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The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, it assesses the extent to which Brazilian and Colombian legislatures are populated by career politicians Second, it analyzes the effects of institutional features of the electoral system on the politician’s ability to get reelected. Theories of legislative behavior in the US assume that politicians are careerists and want to get reelected. This assumption has important implications to understand the structure of the legislature (i.e. its degree of institutionalization) as well as the behavior of politicians. Levels of reelection in Latin America vary widely yet few explanations for why this may be the case have been offered. In this paper, we explore the determinants for reelection in two countries characterized by high levels of intraparty competition. We argue that incumbents have better chances on their reelection bids for reasons similar to incumbents to the US congress (i.e. name recognition, access to office perquisites, etc). We also suggest that the chances of electoral success are affected by competition at the district level that arises from the utilization of list-PR and nomination of multiple candidates by each party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]