Recent research provides evidence that state legislators who are highly effective at passing laws are nearly twice as likely to end up in the U.S. Congress than their less effective counterparts. This pattern tends to occur because successful legislators are motivated to run for higher office, not because voters particularly value legislative skill at the voting booth. The survey results are American Political Science Review.
In the American political system, state legislatures often serve as training grounds for future legislators. Between 1973 and 2025, approximately half of all federal members previously served in their home state’s legislative chamber. This route provides politicians with experience drafting legislation, debating policy and running election campaigns.
The United States operates under a federal system, where power is shared between the central government and state governments. This structure allows individual states to serve as laboratories of democracy and test new policies and solutions on a small scale. Successful policies may be adopted by other states or implemented at the national level.
When politicians decide to aspire to higher and more prestigious offices, political scientists refer to this concept as progressive ambition. This decision involves weighing the costs of giving up your current seat against the potential benefits of gaining a more powerful position. The system would theoretically allow high-achieving members to advance through the ranks, creating a pipeline of talent from the states to the federal government.
“The Center for Effective Legislation is interested in understanding the factors that enable some members of the U.S. Congress and state legislatures to better push legislation through the legislative process,” said Sarah A. Treul, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We wanted to add to the effectiveness literature by asking how our federalism contributes to legislative effectiveness.”
Treul explained that when politicians gain work experience at the state level and then successfully run for national office, it indicates a healthy democratic pipeline. “In short, when state legislators gain legislative experience at the state level, they are more likely to run for and win a seat in the U.S. Congress, suggesting that state legislatures serve as important training grounds for national legislation,” she said.
To examine this dynamic, researchers analyzed data from 97 state legislatures spanning 1993 to 2018. They utilized a dataset containing approximately 80,000 personal efficacy scores of state legislators. These scores were generated by tracking all bills introduced in these chambers, matching each bill to its primary sponsor, and monitoring how far it progressed through the legislative process.
The scoring system assigned greater weight to substantive and important bills, as opposed to small or ceremonial resolutions. To ensure a fair comparison, the scientists adjusted these scores based on the legislator’s specific institutional context. They considered factors that give natural legislative advantages, such as membership in the majority party, high seniority, and committee chair status.
Lawmakers were then categorized based on whether they underperformed, met expectations, or exceeded expectations compared to similarly situated legislators. The researchers also tracked whether these individuals chose to run for the U.S. House of Representatives. Finally, we documented whether these candidates won the primary and general elections.
Our analysis shows that members who meet or exceed expectations are significantly more likely to be elected to Congress. The researchers specifically looked at vacancies in politically safe districts, or districts with no incumbent and strong support for a particular party. Under these favorable conditions, the probability that an incompetent state representative will be elected to Congress is approximately 2.8%. The probability for an average member is 4.9 percent, and the probability for a very effective member is 5.3 percent.
Scientists have found that this difference is driven almost entirely by candidates’ own choice to enter the race. Ineffective state legislators have about an 8% chance of winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives if given a safe, open seat. Highly qualified state legislators are much more likely to run for office, 13.2% of the time.
The data shows evidence that less competent legislators tend to stay out of these races, allowing more skilled legislators to advance. This can occur because incompetent legislators are aware of their own limitations in passing policy. It may also occur due to an inability to secure the necessary campaign funds or support from party leadership to recruit candidates.
In the United States, candidates typically have to go through a two-step election process before reaching Congress. They first participate in primaries to secure their party’s nomination, often facing challengers from within their ranks. If successful, they will advance to a general election and compete against opposition candidates for the final seat.
The researchers found no relationship between a candidate’s previous legislative effectiveness and their likelihood of actually winning any of these races. Whether courting highly partisan primary voters or the broader general electorate, candidates are unlikely to benefit from their record as legislators. “The fact that there is no relationship between a state legislator’s legislative effectiveness and their likelihood of winning in a primary or general election is pretty surprising,” Trell told SciPost.
Treul said this finding points to the external forces needed to promote talented politicians. “This points to the importance of institutional factors that can help encourage talented legislators to run for high-level public office,” she explained. The researchers investigated these institutional factors by examining how the specific environment of state legislatures affects politicians’ ambitions.
Some states have citizen assemblies whose members work part-time, have a small staff, and are poorly paid. Other states have highly professional legislatures that function like smaller versions of Congress, offering full-time work, larger staff, and higher salaries. Scientists have found that in part-time citizen assemblies, competent members are generally more likely to run for parliament than less competent members, regardless of the electoral context.
The desire to move to a more prominent and well-funded legislative body appears to be a strong motivator for these individuals. They are motivated to challenge incumbents to achieve higher positions. A different pattern emerges in highly specialized state legislatures, where legislators already have considerable resources at their disposal.
In such an environment, the chances of a highly qualified member running for Congress are only high if there is a vacancy. Due to the lack of open seats, only about 0.2 percent of qualified MPs are willing to leave their professional seats for higher positions, which is no different from the proportion of incompetent MPs. But when a seat opens up in Congress, highly qualified members from professional legislatures are far more likely to jump in.
The authors suggest that politicians in professional chambers already wield significant influence and enjoy their work. They seem unwilling to jeopardize their current positions unless a particularly advantageous opportunity arises. The analysis also looked at other personal factors, including MPs’ gender, party status, and seniority. Scientists have found that these particular personal characteristics do not seem to affect the overall likelihood of running for Congress.
“State legislators who are good at passing bills through the legislative process are more likely to self-select to run for U.S. Congress,” Treul told SciPost. “This is encouraging because it suggests that legislators who know they are skilled at navigating the legislative process are more likely to take their skills to the next level.” The researchers believe this self-selection is important for improving the quality of national representation.
“Our article also shows that voters are not always the best at discerning which legislators are most effective at the state level,” Trell added. “This means that recruitment and self-selection of party members into the U.S. Congress is critical to benefiting from the state-level experience of talented members. We need to think about how to encourage talented state legislators to bring their skills to the U.S. Congress.”
There are some potential misconceptions to avoid. Readers may assume that voters actively ignore politicians’ effectiveness out of apathy. It is equally possible that voters are simply uninformed, as objective indicators of legislative success are rarely highlighted in campaign materials or local news coverage.
One of the limitations of this study is that it relies on specific mathematical indicators of legislative effectiveness, primarily focusing on the advancement of sponsored bills. Lawmakers may contribute to the legislative process in other ways, such as negotiating compromises behind closed doors or providing better service to their constituents. These alternative forms of political activity are difficult to quantify and may have different effects on politicians’ career trajectories.
Future research could examine whether providing voters with easily accessible and objective data about the effectiveness of state legislators changes voting behavior. Scientists might also investigate whether the skills that make state legislators successful can easily be transferred to the federal level. Understanding how different state-level institutional rules prepare politicians for the unique challenges of the U.S. Congress remains an open question for future analysis.
The study, “Legislative Effectiveness, Progressive Ambition, and Electoral Success,” was authored by Daniel M. Thomsen, Sarah A. Treul, Craig Volden, and Alan E. Wiseman.
