Economic Inequality, Legislative Behavior, and Representation in the U.S. Senate

A large body of scholarship has shown that concentrated wealth distorts the policy agenda, reduces support for redistributive programs, and privileges the preferences of the affluent. Yet much of this work treats inequality as a divide between elites and the mass public. Far less attention has been paid to inequality within the political elite itself, particularly among elected officials. Political scientist Darrian Stacy will examine how personal wealth among U.S. Senators shapes patterns of lawmaking, committee activity, and political representation. The project integrates three parts: (1) a new panel dataset covering all Senators from 1995 to 2025, combining financial disclosure records with measures of legislative behavior, committee activity, and institutional position; (2) multilevel regression modeling linking economic inequality to legislative behavior; and (3) archival case studies to explore how personal finances can shape communication, committees, and agendas. Financial data come from senators’ Personal Financial Disclosure Reports, obtained from the Senate Office of Public Records and standardized across time. These records will then be merged with data from the Center for Effective Lawmaking, the Congressional Biographical Directory, the Census Bureau, and official committee rosters to capture individual, district, and institutional characteristics. Each senator–year observation will include measures of wealth, legislative effectiveness (based on the progression of sponsored bills through key stages of the lawmaking process), institutional position (committee and leadership roles), policy specialization (from bill sponsorship patterns and policy effectiveness scores), and state-level controls such as vote share and household income.