Partners and Rivals

What happens when two people are chosen to represent the same group at the highest levels of government? Can shared representation increase responsiveness—or does it create rivalry? Wendy J. Schiller’s Partners and Rivals: Representation in U.S. Senate Delegations turns this question into a deep exploration of how America’s political design shapes the daily lives, ambitions, and conflicts of U.S. senators.

Schiller contends that every senator's behavior must be understood as part of a two-person system. Each state sends two senators to Washington who share the same constituency, yet they must build distinct reputations to survive politically. This pairing transforms what might look like individual representation into a subtle game of coordination and competition—a dynamic Schiller calls dual representation.

The Origins of Dual Representation

Schiller begins by returning to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where equal state representation in the Senate emerged as part of the Great Compromise. Though the framers debated population formulas and the length of Senate terms, they spent little time deciding why each state should have two senators, not one. According to Schiller, that single decision unintentionally created a unique structure: a multimember district at the national level. From the early republic onward, state legislatures used this two-member structure to send senators who represented distinct regional, economic, or ideological factions within the state.

Even before Americans voted directly for senators, states wanted both of their seats to reflect internal diversity—perhaps one representing agriculture and another representing trade, or one urban and one rural. Schiller notes that this original balancing act persists even in modern direct elections, as senators still behave as both representatives and rivals within their delegations.

Competition, Coordination, and Career Strategy

Because senators share a political marketplace—voters, media, donors—they are locked in constant, low-level competition. Sharing a constituency means that one senator’s rise can easily eclipse the other’s visibility. Schiller’s interviews with senators’ staffers reveal how keenly they feel this pressure: they choose different committees, issues, and leadership styles to avoid being confused with their state colleague.

For instance, Oregon’s Mark Hatfield and Robert Packwood, both moderate Republicans, deliberately built contrasting portfolios—Hatfield focusing on state-specific funding and Packwood on tax reform and deregulation. In Florida, by contrast, Democrats and Republicans (Bob Graham and Connie Mack) could cooperate more easily because their party differences already distinguished them. Schiller uses these examples to show that institutional rules, such as committee assignment limits, naturally push senators toward policy differentiation—especially for same-party delegations.

The Media as Referee and Amplifier

The next layer in Schiller’s analysis is the press. Local media coverage, she argues, is one of the strongest forces sustaining senatorial differentiation. Every senator knows that name recognition in home-state newspapers can shape re-election chances. Yet, because both senators chase the same media markets, reporters instinctively seek to balance coverage, giving each a distinct public identity. Quantitative analysis of ten states’ newspapers shows that coverage consistently mirrors senators’ committee interests—confirming that issue specialization yields visibility (a finding similar to Timothy Cook’s and Richard Fenno’s observations about publicity and congressional behavior).

Voters and the Psychology of Distinction

Voters, surprisingly, internalize these differences. Schiller’s use of the Senate Election Study—a series of national opinion surveys—reveals that even when constituents can’t recall specific bills, they often describe each senator with distinct qualities: one might be “a fighter for jobs,” the other “a wise elder statesman.” In same-party delegations, this differentiation fills the informational gap that ordinary voters face, helping them make sense of who does what.

From Rivalry to Representation

At its heart, Partners and Rivals reframes the Senate as a system engineered for productive competition. Rather than causing inefficiency, dual representation broadens representation—ensuring that more interests find voice in national politics. The very presence of two senators, Schiller concludes, functions as a check on complacency: each must remain alert, active, and differentiated to survive. Whether they divide issues by party, geography, or personality, senators collectively make the Senate more representative of the diverse nature of their states. In Schiller’s view, this inadvertent constitutional design makes Senate representation richer, more dynamic, and perhaps more egalitarian than the framers ever foresaw.

Schiller opens with history: the Senate’s “two per state” rule was never meant to spark competition, but that’s exactly what happened. The Great Compromise settled small-state fears by granting equal representation, yet it also guaranteed that senators would share constituents. Early state legislatures quickly realized that two seats meant they could send different voices to Washington—balancing commerce and farming, coastal cities and interior counties.

