Evolutionary Party Convergence.

If rational legislators consider the rules of their legislature when deciding whether or not to leave the body, those decisions will affect the composition of the legislature, as those who the rules most favor stay, and their less-favored colleagues go. The current paper explores this phenomenon using an evolutionary game theoretic model to show that rules that favor legislators who are more ideologically proximate to their parties will result in a legislature with more loyal legislators. I test the theoretical model using a competing risks duration model to show that, as the evolutionary model predicts, legislators who represent districts that are more ideologically proximate to their parties and who vote more like their party are most likely to receive committee chairs, while those whose districts are further from the party are more likely to leave the House to run for a higher office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]