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An Electoral History of the Pork Barrel
in his veto message to congress regarding the Maysville Road bill, which would have allowed the federal government to purchase stock in the company created to build a road between Maysville and Lexington, Kentucky, President Andrew Jackson wrote the following: The constitutional power of the Federal Government to construct or promote works of internal improvement presents itself in two points of view—the first as bearing upon the sovereignty of the States within whose limits their execution is contemplated. . . . In the first view the question of power is an open one, and can be decided without the embarrassments attending the other, arising from the practice of the Government. Although frequently and strenuously attempted, the power to this extent has never been exercised by the Government in a single instance. It does not, in my opinion, possess it; and no bill, therefore, which admits it can receive my official sanction. (Jackson 1830)
The general argument presented in the first chapter of this book is that political polarization conditions the electoral effects of federal distributive spending. That discussion highlighted two potential directions for these conditioning effects. The view common to much of the literature 41
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on distributive benefits presents the collection of these benefits as almost apolitical. Although different groups may favor certain types of projects and programs as opposed to others, as a whole the pork barrel is part of incumbency advantage. Members of Congress secure funding for the programs favored by their constituents and reap the electoral benefits of these efforts. In this way, I contrasted credit claiming for this spending with position taking, which emphasizes stances and votes on the issues salient to the electorate. If the pork barrel is merely another form of casework (Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina 1987), its electoral effects should be consistently positive. If political polarization conditions the electoral effects of the pork barrel at all, one would expect pork to have its strongest effects during periods of low polarization. When polarization is high, it is expected that voters will pay greater attention to positions their representatives have taken than to the in-district benefits those representatives have been able to secure. Despite the prevalence of this view, I argue that the pork barrel is an ideological issue. Far from being a collection of programs for which incumbents get to claim credit, federal particularistic spending is, and always has been, an issue on which the parties, and the ideological groupings associated with them, have differed. Jackson’s veto message highlights this ideologically based reaction to federal spending—the pork barrel as part of the broader issues of federal power and influence. This chapter begins by discussing the historical development of the pork barrel as an ideological and partisan issue. It concludes with a long-term, aggregate analysis of House election outcomes and public-works spending. The results demonstrate that public-works spending carries electoral benefits for Democrats and electoral costs for Republicans, and that these relationships are strongest during periods of heightened polarization.
A Brief History of the Pork Barrel as an Ideological Issue “Pork barrel” is a pejorative term for a collection of supposedly wasteful federally funded projects—wasteful in the sense that the benefits of these projects are geographically concentrated, meaning that taxpayers are 42
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forced to fund many projects from which they receive little or no direct benefit. Pork barreling is also a process, a means of creating and passing legislation. Decrying the growth of the pork barrel in the early twentieth century, Chester Maxey (1919) equated the pork barrel with the use of the omnibus bill as a means of appropriating money for river and harbor projects. Pork barreling in this sense is the process by which multiple projects are combined into one piece of legislation to vastly increase the prospects for each project. When these projects were voted on individually, many of them failed, presumably because of the highly concentrated nature of the benefits. While logrolling tended to increase the likelihood of funding projects, the individualized nature of river and harbor appropriations was much too slow to meet the demands of constituents, and by extension their representatives, for federal money. The omnibus was an effective solution to the collective-action problem of project funding and a driver of universalism in the distribution of benefits. Placing nearly everyone’s project in the omnibus guaranteed a sizable majority coalition in support of the single bill, with support for “bad” projects buoyed by support for “good” projects, as the fortunes of both were inexorably tied together (Maxey 1919). The idea of the federal pork barrel is as old as the republic itself, even if its meaning and composition have changed dramatically over nearly two-and-a-half centuries. In its purest ideological form, opinions on the use of federal funds are part of one’s attitudes regarding the size, scope, and influence of the federal government. Alexander Hamilton arguably contributed more than any other politician of the early republic to polarization on this issue through his economic plan for the nation. To Hamilton, internal improvements, as such spending was called throughout the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, would bring much needed development to the new nation, placing it on a stronger footing to compete with the long-established nations of Europe (Hostetler 2011; O’Hara 2008; Wood 2009).1 Opposition to Hamilton’s plan emphasized the strengthening of federal authority that would result from its provisions, to the detriment of state and local autonomy, and became the catalyst for organized opposition to the Federalist Party (Wood 2009). Thus, from the outset, federal spending was inseparable from federal power, and partisan/ideological divisions over such issues would only strengthen over the next several decades. 43
