Different Houses: The Distribution of Earmarks in the U.S. House and Senate

Abstract

Nearly all studies of pork‐barrel politics in the U.S. Congress focus on the House, biasing our conception of how politics influences federal spending and skewing our attention toward factors that are active in the House. This article highlights differences between the Senate and House in how pork is allocated. We identify four important differences between the House and Senate, generate hypotheses regarding how each difference should influence the distribution of pork projects, and test these hypotheses using data from earmarks in the Appropriations bills passed by the two chambers for fiscal year 2008. The results support three of our four hypotheses, suggesting that senators are driven by different motivations than House members. These results imply that theoretical accounts of pork‐barrel spending need to account for these interchamber differences. Our findings also highlight how studies of legislative behavior, more generally, need to account for important differences in legislative structure and organization.

Bargaining and Bicameralism

“…However, the incentives for upper‐house legislators differ markedly, since they are concerned with the total allocation across their state. (This is consistent with the empirical findings in Lee [] and Lazarus and Steigerwalt [] that the statewide interests of upper‐house legislators differ from the parochial interests of lower‐house legislators from the same state.) When recognized, an upper‐house legislator will allocate funds across each of the districts within his state.…”

Earmarks and Subcommittee Government in the U.S. Congress

“…The growing literature on earmarks has, for various reasons, typically examined just a single type of earmark (e.g., Balla et al's, 2002, analysis of academic earmarks and Lee's, 2003, study of projects included in the 1998 transportation authorization bill) or pooled all earmarks irrespective of the appropriations bill in which the project was included (e.g., Engstrom & Vanberg, 2010;Lazarus, 2009Lazarus, , 2010Lazarus & Steigerwalt, 2009;Shepsle et al, 2009). The primary interest of these research endeavors was to uncover broad partisan and/or electoral dynamics affecting the allocation of earmarks.…”

Women, Earmarks, and Substantive Representation

“…Through the examination of earmarks received by members in fiscal year 2008 Lazarus and Steigerwalt (2009) identify variables that influenced the earmark distribution; they find that organizational features, such as majority partisan control, affect individual member success. Their findings are supported by earlier, more policy-specific studies of funding requests in Congress that found institutional power (i.e., leadership in party and committee assignments) influences success in funding allocation (Balla et al 2002;Hird 1991;Roberts 1990).…”

“…Only recently have scholars studied congressional earmarks in the aggregate, especially as a dependent variable (Lazarus 2009;Lazarus and Steigerwalt 2009). Through the examination of earmarks received by members in fiscal year 2008 Lazarus and Steigerwalt (2009) identify variables that influenced the earmark distribution; they find that organizational features, such as majority partisan control, affect individual member success.…”