Limited Time, Limited Resources: Trade-Offs in Congressional Earmarking and Policymaking

• Published date: 01 July 2019
• Date: 01 July 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X18763885
• Subject Matter: Articles

763885APRXXX10.1177/1532673X18763885American Politics ResearchGuenther and Searle
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American Politics Research
2019, Vol. 47(4) 832 –851
Limited Time, Limited
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Offs in Congressional
Earmarking and
Policymaking
Scott M. Guenther1 and David M. Searle2
Abstract
Earmarks are an important tool of a legislators’ reelection strategy, as
they provide a prime opportunity to benefit their district and increase
their chances at reelection. Yet, some legislators secure substantially more
earmarks than others. Our study offers a new explanation for why this
occurs. With limited legislative resources at their disposal, members of
Congress are forced to make trade-offs in how they allocate their resources
among legislative activities. In a world with resource constraints, members
less engaged in earmarking are likely engaged in policymaking activities.
We take advantage of new earmark and policymaking data to explore this
hypothesized negative relationship between earmarking and policymaking
effort. We find that legislators who exert greater effort on policymaking
secure significantly fewer earmark dollars.
Keywords
Congress, distributive politics, social networks, earmarks, legislative politics
1Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
2Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
Corresponding Author:
Scott M. Guenther, Princeton University, 429 Robertson Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Email: scottmg@princeton.edu

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Guenther and Searle
833
Introduction
Appropriation earmarks have long been a common element of many legisla-
tors’ Washington strategies. With an eye toward reelection, the logic of pursu-
ing earmarks is straightforward. Earmarks allow publicity seeking legislators
to claim credit for the funding of popular local projects, which in turn boosts
their recognition and favorability (Grimmer, 2013; Mayhew, 1974). But
securing earmarks is not costless. Members of Congress (MCs) must employ
nonnegligible amounts of resource and effort to pursue earmarks or other
legislative activities. Time and congressional staff resources are finite and
impose practical restrictions on the activities of MCs. The constraints
imposed by limited legislative resources force MCs to make trade-offs in the
degree of effort dedicated to other types of legislative activities, such as over-
sight, policymaking, or fundraising. The primary consequence of legislators’
finite resources is that effort in one arena of legislating may come at the
expense of realizing other opportunities.
Traditional explanations of earmark procurement center around the insti-
tutional position of MCs (Engstrom & Vanberg, 2010; Lee, 2005). Although
theories of distributive politics centering on institutional rank perform well in
explaining the sizable differences in earmarking success between majority
and minority status MCs, as well as chairmen and backbenchers, they offer
little theoretical insight into the significant variation in earmarking within the
party caucus. Despite the power of seniority and of majority party status
(Balla, Lawrence, Maltzman, & Sigelman, 2002; Levitt & Snyder, 1995),
some MCs well positioned to secure earmarks receive far fewer than their
rank would predict. Credit claiming under constrained resources helps
explain the discrepancy. The pursuit of earmarks and other legislative oppor-
tunities, such as policymaking, is not costless.
To illustrate this theory of legislative trade-offs, we track MCs’ success in
the earmarking process against an alternative legislative activity: policymak-
ing. We enlist a dataset of earmarks from the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) that directly identifies sponsors of an earmarked project as
well as a novel measure of policymaking effort developed by J. H. Fowler
(2006a). Rather than rely on members’ legislative output as a measure of
effort, a measure highly endogenous to seniority and majority party status,
our policymaking effort statistic measures MCs level of interconnectedness
in bill cosponsorship developed from cultivating legislative coalitions in sup-
port of their preferred policies. This measure of policymaking effort does not
directly suffer from the endogenous advantages associated with majority
party status. Our analysis shows a statistically and substantively significant
inverse relationship between earmarking success and proactive engagement

