The final chapter offers concluding remarks on the principal contributions of this project. It emphasizes the important insights to be gained by viewing representation through the lens of the consciously cultivated legislative reputations and highlights the benefits of using the advocacy window as an analytical tool for understanding the quality of representation that different disadvantaged groups receive from their representatives. Additionally, it reflects on the normative implications of this project, particularly for the representation of racial/ethnic minorities. The chapter closes by discussing future extensions of the research agenda.

Chapter 2 situates this project in the broader congressional representation literature and highlights the contributions that this project offers: a focus on legislative reputation, meaning the extent to which members have cultivated an image for working on behalf of particular groups, a systematic study of legislators’ decisions to cultivate reputations for working on behalf of disadvantaged groups as a whole, and an analysis shedding light on why some members choose to represent the disadvantaged, rather than simply focusing on how many do not. It offers a definition of what it means to be a disadvantaged group and presents a new categorization scheme based on the extent to which the group is generally perceived to be deserving of government assistance. This chapter introduces the advocacy window as the centerpiece of a new theory of representation explaining which members of Congress are likely to craft a reputation for representing a disadvantaged group, and why. The advocacy window showcases the amount of leeway members have in deciding what level of representation to offer a given disadvantaged group, after taking into account group affect and group size.