a constituent servant and Moynihan only 1 percent. Although Senators Rockefeller and Byrd perform better than D’Amato as constituent servants, it is Byrd and not Rockefeller that is seen by West Virginians as the pork barrel spender/problem solver. Rockefeller does better than Byrd by 9 percentage points as a policy expert. Constituents view their senators through different reputational lenses, and it is likely those lenses are shaped purposefully by the activities of senators in the public sphere.

Table 3.

The Home Style Reputations of Select State Delegations.

Split State Delegation		“One of us”	Constituent Servant	Policy Expert	(n)
Strom Thurmond (R)	South Carolina	28%	21%	16%	(190)
Fritz Hollings (D)	South Carolina	13%	6%	6%	(190)
William Roth (R)	Delaware	27%	11%	26%	(192)
Joe Biden (D)	Delaware	18%	11%	18%	(192)
Alphonse D’Amato (R)	New York	4%	13%	11%	(141)
Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D)	New York	31%	1%	21%	(143)
Unified State Delegation
Nancy Kassebaum (R) Bob Dole (R)	Kansas	80%	30%	11%	(200)
Nancy Kassebaum (R) Bob Dole (R)	Kansas	42%	17%	20%	(201)
Robert Byrd (D)	West Virginia	34%	30%	11%	(210)
Jay Rockefeller (D)	West Virginia	27%	17%	20%	(211)
Malcolm Wallop (R)	Wyoming	2%	3%	8%	(203)
Alan Simpson (R)	Wyoming	36%	8%	11%	(198)

Independent Variables

To each respondent of the NES Senate Study, we added state- and member-level data. We collected information on each senator’s representational allowance from the 97th through the 102nd Congresses from Reports of the Secretary of the Senate. Senators receive three representational accounts for franking, office expenditures, and travel. These funds are generally fungible, meaning senators can—with some exceptions concerning mass mail—use these accounts interchangeably for their travel, franking, and staffing needs. The three key independent variables drawn from these reports include Franking, Senator Travel to the State, and Staff Expenditures. As each senator’s allowances depend on a complex formula that takes into account the number of eligible voters in the state, we divide the raw dollar totals spent on each activity by the state’s population.⁵ All dollar amounts were additionally converted into 1992 dollars to account for inflation. In the ensuing analysis, the franking, travel, and staff dollars per constituent represent the amounts the senator spent over the previous congress. We also constructed variables measuring spending over the previous two and three congresses, and we find that the results are largely unchanged.⁶

One way to reflect a senator’s attention to constituent service is the percentage of district staff or number of offices in the state (Fenno 1978; Fiorina 1989; Schiff and Smith 1983; Bond 1985; Parker and Goodman 2009). To measure a senator’s attention to constituent service, we counted the number of state offices listed in CQ’s Congressional Staff Directories. This measure provides an approximation of the senator’s staffing resources devoted to constituent service.

We measure a senator’s ties to the state by calculating how long they lived there. This information was gleaned from the Almanac of American Politics, the Congressional Biographical Directory, and newspaper stories about the senator during their first campaign.

We group the other explanatory variables conceptually and operationalize them as follows.

Policy activity

Legislative activity is one way members of Congress can generate positive benefits (see Box-Steffensmeier and Grant 1999; Box-Steffensmeier et al. 2003; Sinclair 1990). Bills is the total number of bills the senator sponsored in each Congress, according to the Congressional Bills Project. More bill sponsorship should be associated with more policy expert related comments from a senator’s constituents.

State geography

State size certainly affects the closeness and type of representational relationship constituents enjoy with their senators (Lee and Oppenheimer 1999), and State Population is our measure of this. We also include other measures of size that can affect the constituent relationship. The larger the state, the more difficult it is to get around efficiently. State Size is measured in square miles. Population density helps offset the challenges of large states allowing senators to reach constituents more efficiently through travel and media markets. Finally, Distance from DC is the mileage between Washington, D.C., and the state’s capital. Senators representing states farther away from Washington may find it harder to stay in close touch with constituents. Furthermore, senators representing distant states receive additional travel funds. This variable controls for both effects on a senator’s propensity to travel home.