State Legislatures and Built-in Balance

Before direct elections began in 1913, senators were appointed by state legislatures. Archival evidence shows that those legislatures often divided their two seats between rival factions. In Maryland, one senator from each side of the Chesapeake represented opposing regions; in Pennsylvania, lawmakers intentionally paired Robert Morris, a wealthy financier, with William Maclay from rural upstate. This was an early, deliberate form of dual representation—an effort to make diversity a political asset rather than a weakness.

From Appointment to Popular Vote

After the Seventeenth Amendment introduced direct elections, voters—not legislatures—became the audience for senatorial differentiation. Candidates had to campaign across vast states, appealing to different demographics and regions while coexisting with another statewide figure. The simple need for visibility reshaped incentives: two senators could not both be “the voice of the people.” One might pivot toward business, the other toward labor; one might champion national stature, the other local outreach. By spreading representation across multiple axes—economic, geographic, and stylistic—the Senate unintentionally guaranteed diversity of advocacy within each state delegation.

Once in office, senators navigate both opportunity and constraint. Schiller shows that institutional rules make differentiation almost inevitable. Senate party caucuses informally prohibit two same-party senators from serving on the same major committee—meaning that if one joins Finance, the other will look elsewhere, perhaps Appropriations or Agriculture. This rule alone practically ensures that no two senators will share the same legislative arena.

Institutional Constraints and Strategic Choices

In her analysis of 68 Senate pairs between 1987 and 1992, Schiller finds that only 17 pairs shared even one committee, and almost none from the same party did so. This structural separation fosters “portfolio specialization”—each senator cultivates a few issues that will define their identity. For instance, Vermont’s Patrick Leahy dominated Agriculture, forcing junior colleague Jim Jeffords to pivot toward environmental policy. The lesson for new senators: find your own territory or remain invisible.

Roll Calls: United on Party, Divided on Personality

On roll-call votes, senators usually converge along party lines. But Schiller’s data uncovers an interesting twist: even within the same party, senators running for re-election voted more independently, signaling unique stances to home-state voters. In split-party delegations, both senators often cooperated on distributive measures—defense contracts, agriculture subsidies—because these deliver tangible benefits to their shared electorate. Competition and cooperation coexist in a pragmatic dance of survival.

How does a voter in a massive state—say, California or Texas—keep track of two senators? Schiller answers: through the press. Local newspapers act as both amplifiers and arbiters of senatorial distinction. Using exhaustive content analysis of ten newspapers (Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, etc.), she maps how media attention reinforces specialization.

Case Studies in Media Rivalry

In Massachusetts, Edward Kennedy dominated domestic policy coverage while John Kerry chased foreign affairs angles to carve out space in headlines. In Georgia, the long-serving Sam Nunn appeared in hundreds more stories than his junior Democrat Wyche Fowler—until Fowler’s re-election campaign forced visibility through agriculture and local welfare issues. Meanwhile, Illinois’s Paul Simon eclipsed Alan Dixon simply by outpacing him in publicity and issue engagement. Publicity, in Schiller’s findings, becomes a proxy for power.

Institutions, Seniority, and Public Awareness

Senators who chaired major committees—Appropriations, Judiciary, or Foreign Relations—got consistently higher coverage. Former governors attracted positive attention; ex–House members did not. The data reinforces a clear pattern: media differentiation emerges automatically from institutional structure. By pursuing different committees and issue themes, senators manufacture their own press niches, turning journalism into an informal system that preserves balance within a delegation.

Senators are constantly performing for two audiences—the “Beltway insiders” and the “folks back home.” Schiller zooms in on how reputations form within states and how the media and interest groups serve as information intermediaries. Voters rarely follow the Senate closely, but they remember traits: honesty, intelligence, helpfulness, or constituency service. These impressions become the currency of senator evaluations.

The Role of Mediating Institutions

Following the path laid out by Miller and Stokes (1963) and Fenno (1978), Schiller finds that reputation rests on whether intermediaries—local media, interest groups, and party networks—transmit accurate cues about a senator’s work. Even inattentive citizens absorb filtered impressions when one senator’s “brand” becomes distinct. In New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s professorial style made him the “intellectual statesman,” while Alfonse D’Amato’s gritty populism earned him the nickname “Senator Pothole.” These labels, amplified through stories, help constituents sort their dual representation intuitively.

