Grist for the Hill: How Constituency Concerns Influence Congress's Attention to Issues and Legislators' Policy-Seeking Activities

How does Congress identify issues of sufficient concern to warrant consideration? Since the late nineteenth century, bill sponsorship by individual members has been the primary mechanism for winnowing the uncountable set of ideas for change to a finite agenda. Previous scholarship emphasizes electoral considerations and members' policy goals as motivating factors; however, the scant evidence for significant electoral returns to bill sponsorship raises questions about whether constituency concerns influence legislators' attention. We present a theory of bill sponsorship as constituency-minded policy-seeking activity and test its predictions using an original data set of bills introduced in the House of Representatives between 1881 and 1931. Using event count models and Monte Carlo simulations, we find that constituency concerns directly affect legislators' attention and indirectly influence bill sponsorship through committee assignments. These findings from a period when bill sponsorship was expansive and resource intensive illuminate how electoral factors and resource-based concerns shape legislative performance.