Constituency Size and Evaluations of Government

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between legislative constituency size and opinions about the US state government. I show that over the course of US history, the states have disconnected the size of their legislatures from population change, resulting in a growing constituency size in nearly every state. I argue that because district size structures the nature of constituent–legislator interaction and levels of district heterogeneity, size influences the effectiveness of legislator efforts to build trust and support, resulting in more negative evaluations of representative government. Using a unique data set of nine Pew Research Center public opinion polls on favorable opinions of US state governments from 1997 to 2012, I find that constituency size is indeed associated with more negative evaluations. This relationship cannot be explained by other probable causes like legislative professionalism, partisanship, opinions about the federal government, or population size alone. Legislative institutions appear to moderate how residents experience and evaluate state government.