Institutional position

John Hibbing (1993) reports the involvement in legislative activities increases over a House member’s career. Senators with more seniority and leadership positions in the chamber should also attract more positive attention from constituents concerning their policy expertise (but see Sinclair 1990) while producing more legislation. We include the number of terms served (Seniority) to capture the relationship between seniority and constituent policy expertise likes.

Senator characteristics

More ideologically extreme House members are more likely to take positions on national issues in franked mail (Yiannakis 1982) and receive negative constituent attention (Parker and Goodman 2009). We expect ideologically extreme senators also to receive more policy expert mentions. Barbara Sinclair reports that constituents view their senators more favorably when they receive national media attention (1990). National Media Mentions represents the total number of articles mentioning the Senator appearing in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal over the past two years.⁷ More media attention should result in more positive impressions of senators overall, but constituents should be especially prone to view their senators as policy experts if they appear frequently in national news outlets. Vote Share represents the vote percentage received by the senator in the last election.

We also add a dummy variable, Reelection, indicating if the senator is running for reelection, and the Elected Office Index, which ranges from 0 to 2. Senators not serving in elected office prior to becoming a senator receive a 0, if they have served in at least one elected office they are scored a 1, if that elected office had a statewide constituency, they receive a 2. Both variables should be associated with more positive constituent impressions of their senator generally.

Senate delegation

To control for delegation effects on the construction of representational styles, we adopt three strategies. First, we include the dummy variable Unified Delegation that is scored 1 if both senators hail from the same party. Second, we control for the allocation decisions and representational activities of the other senator in the delegation with a series of interactions between the unified delegation variable and variables representing these activities (see Schaffner, Schiller, and Sellers 2003). Third, we include the comments respondents make about the other senator and interact that term with the unified delegation dummy. We expect that senators sharing the same party affiliation in a given state will face increased pressure to develop a distinct representational face: All things being equal, if one senator in the delegation is developing a constituent service reputation, then her same-party colleague will be more likely to emphasize policy or one-of-us connections (see Schiller 2000).

Characteristics of respondents

We include two characteristics of respondents that likely affect their ability to report likes/dislikes about their senators. Individuals paying more attention to politics are more knowledgeable about their senators and representatives and are more likely to express a specific like or dislike about their senator. Media Attention is a 14-point scale measuring a respondent’s self-reported reading of the newspaper and watching of televised news programs. A respondent’s ideological proximity to her senator can also affect her impressions. Ideological Distance is the absolute distance between the respondent’s self-placement on the standard 7-point NES ideology scale and her placement of each senator on that same scale. Finally, we include dummy variables for the 101st and 102nd Congresses to capture any Congress-specific effects.

Findings

Our dependent variables are continuous, so we used ordinary least squares (OLS) regression as our method of estimation with robust standard errors to correct for heteroscedasticity. Before discussing the effects of dual representation which are at the heart of the analysis, we should discuss the other findings relevant to our hypotheses. As expected, travel and franking expenditures do not affect constituent impressions of their senator as “one of us.” Neither do personal connections: the Years in State coefficient is statistically insignificant in the “one of us,” policy expert, and constituent servant models. Other control variables, including respondent attention to the news, respondent ideological proximity to their senator, distance from Washington, seniority, reelection, and previous margin of victory behave as expected.

The results appearing in Table 4 support the notion that senators can—through their allocation of office resources and other activities—craft particular reputations among their constituents.⁸ The activities of the Senate delegation, collectively, complicate how a senator is viewed by constituents. This is especially true concerning how members are perceived as constituent servants and policy experts. Several of the interaction terms are significant in the constituent service and policy expert models, as are some of the individual variables measuring the activities of each senator. Direct effects, however, are difficult to discern from Table 4, especially as there are important contextual effects on impressions that need to be considered.

