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Legislature size impacts democracy quality. However, we know surprisingly little about how the rent-seeking motivations of politicians influence its choice, despite the extensive research on how these very incentives shape political regimes or electoral systems. This article helps to fill this gap by examining an expansion wave in 2,000+ municipal legislatures in Brazil, where local executives often use patronage to acquire the legislators’ support. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that the higher the mayoral coalition in the council, the lower the likelihood that legislators expand it. I interpret this finding within a logic where politicians decide whether or not to expand legislatures based on a trade-off between better reelection prospects and a dilution in rents: while the former benefits all legislators, the latter particularly hurts coalition councilors. Consistently, this effect is higher in municipalities with more patronage, and when councilors are less concerned with their reelection chances.
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