Person:

Schneer, Benjamin H.

Partisan gerrymandering and polarization have created an electoral landscape where Americans increasingly reside in congressional districts dominated by one party. Are individuals more likely to vote when their partisanship aligns with the partisan composition of the district? Leveraging nationwide voter file data and the redistricting process, we present causal evidence on this question via a longitudinal analysis of individual-level political participation. Tracking turnout before and after a redistricting cycle, where the boundaries of congressional districts change, we observe what happens when registrants experience a shock to the partisan composition of their congressional district. We find turnout increases for individuals assigned to districts aligned with their partisanship as compared to individuals in misaligned districts, consistent with voters deriving expressive benefits from voting for the winning party. By demonstrating how districting influences political participation, our findings suggest a new implication of partisan gerrymandering that may clash with other democratic goals.

Canonical theories of representation emphasize that electoral incentives drive legislator behavior, yet empirical research, focusing primarily on member ideology, finds little evidence of member adaptation to electoral threat. We compile an expansive dataset measuring both district- and chamber-oriented activities, including new measures of member travel and geographically-targeted legislation. Using a within-member design, we find electorally threatened representatives spend more time in their districts, use more local phrases on the floor, secure more appropriations for constituents, serve on more constituency-oriented committees (and fewer policy-related committees), and sponsor fewer national policy-focused bills and amendments. Threatened members adapt by shifting focus from partisan policy work toward less-ideological constituent service, even as their voting records remain mostly stable. We argue electoral competition operates as a moderating force not by changing legislators' ideological positions but by reshaping how they budget time between competing representational activities.

We develop the concept of, and estimation tools for, durable majority gerrymanders: electoral district maps drawn to reduce an opposing political party's probability of winning a majority in a legislative chamber. Directly interpretable, forward-looking, and motivated by the democratic principle that a party in power should have some chance of losing it, this measure provides new insights into the role of redistricting in state legislative elections. We show that, when map drawers are unconstrained, the ability to create durable majorities is so widespread that at least one party in every state can draw a map where a majority of legislative districts withstand almost any likely future electoral swing. Enacted maps are less durable, due to a combination of underlying geography, voter partisanship, and state-level guidelines. This paper provides the theoretical framework and empirical tools to understand which gerrymandered maps enable state-level majorities to emerge and to endure.