Table 4.

The Allocation of Resources and Home Styles in the Senate.

Variable	“One of Us”	Constituent Servant	Policy Expert
Predicting Number of	Relative (Likes/Dislikes)	Relative (Likes/Dislikes)	Relative (Likes/Dislikes)
S1 Party	.0474* (0.0225)	−.0078 (0.0093)	.0043 (0.0159)
Unified Delegation	.0593 (0.0758)	.0276 (0.0296)	−.0675 (0.0551)
S1 Travel	1.1074 (0.8490)	−1.0375** (0.3909)	−.6676 (0.5951)
S1 Frank	−.0726 (0.0488)	−.0200 (0.0189)	.0484 (0.0345)
S1 Staff	.1828* (0.0749)	.0291 (0.0368)	.1596** (0.0554)
S2 Travel	.5150 (1.1670)	.9572 (0.5577)	−.3317 (0.8709)
S2 Frank	−.0252 (0.0898)	−.0463 (0.0256)	−.0485 (0.0543)
S2 Staff	−.1761* (0.0752)	−.0075 (0.0373)	−.1334* (0.0552)
S2 Travel * Unified	−1.9286 (1.4999)	−2.4436*** (0.7613)	−1.5632 (1.1369)
S2 Frank * Unified	.0094 (0.1038)	−.0160 (0.0329)	.0251 (0.0632)
S2 Staff * Unified	−.0166 (0.0336)	.0397** (0.0153)	.0422 (0.0241)
S1 State Offices	−.0041 (0.0085)	.0048 (0.0036)	.0143* (0.0061)
S2 State Offices	.0403*** (0.0106)	−.0004 (0.0045)	−.0048 (0.0074)
S2 Offices * Unified	−.0316** (0.0116)	−.0083 (0.0049)	−.0103 (0.0082)
S1 Bills	.0014* (0.0001)	.0004 (0.0003)	−.0002 (0.0004)
S2 Bills	−.0017* (0.0007)	.0001 (0.0003)	−.0010* (0.0005)
S2 Bills*Unified	.0023* (0.0010)	−.0001 (0.0004)	.0001 (0.0007)
S1 Nat’l Media Mentions	.0003* (0.0001)	−.0001*** (0.0000)	−.0001 (0.0001)
(100s of stories)
S2 Nat’l Media Mentions	.0000 (0.0002)	−.0001 (0.0001)	.0002 (0.0001)
S2 Media * Unified	.0000 (0.0002)	.0001 (0.0001)	−.0001 (0.0002)
S1 Seniority	−.0061** (0.0019)	.0033*** (0.0010)	.0041** (0.0013)
S2 Seniority	.0029 (0.0022)	−.0014 (0.0001)	−.0018 (0.0017)
S2 Seniority * Unified	.0018 (0.0032)	−.0009 (0.0015)	.0019 (0.0024)
S2 Comments	.0285 (0.0196)	.0971*** (0.0231)	.0617*** (0.0189)
S2 Comments * Unified	.1432*** (0.0262)	.0056 (0.0313)	.1485*** (0.0271)
Years in state	−.0008 (0.0001)	.0001 (0.0003)	−.0002 (0.0006)
Elected Office Index	.0121 (0.0160)	.0176** (0.0062)	.0083 (0.0107)
Reelection	−.0118 (0.0217)	.0085 (0.0093)	.0953*** (0.0157)
Previous Vote Share	.5647*** (0.0984)	.0775* (0.0402)	.0423 (0.0733)
Ideologically Extreme	−.0534 (0.0314)	−.0003 (0.0121)	.0061 (0.0236)
Ideological Distance	−.1280*** (0.0067)	−.0271*** (0.0029)	−.0801*** (0.0048)
News Exposure	.0122*** (0.0023)	.0042*** (0.0009)	.0062*** (0.0016)
State Population	−.0001 (0.0003)	−.0002 (0.0001)	−.0002 (0.0002)
Population Density	−.0000 (0.0001)	−.0001* (0.0000)	.0002** (0.0001)
State Size	−.0019 (0.0128)	.0169* (0.0072)	.0035 (0.0099)
Distance from DC	−.0328* (0.0164)	−.0102 (0.0075)	−.0107 (0.0119)
1990 Dummy	.0812*** (0.0220)	.0080 (0.0094)	.0037 (0.0164)
1992 Dummy	.0575* (0.0256)	.0330** (0.0107)	.0104 (0.0176)
Constant	−.1242 (0.0969)	−.0314 (0.0388)	.1079 (0.0698)
	n = 9436	n = 9436	n = 9436
	R² =.078	R² = .044	R² = .075
	F = 19.31***	F = 7.94***	F = 15.17***

