Legislative perceptions of the district are an essential part of constituency representation in Congress. Congressional scholars have long asserted that who legislators see in their district affects how they represent their constituents on Capitol Hill (e.g., Dexter 1960; Fenno 1978; Kingdon 1968). However, the challenges of conceptualizing and measuring legislators' perceived districts have made it difficult to provide evidence that perceptions of constituents matter. In revisiting this central element of constituency representation in the wake of the growth of the cognitive psychology literature, this book sheds new light on how legislators represent their constituents by providing a theoretical foundation for legislative perceptions of constituents. This allows one to examine which constituents legislators see in their district as well as the mechanisms by which perceptions affect a wide range of legislative behavior. The resulting insights into constituency representation have implications not only for future congressional scholarship but also for the practice of congressional politics.

Which constituents are seen when legislators and their staff consider the relevance of policy to their district is important because our theories of legislative behavior implicitly assume that legislators are aware of all the relevant constituents in their district. However, if we reconsider whether this is a realistic assumption and investigate empirically its validity, it becomes apparent that legislative perceptions of the constituents in their district fall short of the assumed comprehensive, rationalistic view.