How Reputations Influence Elections

Schiller’s statistical analysis of voter opinion data shows that recognition correlates less with ideology than with visibility and issue specialization. Senators who built clear legislative legacies—committee achievements, landmark bills, notable fights—enjoyed higher approval ratings. In contrast, those without distinctive portfolios (like Georgia’s Wyche Fowler) faced vulnerability or defeat. Reputation, therefore, is not vanity—it’s survival.

You don’t represent “a state,” Schiller argues—you represent regions within it. Her study of elections in the late 1980s and early 1990s shows that senators’ support often divides regionally even within one party. Electoral maps, based on county-level data, illustrate how senators from the same state craft separate regional bases and expand into new territory over time.

Case Examples: Mapping the Split

In Oklahoma, Republican Don Nickles expanded into Democratic “Little Dixie” counties by directing federal infrastructure funds to water projects—while Democrat David Boren retained dominance in rural bases. In Ohio, liberal populist Howard Metzenbaum outperformed moderate John Glenn even in some conservative counties by focusing on middle-class economic issues. In New York, Moynihan and D’Amato each transcended initial strongholds—urban liberals versus suburban conservatives—to win broadly across the state. These stories show representation as strategic geography.

Diverse Coalitions as a Democratic Safeguard

Geographic and demographic mapping reveals that senators split their support by income, race, and class. Even same-party pairs like Michigan’s Levin and Riegle drew from different socioeconomic bases. The takeaway: dual representation diversifies voters’ access to power. When two senators cultivate separate coalitions, more communities find someone in Washington who speaks their language.

Perhaps the most original part of Schiller’s work lies in Chapter 6, which examines campaign finance as a mirror of economic representation. Using Federal Election Commission data (1987–1992), she explores how state-based PACs decide which senator to fund. Her central claim: PACs respond to senators’ legislative signals—committee assignments, bill sponsorship, and issue focus—not party labels.

Economic Interests as the Senate’s Currency

Schiller distinguishes between broad economic policies (like taxes or welfare) and narrow, industry-specific concerns (like steel tariffs or farm subsidies). Senators use both to attract distinct supporter bases. Committees such as Finance and Appropriations become “cash cows,” attracting heavy PAC investment. But since Senate rules discourage both senators from the same state sitting on such lucrative committees, contributions inevitably diverge. One senator becomes the favorite of bankers, another of farmers.

Evidence from the Data

Schiller’s regressions show that same-party delegations receive markedly uneven donations: junior senators get about $49,000 less from state PACs on average. Membership on Finance or Appropriations increases contributions by roughly $40,000–$50,000. More important, PACs invest strategically where senators show competence. Case studies—New York’s Moynihan and D’Amato, Missouri’s Danforth and Bond—illustrate reciprocal specialization. Each senator attracts different donors and industries by claiming responsibility for different economic sectors.

The conclusion is clear: economic self-interest doesn’t corrupt representation—it diversifies it. Competition for state-based donors pushes senators to cover more of the state’s industries collectively, ensuring that local business voices are heard through multiple pathways.

In her final chapter, Schiller steps back to ask what dual representation teaches us about democracy. She argues that despite rivalry and inefficiency, the two-person Senate delegation enhances accountability, diversity, and responsiveness. Borrowing from Hanna Pitkin’s theory of representation, she shows that senators act both as trustees (making independent judgments) and delegates (responding to state interests)—and that having two senators balances these roles for voters.

Comparative Parallels

Schiller compares the Senate’s system to other multimember districts like Japan and Chile. In Japan, candidates from the same party in multi-seat districts must differentiate themselves, building personal reputations through local service—much like U.S. senators seeking state-based recognition. In Chile, parties nominate two candidates per district who deliberately occupy opposite ideological poles to maximize the party’s reach. The U.S. Senate, though less overtly partisan, produces a similar equilibrium: each senator adapts to represent an unfilled niche.

Democratic Implications

Dual representation spreads risk, diffuses power, and forces senators to stay visible. It ensures that even in one-party-dominant states, multiple voices and constituencies remain represented in Washington. The unavoidable friction between partners, far from being a flaw, is democracy’s hidden safeguard. Competition yields coverage; rivalry yields responsiveness. In Schiller’s view, the Senate’s two-person design remains one of the Constitution’s wisest accidents—a living engine of pluralism within American federalism.