Note: Cell entries are ordinary least squares coefficients. Robust standard errors are in parentheses.

***

p ≤ .001; **p ≤ .01; *p ≤ .05.

To understand the complicated relationship between constituent impressions, state context, and dual representation, we first jointly tested the significance of the interactions in the models. The interactions between unified delegation, the other senator’s seniority, staff expenditures, and positive constituent servant comments made by the respondent in the constituent service comment model are each jointly significant at p <.05 or better. In the policy expert comment model, the interactions between unified delegation, the other senator’s seniority, number of bills sponsored, number of state offices, and positive policy expert comments by the respondent are also jointly significant at p <.05 or better. The collective activities of a Senate delegation do affect constituent impression—particularly policy-oriented impressions—but how they do so varies depending on the type of activity, the state’s population density, and if the delegation is politically unified.

Knowing that the interactions are jointly significant tells us that constituents’ views of a senator depend on that senator’s activities relative to the activities of the other senator representing the state. To tease out the substantive effects of state size, population density, the activities of Senate delegations, and their relative impact on constituent impressions requires examining the different resource strategies senators pursue and the different representational contexts they face. We begin this analysis by positing a junior senator with no roots in the state, not up for reelection, and who is ideologically similar to the study respondent. We then vary state size, population density, our measures of senator home styles, whether the senator served in a split or unified delegation, and the resource allocation strategies of each senator while setting the other variables to their means. Estimates of the mean effect of these activities on constituent impressions, as well as the confidence levels surrounding the estimates, were generated using Clarify (Tomz, Wittenberg, and King 2001). The effects of each scenario on the mean number of constituent servant comments appear in Table 5. The effects on policy expert comments appear in Table 6.

Table 5.

Delegation and Population Effects on Constituent Service Impressions.

Constituent Service Comments	Mean	Lower CL	Upper CL
The effect of delegation
Unified party delegation, both senators active constituent servants	0.154	0.098	0.214
Split party delegation, both senators active constituent servants	0.141	0.08	0.202
Unified party delegation, senior senator more constituent service	0.058	−0.007	0.123
Split party delegation, senior senator more constituent service	0.08	0.018	0.14
Unified party delegation, senior senator less constituent service	0.063	−0.117	0.238
Split party delegation, senior senator less constituent service	0.058	−0.15	0.244
The effect of population and population density
Unified party delegations
Ohio
Both senators active constituent service	0.194	0.127	0.259
Senior senator more active constituent service	0.114	−0.068	0.304
Junior senator more active constituent service	0.034	−0.16	0.213
Wyoming
Both senators active constituent service	0.219	0.157	0.278
Senior senator more active constituent service	0.148	−0.029	0.337
Junior senator more active constituent service	0.068	−0.126	0.251
Split party delegation
New York
Both senators active constituent service	0.104	0.032	0.174
Senior senator more active constituent service	0.025	−0.158	0.212
Junior senator more active constituent service	0.027	−0.163	0.206
South Dakota
Both senators active constituent service	0.154	0.092	0.215
Senior senator more active constituent service	0.074	−0.11	0.268
Junior senator more active constituent service	0.076	−0.099	0.251

Table 6.

