Partisan Asymmetries in Earmark Representation

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231175865
• Author: Chris Cassella,EJ Fagan,Sean M. Theriault
• Date: 01 December 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2023, Vol. 76(4) 1794–1804

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129231175865

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Partisan Asymmetries in Earmark

Representation

Chris Cassella

1

, EJ Fagan

2

, and Sean M. Theriault

1



Abstract

This paper examines how Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives vary in their earmarking

behavior. After a 10-year moratorium, Congress enabling members to request small grants for community programs in

their districts in the 2021 appropriations process. As part of a reform designed to limit corruption and wasteful spending,

members had to submit written justif‌ications for the grants, which provides insight into how members of Congress view

their role as representatives. In performing a content analysis on 3007 earmark justif‌ications, we f‌ind that Democrats are

more likely to name the specif‌ic social groups comprising their party coalition in their justif‌ications; Republicans rarely do

so. Democrats are also more likely to request grants on their core partisan priorities, while Republicans tend to focus on

large local infrastructure projects that are seemingly unrelated to their national priorities. Finally, we f‌ind some, but

limited, evidence that earmark requests are a result of the different kinds of districts that members represen t.

Keywords

public policy, political parties, legislative studies, Earmarks

After a 10-year moratorium, members of Congress could

once again in 2021 request relatively small grants for

individual projects within their districts or states through

the earmarking process. As part of procedural reforms

designed to bring more transparency to the process,

members of Congress had to provide written justif‌ications

for how their earmarks would help their local commu-

nities. Through these justif‌ications, we analyze both the

specif‌ic policymaking dynamics of the earmarking pro-

cess and the variation in how the political parties represent

their constituents.

Although representation has long been tied to con-

stituencies (Fenno 1977;Fiorina 1973), Grossman and

Hopkins (2016) more recently have discovered that it

varies systematically by party. Using a variety of docu-

ments such as State of the Union addresses, party plat-

forms, and congressional f‌loor speeches, they f‌ind that

Democrats tend to adopt a transactional or distributional

approach to representation, while Republicans tend to

adopt a symbolic approach. This variation, according to

Grossman and Hopkins, is caused by the composition of

the parties’coalitions. The Democratic coalition is

composed of many disconnected social groups (Stanley

and Niemi 2006), while the Republican coalition is much

more homogenous. Democratic social groups expect

elected off‌icials to deliver specif‌ic policy goals in return

for their support. The Republican Party has fewer groups

to service, allowing it to develop a more coherent sym-

bolic message.

In this paper we test the asymmetric politics theory by

examining earmark request justif‌ications. First, we imbed

the Grossman and Hopkins (2016) into the larger repre-

sentation literature in developing our argument that party

differences can be revealed even in earmarks. Second, we

describe how we collected and used members’3007

earmark requests for FY2022 to identify target pop-

ulations, policy content, and program type in the justif‌i-

cations. Third, we show strong support for partisan

asymmetries in how members of Congress use earmark

requests to represent their constituents. Democrats are

more likely to specify the program benef‌its to core

constituencies, especially those belonging to their coali-

tion, than are Republicans. Fourth, we discern no coherent

issue agenda among Republican earmark requests. In the

1

University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

2

University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Corresponding Author:

EJ Fagan, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 West Harrison Street,

Chicago, IL 60607, USA.

Email: EJFAGAN@UIC.EDU