Promoting a Diverse Bench: An Analysis of Elite Messaging About Descriptive Representation

Existing work documents how senators use their official communications to explain their Washington activities and build support in the district. However, relatively little remains known about how senators communicate about one of their most important constitutional duties—providing advice and consent on Supreme Court nominees. In this paper, we investigate how senators discuss Supreme Court nominations with their constituents, focusing on one common rhetorical strategy: highlighting the descriptive traits of nominees. Using a new dataset of press releases about nominee race and gender, we demonstrate that senators of both parties frequently discuss the descriptive traits of nominees. Next, we systematically investigate the determinants of this rhetoric, finding that shared characteristics with the nominee, copartisanship, and institutional position predict discussion of descriptive representation. Then, we use the CES to demonstrate the impact of these messages on constituent evaluations of senators; we find a modest boost in using such messages. Finally, we conduct a preliminary investigation of discussion of nominee religion using our framework. Our findings provide important insight into how senators use rhetorical appeals to appeal to constituents and make the case for diversity in governing.