Eyes on the Prize, Eh, Senator?
U.S. Senators are most responsive to their upper-income constitutents and are not responsive to their lower-income constituents, a published study finds. While partisan differences were small, the study found that Republicans were more responsive than Democrats to the middle-income in one Congress and Democrats became even more responsive to the upper-income after gaining power in another Congress.
Thomas Hayes, assistant professor of political science at University of Connecticut, examined the extent to which Congress responds to the wishes of different income groups from 2001 to 2010 for a study, "Responsiveness in an Era of Inequality: The Case of the U.S. Senate," published in the August 2013 issue of Political Research Quarterly.
