Does Less Income Mean Less Representation?

Contrary to popular opinion, we find evidence that the views of residents of both higher and lower income neighborhoods are represented by their legislators. Analyzing the voting behavior of California state legislators on 77 proposals on which both the legislature and the public cast ballots, we find first that the opinions of higher and lower income voters within a district are highly correlated and thus it is impossible to represent the views of one group and not also represent the views of the other. And to the question of whether one income group is better represented than the other, our descriptive analysis suggests that the answer depends on representative party. Republican legislators vote more along the lines of the views of their constituents residing in high income neighborhoods. Democratic legislative voting is better predicted by the voters of lower income areas. These party/income group patterns hold within legislator, for taxation-the key issue that puts high and low income voters at odds, and for those votes for which there is more at stake for the elected official. The fact that lower income voters are more likely to be registered Democrats and higher income voters to be registered Republicans does not explain away our findings. However, the fact that lower income voters are more likely to espouse Democratic views (and similarly high income voters, Republican views) does. Democratic and Republican legislators represent voters at opposite ends of the income distribution because they represent voters at opposite ends of the ideology distribution.