The political representation of blacks in Congress: Does race matter?

Congressional scholars generally take the position that members of Congress don't have to descriptively mirror their constituents in order to be respo nsive. Yet ample scholarship has shown that legislators work very hard at i dentifying with their constituents, at conveying the impression that they a re alike in interests and opinions. Matching the race of the House member t o their constituents' ratings in the 1996 National Black Election Study, I find that blacks consistently express higher levels of satisfaction with th eir representation in Washington when that representative is black, even co ntrolling for other characteristics of the legislators, such as political p arty. This study underscores the value of descriptive representation in the black community and highlights the need for additional empirically based s tudies of political representation.