Replication Data for: District Attentiveness and Representation in the Modern Congress

This package contains the datasets for the three papers in my dissertation. Please note that these datasets are almost certainly out of date; as I publish these papers, individual replication packages will be put on my website/the appropriate dataverse. Abstract: While spending time at home among constituents is a fundamental part of representation, few studies have provided a detailed accounting of legislator behavior in the district. As a result, the effects of such behaviors, otherwise known as a legislator’s "home style," on the quality of representation remain unknown. In this dissertation, I use newly collected data on senator travel, staffing, and credit claiming patterns to test classic theories of legislator behavior in the district and their applicability to representation in the modern Congress. In the first paper, I examine if district activities serve as a complement or substitute to policy representation. To do so, I investigate how a senator's decision to allocate time and staff to a county interacts with their roll call voting behavior. In the second paper, I investigate which local communities senators choose to emphasize in their official communications with constituents. Finally, in the third paper I turn the discussion to the House. I investigate if ideologically extreme representatives use constituency service differently than moderates and the subsequent consequences for constituent perceptions.