Institutions and Representational Roles in American State Legislatures

What is the impact of legislative institutions on the representational roles their members adopt? We address this question by examining the role orientation of state legislators in eight states, explaining why some legislators identify more with a trustee model of representation while others identify more with the delegate model. Using ordinal logistic regression analysis on data from a survey of 447 legislators, we test for the effects of multimember districts and term limits, as well as several other factors. First, we find that representational roles and behavior are related; legislators who think of themselves more as delegates are much more likely to hold frequent district office hours than their counterparts who think of themselves more as trustees. Second, we find that, overall, legislators are more likely to consider themselves trustees than delegates. Third, we find multimember districts and term limits increase the likelihood that legislators will think of themselves as trustees. Thus