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with progressive ambition should introduce larger amounts of legislation (measured as the
number of public bills introduced by the member) and be more active on the floor (measured as
the number of speeches and amendments offered relevant to public bills) to establish a record of
concern and to garner needed media attention (Schlesinger 1966; Prewitt and Nowlin 1969; Van
Der Slik and Pernacciaro 1979; Cook 1986; and Hibbing 1986). Furthermore, higher office-
seekers desire media attention which can be garnered through floor activity and introducing
legislation (Cook 1986, 1989). " (Herrick and Moore 1993). More recently, Maestas (2003)
shows that state legislators expecting higher office spend more time monitoring their
voters' preferences. Victor (2005) finds that representatives running for the Senate tend
to show "more specialization in their speech making behavior than their less ambitious
counterparts, except during the term in which they campaign for higher office."
Similarly, Treul (2008) recognizes that Senators expecting a jump to the presidency are
more cohesive than the rest of their colleagues. Thus, the Uterature has taken the impact
of progressive ambition over legislative performance into account, not only static
ambition. However, as already mentioned, "progressive" means "moving up" in the
American context. "Moving up" means jumping from a local to a state-level arena, and
from a state-level to a federal position. A single legislator's progressive goal could be
either to run for the Senate or directly for the presidency. Given that just three spots are
available in these positions and those usually involve an incumbent and/or other strong
candidates; pursuing continuous reelection is a good strategy in equiUbrium.
How should a progressively ambitious legislator behave in a context where she
expects an executive subnational position? The theoretical expectation suggests that she
might try to bias part of her political and legislative activity towards signaling voters,
party leaders, or any actor that might affect her chances of running and winning the