Islands unto Themselves: Circumscribed Representation in U.S. Territories

• In Event: Accountability, Representation, and Responsiveness in the Congress

Abstract

Residents of United States territories - such as Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa - receive various benefits and have certain constitutional rights. These territories, however, do not enjoy the full protection of the U.S. Constitution: their delegates lack voting representation in Congress and their residents cannot cast votes for President. The territories, nevertheless, elect and send non-voting delegates to the U.S House. These territorial delegates, while unable to vote on the final passage of legislation, have floor privileges in the House, can participate in House committees, and can introduce legislation. Extant scholarship on congressional politics and representation, however, has not systematically examined representational activity by territorial delegates sent to Congress by the roughly 3.5 million residents of U.S. territories. Likewise, existing research has rarely considered attitudes among territorial residents regarding their representation in Congress or the services provided to territories by the federal government generally. In this article, we ask: how do territorial delegates represent their constituents given their limited legislative powers and does this circumscribed lawmaking capacity condition territorial residents’ confidence in federal governing institutions? We argue that restrictions on delegates’ congressional activity reduce territorial residents’ confidence in the federal government’s capacity to administer policy in the territories. Using an original dataset of delegate activity in the House Armed Services and Natural Resources committees, we identify notable patterns in the revealed preferences of territorial delegates. We pair these data with an original survey of territorial residents to examine coherence between residents’ and delegates’ policy preferences. Lastly, preliminary survey experimental results show that an informational cue describing the expansion of delegates’ lawmaking roles in Congress is associated with increased confidence in the federal government, while a cue describing the restriction of such roles in Congress decreases confidence. Our study investigates representation and confidence in the federal government in the territories, finding that even minor expansions in representation impact confidence in federal governing institutions.

Authors

• David Brooks Ebner, Sweet Briar College

• Wayde Z.C. Marsh, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

• Jordan Carr Peterson, University of Tennessee, Knoxville