A test of shirking under legislative and citizen vote: The case of state lottery adoption

Legislators vote on numerous issues, many of which are not offered for citi zen vote. As a result, most previous studies of legislative shirking have u sed only data on legislators' votes and the characteristics of the legislat ors' constituencies. The case of stare lottery adoption allows a direct tes t of how well legislators voted according to the preferences of their const ituencies, since both voters and legislators voted on the issue. In additio n, the legislative vote on lottery adoption occurred before the citizen vot e, thus forcing legislators to accurately forecast constituency preferences . Examining West Virginia legislators, I first find the lottery preferences of each legislator's average and core constituencies. I then compare each legislator's actual vote on lottery adoption to his or her predicted vote. After considering all possible determinants of legislators' votes, I find a n average of 28 percent of West Virginia legislators still failed to vote a ccording to their constituencies' majority preferences.