Pursuing the Pork in a State Legislature: A Research Note

Abstract

This note extends an earlier analysis of barrel in North Carolina by examining several individual-level variables. Our findings indicate that partisanship is the most important determinant of success in obtaining discretionary funds for local projects. Of secondary importance is party loyalty. Once partisan factors are accounted for, other variables that decide barrel success (longevity or electoral vulnerability) are determined by the leadership in each house. Thus, the formula for barrel success is likely to vary from state to state, chamber to chamber, and leader to leader. It's like a pig trough. The little pigs get squeezed out and the big pigs take it all. That's the way it is in the General Assembly. -Republican legislator's analogy of the barrel process in North Carolina. Given the fact that pork barrel politics is deeply imbedded in our legislative culture, it is surprising that relatively little research examines this process. What little we do know pertains to the process at the congressional level. In a recent article, Thompson (1986) has taken a step toward remedying this situation. That article describes the barrel process in the North Carolina legislature, proposing and testing several explanations of barrel success. In this paper we seek to extend the research by discussing several other variables of possible relevance. These are individual-level variables often associated with decisionmaking in the legislative arena: party loyalty, legislative longevity, and electoral margin.