Distributive Politics and Party Participation in the U.S. House

Abstract

A range of research shows that distributive spending is allocated disproportionately to members in positions of power or who contribute to collective efforts. In this article, I ask whether House members who participate in their party caucus’ internal organizations enjoy earmarking advantages either as a direct benefit or by avoiding earmarking losses that are usually associated with declining electoral vulnerability. Adding new data on party involvement to several earmarking data sets, I find mixed evidence. Democratic party participants enjoyed somewhat better outcomes in the 1990s, but this result does not hold in other contexts. Evidence from the traditional pork barrel area of transportation earmarks supports the expectation that the electoral vulnerability effect is confined to nonparticipants, but this pattern does not appear for Appropriations earmarks in the 2000s. The results suggest that contributions to party goals can relate to distributive outcomes but that the effects vary by issue and party context.