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The limited attention Congress gives to disadvantaged or marginalized groups, including Black Americans, LGBTQ, Latinx, women, and the poor, is well known and often remarked upon. This is the first full-length study to focus instead on those members who do advocate for these groups and when and why they do so. Katrina F. McNally develops the concept of an 'advocacy window' that develops as members of Congress consider incorporating disadvantaged group advocacy into their legislative portfolios. Using new data, she analyzes the impact of constituency factors, personal demographics, and institutional characteristics on the likelihood that members of the Senate or House of Representatives will decide to cultivate a reputation as a disadvantaged group advocate. By comparing legislative activism across different disadvantaged groups rather than focusing on one group in isolation, this study provides fresh insight into the tradeoffs members face as they consider taking up issues important to different groups. This title is available as open access on Cambridge Core.
List of contents
1. Introduction; 2. Member Reputation and the Advocacy Window: An Integrated Theory of Representation; 3. Member Reputation; 4. The Choice to be a Disadvantaged Group Advocate in the House of Representatives; 5. The Choice to be a Disadvantaged Group Advocate in the United States Senate; 6. Reputation Building Tactics in the Senate and House of Representatives; 7. Conclusions.
About the author
Katrina F. McNally is an Assistant Professor at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Summary
McNally explores why members of Congress choose to build reputations as advocates of disadvantaged groups. She introduces the concept of the advocacy window to explain the discretion members have in building their reputations on behalf of the poor, Native Americans, minorities, seniors, immigrants, veterans, women, and the LGBTQ community.
Foreword
Explores why some members of Congress choose to build legislative reputations as advocates of disadvantaged groups.
