House leadership positions and small states

[Nichlemn]

I'm wondering what the relationship between being in the House leadership and being from a small state is. Looking at the home states from the past Speakers of the House since the direct election of Senators, the smallest state to provide a Speaker was Oklahoma, with 6 districts when Carl Albert was Speaker in the 70s (and 8 districts when Albert was first elected). Other than that you've got mostly big states (OH, CA, IL for the last three speakers, a lot from TX and MA historically).

Obviously a lot of this is just due to big states having more districts from which leaders could be drawn. But also, there is the possibility that many potential candidates for the House leadership in small states get better opportunities to run for the Senate before they have a chance to rise up in the House. And maybe some states are just better than others for rising up the House leadership in, and they might mostly be bigger states.

What do you think? Are there are present small-state Congressmen that have a good chance of rising up into their party's House leadership?

[Miles]

Greg Walden, Lynn Jenkins and James Lankford are all in Republican leadership posts. Steve Scalise chairs the Republican Study Committee and Charles Boustany is a strong ally of Boehner; either of them could possibly climb up.

[Mr. Morden]

You could of course investigate whether this effect is real quantitatively if you're feeling sufficiently motivated.  Split the House membership into quartiles or something by state population, doing it separately for each party, since the parties might not be equal in terms of representation of big and small states.  Then, over the past however many Congresses you care to look at, count how many leadership positions went to members from each quartile.

The other complication that you don't mention is redistricting and gerrymandering in large states vs. small states.  Large states are more likely to gain or lose seats every 10 years, and may be more likely to see more significant changes in district lines from redistricting.  OTOH, with a large state, you can have more extremely gerrymandered districts (e.g., one could only go so far in gerrymandering New Hampshire, since there are only two districts to work with), and once someone has made it into the House leadership, or simply built up some seniority, they might have enough clout to get their district gerrymandered into a safe seat forever.