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In this paper we establish the institutional conditions under which the median legislator is expected to be able to dictate redistribution in advanced parliamentary democracies. This is, we argue, under the requirement of an investiture vote. The absence of an investiture vote allows the government to operate autonomously with respect to the legislative, whereas an investiture vote makes the latter (and thus the median) more influential for policymaking. We run cabinet-based dynamic models for 21 OECD parliamentary democracies for the period 1948-2010 and find that there is a conditional effect of the preferences of the median legislator on redistribution. Where no investiture vote is needed, the fluctuations of redistribution are induced by the preferences of cabinet parties. Rather, under an investiture vote, it is the preferences of the median legislator party that appear to drive redistribution.