Constituents have minimal influence on their legislators' policy priorities

The most basic function of elected politicians is to represent the priorities of their constituents. But to what extent do legislators' policy priorities actually reflect what people want? In new research, Philip D. Waggoner uses states' industrial patterns in combination with survey research to model constituents' preferences and then places these against legislators' bill sponsorship. He finds that legislators tend to make assumptions about what their constituents want, based on the industries in their state, rather than on their expressed policy priorities.