Electable Effectiveness: How the Public Interprets Different Measures of Legislator Effectiveness

Thursday, September 24, 2026

What does it mean to be an effective legislator in the eyes of constituents, and what kind of effectiveness do voters prefer? In this Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, Peter T. McLaughlin, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, examines how legislative, distributive, and bipartisan effectiveness in the US Congress correlate with constituent support. Through a forced choice conjoint survey design to measure public preferences on the three forms of effectiveness, and a vignette survey design to estimate the effect of real-world legislator effectiveness information, McLaughlin finds that all three types of effectiveness are similarly prioritized by constituents when evaluating legislators. Respondents rewarded above-average effectiveness and similarly punished below-average effectiveness. The findings suggest that legislator effectiveness functions as a valence issue in American politics, one that voters reward across the board regardless of the form it takes.

The research for this working paper was supported by a CEL small grant award.

To learn more, read the full report here.

Photo: “Voting” by justgrimes is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Annie McGahren

Annie McGahren is an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, majoring in Government, with a focus on American Politics, and minoring in Spanish. She is serving as a summer intern for the Center for Effective Lawmaking.