Congress And Citizen Discontent

This study, which uses a national survey conducted by Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, finds that evaluations of the membership of Congress and of one’s own representative in the U.S. House are both tied closely to issues of procedural justice and, in particular, to the perceived fairness of Congress and to the perceived responsiveness of the legislative branch to the citizenry. The extent to which a citizen desires parochial legislative behavior is of little consequence for evaluating the legislative branch, or even one’s own representative.