How do legislative conditions aect candidate selection? I study a formal model in which parties choose candidates for a position as legislative representative. Independent of electoral incentives, legislative considerations lead parties to strategically prefer more centrist representatives. Adding electoral incentives, I characterize how legislative features such as majority status, legislature polarization, and the quality of status quo policies influence incumbent re-election rates, candidate divergence, and the size of ideological swings between successive officeholders. For example, increasing majority-party agenda setting power decreases re-election rates for majority-party incumbents under broad conditions, but minority-party incumbents win more often.