Delegation and Population Effects on Policy Expert Impressions.

Policy Expert Comments	Mean	Lower CL	Upper CL
The effect of delegation
Unified party delegation, both senators active legislators	0.416	0.318	0.514
Split party delegation, both senators active legislators	0.188	0.084	0.291
Unified party delegation, senior senator more active legislatively	0.049	−0.041	0.138
Split party delegation, senior senator more active legislatively	0.131	0.033	0.231
Unified party delegation, senior senator less active legislatively	0.242	0.156	0.334
Split party delegation, senior senator less active legislatively	0.167	0.065	0.27
The effect of population and population density
Unified party delegations
Ohio
Both senators active legislatively	0.484	0.366	0.603
Senior senator more active legislatively	0.329	0.217	0.434
Junior senator more active legislatively	0.311	0.21	0.413
Wyoming
Both senators active legislatively	0.459	0.352	0.561
Senior senator more active legislatively	0.304	0.198	0.409
Junior senator more active legislatively	0.285	0.196	0.372
Split party delegation
New York
Both senators active legislatively	0.286	0.165	0.403
Senior senator more active legislatively	0.229	0.118	0.34
Junior senator more active legislatively	0.265	0.149	0.382
South Dakota
Both senators active legislatively	0.254	0.144	0.356
Senior senator more active legislatively	0.197	0.094	0.304
Junior senator more active legislatively	0.233	0.132	0.334

The top third of Table 5 shows how a delegation’s partisanship and activities affect constituent service impressions in a hypothetical state where population, size, and density are set at mean values. Active constituent service is defined as 1 standard deviation above the mean in state offices and staff expenditures. Regardless of the activity level, whether a senator serves in a split or unified delegation has no effect on her perception as a constituent servant by constituents. If both senators engage in high levels of constituent outreach, the efforts of the senior senator seem to rub off on constituent impressions of the junior senator. If either senator is doing more constituent service and the other less, the junior senator suffers with fewer constituent service comments. This suggests that junior senators are rewarded by constituents for working with their senior colleague to address constituent service concerns whether they share their colleagues’ party or not.

Varying state size and population adds an important dimension to the representational equation. Constituents still see the junior senator as a constituent servant when both senators allocate more resources to staff and state offices. But the rewards reaped by the junior senator are greater when the delegation shares the same party affiliation. In large and densely populated Ohio, respondents make 0.19 constituent service comments about the junior senator when both senators engage in more constituent service activities. In geographically large but sparsely populated Wyoming, these activities generate 0.22 comments for the junior senator. When both senators choose to be active constituent servants and share the same party, constituents view their work particularly positively, regardless of the geographic context.

Junior senators in split party delegations, however, are less able to receive positive attention for constituent service work even when they cooperate. This relationship is complicated further by the state’s population density. Working together still yields benefits: junior senators representing New York and South Dakota receive more positive constituent service comments when they have more state offices and spend more on staff. But the number of comments is substantively fewer than if the junior senators in New York and South Dakota delegation shared their senior colleague’s party affiliation: only 0.10 comments for the junior senator in the split New York delegation and only 0.15 comments for the junior senator from South Dakota. Attention to constituent service by senators is rewarded by constituents, but the effect is magnified when both senators give their attention to constituent service work, serve in a unified delegation, and represent a small state.

In Table 6, we again vary delegation, state size, population density, and the activity levels of the Senate delegation—but now the dependent variable is the policy expert impressions of constituents. We define high legislative activity as 1 standard deviation above the mean in bill sponsorship and staff expenditures. As we saw for constituent servant impressions, a delegation’s partisanship and activity levels affect whether constituents view senators as policy experts. The benefits of serving in a unified delegation are again apparent when both senators are active legislators: the junior senator receives 0.416 positive policy expert comments when sharing his colleague’s party affiliation but only 0.188 when he does not. State size does not appear to alter this effect. In Ohio, a legislatively active senator in a unified delegation with a similarly active colleague receives 0.48 positive policy expert comments. In Wyoming under the same set of conditions, the number is virtually unchanged: 0.46.