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American Politics Research 47(4)
in the policymaking sphere. Put simply, some MCs work harder to secure
earmarks whereas others are more dedicated to the policymaking process.
The result is robust to a variety of alternative policymaking actions that can-
not be readily restricted by the majority’s agenda setting power, including an
MC’s number of bills introduced, as well as the number of floor speeches.
Although a change to majority party status still produces the largest marginal
increase in earmark dollars, the magnitude of change for 25th percentile to
75th percentile shift in policymaking effort is greater than the change associ-
ated with a shift in any other predictor.
Past Literature
Past research explaining variation in earmark procurement largely focuses on
how institutional biases and district preferences position certain MCs to
secure a greater number of earmarks (Engstrom & Vanberg, 2010; Lee, 2005;
Shepsle & Weingast, 1981; Weingast, 1979). Members of the Appropriations
Committee (Ferejohn, 1974), as well as more senior members, tend to receive
more earmarks than their colleagues (Engstrom & Vanberg, 2010; Ferejohn,
1974; Lee, 2005). However, despite the distributive benefits of seniority, lon-
ger tenured members do not secure a greater allocation of discretionary fed-
eral spending (A. Fowler & Hall, 2015).1 Members representing districts
ideologically predisposed to disagree with earmarked spending projects seek
and receive fewer earmarks (Alvarez & Saving, 1997).
Theoretical and empirical work also find that political parties strategically
dole out pork to maximize electoral opportunities (Ferejohn, 1974). Majority
party status both predicts greater earmark allotments (Engstrom & Vanberg,
2010), as well as a corresponding bump in electoral performance upon their
receipt (Balla et al., 2002; Crespin & Finocchiaro, 2013). More broadly, the
total amount of discretionary federal spending is higher in a legislator’s dis-
trict if they are a member of the majority party (Lee, 2005; Levitt & Snyder,
1995; Rundquist & Carsey, 2002). Earmarks may not be the exclusive mech-
anism for MCs to steer money toward their districts, but it is the most
visible.
Partisan distribution of earmarks is another way in which the majority
party takes care of its marginal members (Cox & McCubbins, 1993; Rohde,
1991; Sinclair, 2007). Jenkins and Monroe (2012) show that donations by
party leaders’ support party members most ideologically predisposed to coor-
dinate with the minority. It is unsurprising to then find that moderate mem-
bers are more likely to highlight particularized spending projects secured for
their district, perhaps allocated for their loyalty on party votes (Grimmer,
2013). Although widely disparaged by both voters and politicians alike,

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Guenther and Searle
835
earmarks remain popular when in voters’ own districts, which explains why
MCs want them as a means to increase their reelection chances (Frisch, 1998;
Hibbing & Theiss-Morse, 1995). Party leaders take advantage of this rela-
tionship and often use earmarks to gain legislators’ support for the passage of
legislation (Evans, 2004).
The extant literature paints a picture where most legislators seek earmarks
and receive them. Although parties strategically allocate earmarks to their
coalitions’ more vulnerable members, most MCs nevertheless receive some.
Additional insights into why we observe differences in earmark acquisition
within each political party are lacking. Yet, earmarks represent one of several
legislative opportunities available to legislators with diverse interests and
constituencies. These differences in desire to pursue certain legislative activi-
ties, in concert with the inherent limits on resources available to MCs, lead to
a specialization in effort.
The variation with which MCs describe their Washington behavior to their
constituents suggests real differences in what MCs prioritize with their time.
Numerous studies point to idiosyncratic constraints on the resources of legis-
lators, and how these constraints force MCs into difficult trade-offs. MCs
exiled from preferred committee assignments compensate by shifting their
effort toward more district-oriented activities to maintain their reelection
prospects (Grimmer & Powell, 2013). The size of senators’ constituencies
(Lee & Oppenheimer, 1999), district proximity to Washington (Fenno, 1978)
and, most simply, the underlying partisanship of a member’s district
(Grimmer, Messing, & Westwood, 2012; Lazarus, 2010) all alter the balance
of resources MCs dedicate to different legislative activities. We extend this
work into distributive politics where MCs must decide which legislative
activity to pursue.
Theory
Previous research on the legislative behavior of MCs often focuses on two
areas of specialization: distributive politics and policymaking. Mayhew
(1974) posited that MCs will skew their...