Office-Holding Premia and Representative Democracy

I consider a policy issue stylized as redistribution in a representative democracy in which holding o ce o ers an income premium. Predominance of high earners in the legislature likely implies that not a single lawmaker shares the policy preferences of lower- income citizens, because it arises in only two ways. First, chance favors high-income candidates while in the majority of districts, the strict majority of political candidates are lower-income citizens, which seems counterfactual. Second, high o ce-holding premia induce legislators from all backgrounds to oppose redistribution once in o ce. Either legislators are recruited from an elite, or some forget where they came from.