In a split delegation, however, the junior senator receives fewer rewards for maintaining similar levels of legislative intensity. Again, state size appears to have little effect on the dynamic: a junior senator from New York whose senior colleague shares his legislative enthusiasm but not his party will receive only 0.29 policy expert comments. In South Dakota, the number is essentially identical: 0.25. In nearly every instance—regardless of whether they are active legislators—the junior senator is perceived more positively as a policy expert when sharing their colleague’s party affiliation.

Constituent views of a junior senators’ policy work is little affected by state size or population density. Although it appears difficult for junior senators to create distinct constituent service reputations even when they are more active than their senior colleagues, constituents can distinguish more easily the policy work of junior senators in split delegations. Junior senators who are more active than their colleague in split delegation receive 0.04 more comments than they would if their senior colleague were more active legislatively. In unified Senate delegations, junior senators find it difficult to establish a constituent service reputation: They receive the same number of constituent service comments even when they emphasize constituent service activities more than their senior colleague (see Table 6). This difference suggests some of the larger challenges senators face in establishing relationships with constituents, and how local expectations drive the representational choices as much as a senator’s own individual talents, proclivities, and experiences.

Discussion

Our most important finding is that senators, much like their House counterparts, can develop home style impressions among their constituents through their activities. We uncover evidence that across a series of Congresses, constituents perceive their senators as having distinctive home styles, and that the work of senators does generate generally positive impressions among constituents. Our findings do, however, point to the limitations of using office allowances and some differences in the representational challenges facing House members and senators.

House members walk the representational stage alone in their own districts, while senators share it. As Wendy Schiller (2000) notes, this creates representational constraints, particularly for junior senators: pushing into a representational area already staked out by a senior member is costly and unlikely to reap much reward for the junior senator. This creates an incentive, she writes, for members in unified delegations, to pursue distinctive legislative portfolios and reputations. As much as they are partisan partners, they are reputational rivals. Senators must be far more strategic in creating and crafting their reputation among constituents than House members.

Our results amend Schiller’s account. It pays for senators who share the same party label to cooperate and not compete on constituent service activities, and this cooperation is particularly beneficial for more junior members. Doing good constituent service work requires a large investment up front and takes time to pay off—and there is an added cost to be borne by the junior senator when the more senior partisan partner does not have such a reputation. Legislative activity—as measured by the number of bills sponsored and money devoted to staff resources—is also rewarded by constituents when both members appear to be particularly active. Working together—even if on separate issues—appears to bear fruit for reputations of senators legislatively.

Crafting a distinctive and positive reputation in a split delegation poses different challenges. Although partisan differences highlight policy disagreements, state representational expectations as measured by state population density and size complicate matters. On the policy side, the activity of the other senator in a split delegation matters less in the creation of constituent impressions regardless of a state’s size. A junior senator is rewarded positively for their legislative activities regardless of whether their colleague sponsors bills or spends on staff. Although they do not receive the number of positive comments as senators sharing the same party affiliation, they are able to go their own legislative way without incurring any harsh penalties.

Attention to constituent needs is a different matter entirely. The number of constituents a senator represents does appear to affect how senators are perceived, but the relationship of size to constituent impressions is more complicated than detailed by Lee and Oppenheimer (1999). Geographically, a state’s size alone does not hurt or help senators in forming constituent impressions. Serving more constituents does not directly affect a senator’s home style reputation.

