Disentangling Constituency and Legislator Effects in Legislative Representation: Black Legislators or Black Districts?

Does the race of a legislator or does the black population of a district best predict legislative roll-call voting in the interests of African Americans? Due to methodological limitations, no prior study has found that "both" the race of the legislator "and" the black district population are significant predictors of congressional roll-call voting. Drawing on post "Shaw v. Reno"/"Miller v. Johnson" congressional districts (with greater data variance), I examine the effect of these two racial representation variables on roll-call voting in the 104th-106th Congresses. Copyright (c) 2005 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.