So, what kind of people run for state legislature? You’ll find that there are many types of people that run, and for many different reasons. Here are some examples of who runs for office and their why.
Not only are there many different types of people who run for state legislators, and for a multitude of different reasons, but these different types vary by state.
There are also many reasons why people run, from just wanting to make a difference, to righting a supposed wrong, to wanting to make that their full-time career. State political culture and how professionalized the state legislature is can also determine who runs and why. They all make up who comprises a state legislature, including in my own Indiana General Assembly.
You’ll find that the type of people who tend to run for state legislators don’t represent a cross-section of the population of their state, but tend to be those who are better-off, that is, those who are more educated, employed in more prestigious types of work, who are middle or upper-class financially, and who are more socially and economically mobile, meaning that they can afford to, or have the time to, work in the government as a representative, helping to produce the bills that become our laws. They tend to be people who have established their own financial well-being rather than people who come from established old-wealth families.
In terms of occupation, they tend to come from all sorts of different occupations, with the lawyer being represented the most. Lawyers tend to be good legislators because they know how laws are written, and can do a fairly good job, with their already-embedded skills, at properly writing new bills. Besides the lawyers, there are business owners, business executives, educators, people involved in real estate or the insurance industry, and the occasional farmer.
Business owners tend to be able to find people to run their business for them while they are in office, and can even be an away-from-the-office director of his business, giving him the possibility to be occupationally mobile, at least enough to be able to serve in his legislature. Business executives tend to be the businessmen on the more successful end, and who make more income, and can afford to take time off from where they worked to take up the reigns of legislator. Other people, like educators and people involved in real estate or insurance tend to have many contacts, making it an easy extension for them to run for public office.
Other Possible Motives
Among the legislature, there are also a couple of other possible scenarios that play out, that motivate a person to become a legislator. One of these scenarios is the person who wants to make it their full-time profession to be a legislator – they work hard to get elected to office the first time, and once they get elected, they ride the wave of incumbency to keep getting elected again and again, making a lifelong employment of this profession. They know they need to keep on the good side of their constituency in order to stay in office, and they also fear the fact that they don’t have any other jobs to run to if they lose office. This makes them more likely to be a delegate model of legislator, or possibly a politico.
There is also those people who are retired and don’t have any employment standing in their way of being able to run. They have enough retirement savings, or pension, to be able to handle running for office, and believe they have enough life experience from their many years in the workforce to be able to be a competent legislator.
So, what else drives people to office that didn’t motivate vast amounts of other people? There is the fact that some people have become so angered or enraged by some injustice that happened to them that they are strongly motivated to enter office for the chief purpose of eliminating that injustice. Something inside them just snapped, and they decided that they, not someone else, needs to run for office to get that injustice eliminated.
Effects of Type of Legislature
Of course, the type of legislature that a state has can also effect the type of people who run for that state legislature. For example, a state house that can be termed a professional legislature is more likely to have representatives who are apt on making their time in office their full-time profession, whereas states that have amateur legislatures are more likely to have people who have outside careers and can afford to spend some time in office.
My state of Indiana has a more amateur legislature, with some staff that is shared by other members, so they are more likely to have part-time lawmakers with other outside jobs, and who may desire to leave office after a few terms of public service;
Illinois, on the other hand, has a more professional legislature, so they have more lawmakers than Indiana does who have made lawmaking their full-time profession.
Of course, Indiana also has a more individualistic state political culture, so it makes sense that they would want to have outside jobs, since they are minimalists when it comes to state government.
Conclusion
So, what types of people run for state legislature, and why? Once again, they are typically from the upper middle-class, are well-educated, successful, outgoing, have many contacts, are upwardly and economically mobile, and motivated. There are also many reasons why people run, from just wanting to make a difference, to righting a supposed wrong, to wanting to make that their full-time career. State political culture and how professionalized the state legislature is can also determine who runs and why. They all make up who comprises a state legislature, and why.