Population Density predicts a senator’s perceived roles among constituents better than population or state size, but the effects vary. Senators representing more densely populated states are less likely to receive positive notice as constituent servants. Large states make developing the personal connections required of a constituent service reputation difficult at best. The wrinkle of dual representation adds another dimension. Tables 5 and 6 reveal how state expectations play a crucial role in constituent views of partisan rivals. When senators share a party and are legislatively active, constituents perceive this activity positively regardless of state size. However, constituents notice the constituent work of a junior senator more in a split delegation when both senators are doing that work in a smaller, less densely populated state. This may push senators in densely populated states to focus more on a specific policy to get noticed, particularly if they are part of a split delegation. More densely populated states are also more likely to contain state media organizations which more efficiently and effectively cover the state’s terrain. These factors point to junior senators from more urban states behaving differently from their colleagues representing more rural states. Put differently, senators from more rural and less populated states can more easily act like their House colleagues and develop reputations for constituent service, while senators representing more densely populated states have more barriers to overcome for that reputation to receive positive notice. This problem is magnified when the senators represent different parties.

Conclusion

The representational experience is a complex challenge for House members and senators. It consists of understanding the district or state’s needs as well as an awareness of one’s own strength and weaknesses. Representation is about fit—fit with the district or the state, and fit with oneself. As Schiller notes, senators in states of all sizes compete for media attention, and develop “broad reputations, based on party affiliation, ideology, legislative specialization, and governing style, in order to create a favorable impression among voters” (2000, 110). Part of this process is making choices about how to allocate scarce time and office resources.

Is the reputational experience different for senators and representatives? At a fundamental level, no. It is still a decision of how to allocate time, talent, and energy at home and in Washington. But a key feature of the Senate is sharing the representational stage in states that vary widely in population and not enjoying the representational monopoly of a congressional district. This fundamental difference between the two chambers affects how senators represent their constituents and allocate office allowances. The rewards of establishing a reputation for constituent service for House members is clear (Parker and Goodman 2009), but cultivating such a reputation as senator has risks—particularly in a heavily and densely populated state like New York. It is simply easier to develop the close connection with constituents in rural states with fewer people where there is an expectation of such a reputation.

Establishing a constituent servant reputation in the Senate is possible, but doing good constituent service work may not be enough even in a small, rural state. As North Dakota Senator Mark Andrews discovered, reproducing House work in the Senate hurt his reelection chances (Fenno 1992). Senators are not House members—they are expected to do more and represent differently. Senators associated with national issues are rewarded by constituents (Sinclair 1990). If becoming a policy expert in the House does not yield many rewards, it does yield positive results for senators. More staff and more state offices yield more policy-related comments from constituents. It also seems that constituent impressions in this area are easier to change.

Crafting a constituent service reputation may also not represent the best bang for the office resource buck, especially in split delegations or in unified delegations where the senior member is not particularly engaged in constituent service. The constituent service work of senators is particularly affected by state expectations and the other senator’s behavior, making it harder for senators to craft independent reputations in this area if the expectation of such service does not already exist. Although New Yorkers knew that Senator D’Amato was the ward heeler and Senator Moynihan the policy expert when they served together, D’Amato might have been advised to focus on policy given the behavior of his senior Democratic colleague and the expectations of a densely populated state like New York.

At the end of the day, representation is a series of choices senators and representatives face. Working hard and doing well gets noticed and rewarded, while ignoring the state and slacking off gets punished. Population density and dual representation condition the representational relationship and makes some choices more likely than others, but certainly does not preclude any of them.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Financial support from Montana State University allowed us to hire Pavielle Haines, who provided invaluable research assistance.

Notes

Author Biographies

David C. W. Parker is an associate professor of political science at Montana State University. He is the author of The Power of Money in Congressional Campaigns, 1880-2006 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press), as well as articles on the consequences of divided government and how members of Congress employ their office expenditures to build reputations with constituents. A co-winner with Craig Goodman of the 2010 Alan Rosenthal Award, Professor Parker is also coeditor of the recently published Doing Archival Research in Political Science, a book that encourages and helps political scientists to bring their research back to the archives.

Craig Goodman is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston-Victoria. He studies congressional procedures and processes and is currently working on a series of collaborative projects exploring how Members of Congress communicate with their constituents. His work has appeared in Legislative Studies Quarterly, Congress and the Presidency, and American Politics Research.

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