Michael Sean Covey and Michael Barber, Department of Political Science
Introduction
Every two years, voters across the country send dozens of newly elected U.S. representatives to Congress, and these freshmen come from all educational backgrounds and professions. There are MBAs, JDs, and PhDs, as well as former doctors, entrepreneurs, professors, attorneys, military leaders, state legislators and corporate executives. And during campaign season, it is common for congressional candidates to tout their pre-political backgrounds as evidence that they will be successful in Congress (see Figure 1). Candidate Stephen Tryon, for example, ran against incumbent Jason Chaffetz in Utah’s third congressional district in 2014 and advertised that he was a “proven soldier and leader, successful business executive, and noted author” (Burr and Jesperson 2014). Are educational and professional backgrounds good predictors of legislative effectiveness in the U.S. House, or are they largely irrelevant?
Methodology
To examine the influence of backgrounds on legislative effectiveness, I used several statistical tests called differences of means and OLS regression. My theories were that 1) representatives with a background in law—whether as a JD, lawyer, or state legislator—would generally be more effective than representatives without legal backgrounds; and 2) more formal education would lead to higher effectiveness. To test these theories, I gathered the educational and professional backgrounds of all 701 freshmen U.S. representatives1 from the 103rd through 112th Congresses (1993-2012), as well as the representatives’ legislative effectiveness scores2, which capture a representative’s ability to produce and pass meaningful bills through Congress. With difference of means tests, I compared the effectiveness scores of College grads vs. non-College grads, lawyers vs. non-lawyers, doctors vs. non-doctors, and so forth. These tests were helpful to compare types of representatives in a simple way. But I used OLS regression to control for other variables and produce more unbiased results. I regressed effectiveness scores (dependent variable) on educational degrees, occupational categories, and several control variables like age, gender, year of Congress, and political party.
Results
The results did not validate my theories. When including control variables, the regressions showed no statistically significant correlations between legislative effectiveness and educational Figure 1 and occupational backgrounds. In other words, a candidate’s type of background seems irrelevant to his or her first-term effectiveness in Congress. However, I found that freshmen representatives from the majority party in the U.S. House are almost 25% more effective than representatives from the minority party, on average.
Discussion
Despite several limitations to my analysis, it seems likely that there are no strong correlations between educational and occupational backgrounds and legislative effectiveness. Thus, on average, representatives with legal experience are no more effective than representatives with legal experience, and representatives with many years of formal schooling, say a PhD or JD, are no more effective than representatives with only a high school diploma. The only thing that seems to matter is whether the representative is in the majority party. Majority-party representatives are probably more effective because of powerful committee chairmen pushing their bills onto the House floor and through the legislative process (Cox and McCubbins 2005).
Conclusion
Does this mean that a political candidate’s background and training has no effect on his or her future performance? Of course not. One’s background, training, and education will always influence his or her future—whether in politics, business, medicine, or any other field. However, this project shows that simply knowing the type of a candidate’s education or occupation—which is often the only thing voters may know about a candidate—is likely not a good predictor of future effectiveness in Congress. Thus, knowing that a candidate like Stephen Tryon (see Figure 1) has been a soldier, business executive, and author likely says little about his ability to produce legislation as a freshman in Congress. One thing is clear, however, which is that freshmen representatives from the majority party are almost 25% more effective than those from the minority party. A remaining question is whether professional backgrounds matter over one’s entire political career.
References
- Burr, Thomas and Mallory Jesperson. 2014. Political Cornflakes. Salt Lake Tribune. October 31. Email list.
- Cox, Gary W., and Mathew D. McCubbins. 2005. Setting the agenda: Responsible party government in the U.S. House of Representatives. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Volden, Craig, and Alan E. Wiseman. 2014. Legislative effectiveness in the United States Congress: The lawmakers. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- I excluded non-voting delegates to the U.S. House, such as those from the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
- Legislative effectiveness scores (LESs) come from Volden and Wiseman’s research (2014).