Re-examining the relationship between Latino population size and position taking on Latino interests in the US House of Representatives

Abstract

ABSTRACT In contrast to strong evidence that increases in district-level African American population size leads to greater support of African American issues in Congress, 40 years of research has been decidedly mixed on whether increases in district-level Latino population size translate to greater support of Latino issues. This paper provides an update to this literature by analyzing members’ of Congress (MCs) support of Latino issues through roll call voting, as collected by the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA) in the 113th (2013–2014) through 115th (2017–2018) House of Representatives. First, we find no relationship between NHLA scores and Latino district-level population size among Democratic MCs. The reason is that Democrats’ NHLA baseline support is already very high, regardless of Latino population size. But Republican MCs’ support for NHLA positions in the 113th through 115th Congresses increases as the size of their Latino constituency increases. Interestingly, we find that this relationship is tied to a district’s Latino noncitizen population as well as their Latino voter-eligible population. So, while Democrats on the whole may provide greater substantive representation to Latinos than Republican MCs, Republican MCs are not entirely unresponsive to Latino interests, particularly if they are given sufficient reason to be responsive.