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Although the Federalist Party would disappear not long after the birth of the republic, federal spending on public works would remain a hotly debated issue well into the nineteenth century. As the Era of Good Feelings came to a close, federal funding for internal improvements would appear as one of the central aspects of Henry Clay’s “American System” and become an article of faith for the Whig Party (Heidler and Heidler 2010; Holt 1999). As strongly as Whigs favored federally sponsored projects, Democrats were just as firm in their resistance. Especially as slavery became the single issue in American national politics, the Democratic Party would forcefully reject any exertion or growth of federal influence, except when that influence was directed toward protecting and expanding the South’s “peculiar institution” (Howe 2007). The common ideological thread linking Hamilton’s economic plan and Clay’s American System is the use of federal largesse to increase the influence of the central government. For proponents of this positive government, the power and treasure of the federal government could be directed toward improving the infrastructure of the nation, thereby increasing commerce and the economic well-being of all of the states. Opponents, however, feared that expanding federal influence in one sphere would expand federal influence in all spheres. After the party of Jefferson and Madison split, the Jacksonian Democratic Party developed an almost reflexive resistance to any exertion of federal power, except when that power was used specifically to protect and promote slavery. As slavery becomes the defining issue of the republic during the Jacksonian era, all other issues reflective of federal power, including and especially federally funded internal improvements, become key points of disagreement between the major parties. In discussing river and harbor legislation, one of the largest sources of distributive spending until the middle of the twentieth century (Ferejohn 1974; Maxey 1919), Chester Maxey notes that, starting from 1829, “despite strenuous attempts in every session of congress, there was no omnibus waterway legislation of any moment except in the year 1852 until after the Civil War” (1919, 692). From the inauguration of George Washington until the Civil War, federal distributive spending existed as an issue on which the major parties were polarized. In a remarkable study of nineteenth-century distributive 44
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spending, Gordon and Simpson (2018) found that modern explanations for the distribution of pork (e.g., universalism) fail to explain legislator support for and opposition to this spending. The best explanation is the legislator’s partisan-ideological preferences. The pork barrel would change after Reconstruction, however, as the nation entered an era of unbridled industrial growth with a growing thirst for federal backing of all manner of projects (Cashman 1993). Once the federal government essentially gave up policing the South, the Democratic Party, especially given the need to rebuild the South to compete with northern industry, becomes more disposed to federal public-works spending. While the Republican Party had inherited a preference for such spending from its Whig predecessor, this desire grew even more as the West developed, and as private interests found myriad ways of influencing public policy (Cashman 1993; Gordon and Simpson 2018). Given its dominance in national politics during this era, it seems inevitable that the taint of corruption in these private/public partnerships should tar the Republican Party, leaving within the rank and file a subgroup of people as distrustful of federal influence in most matters as were antebellum Democrats. Despite the growth of progressive, anticorruption sentiment, the pork barrel would grow throughout the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, encompassing a wide variety of programs and projects, including the aforementioned river and harbor spending, public buildings (especially post offices), and agricultural spending (Maxey 1919). Modern ideological preferences regarding government spending generally, and distributive spending specifically, developed as the nation grappled with the Great Depression. In an interesting reversal from its antebellum history, the Democratic Party developed with an emphasis on positive government as the nation entered the New Deal era (Hartz 1955; Hoover et al. 2001; Skocpol 1983). This new liberalism embraced state action. At its heart, the New Deal sought to protect the liberty and economic well-being of citizens through government intervention, including the use of large amounts of government spending on public works and other programs distributive in nature. Modern conservatism, developing within the Republican Party, responded by pushing back against many types of government spending (Nisbet 1984; 45
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Rossiter 1982). As New Deal liberalism concentrated on government intervention to regulate economic and social equality, modern conservatism emphasized a return to the status quo of limited government, especially in relation to the economy. Philosophically, conservatism, as the name suggests, is rooted in aspects of tradition and resistance to radical change (Rossiter 1982). Insofar as New Deal liberalism represented a radical change in the nature of the role of government, particularly in the use of government programs, modern conservatism would oppose this growth in government intervention (Nisbet 1984). In the second half of the twentieth century, it can be argued, the nature of federal spending, or at least what the mass public thinks about when prompted about government spending, changed. Government spending up through the beginning of the New Deal era was likely more closely entwined with distributive spending than it would be as the nation transitioned out of the 1930s. The New Deal, and especially the Great Society of the 1960s, vastly increased federal spending on socialwelfare programs.2 These changes occurred during a period that saw the beginning of the Cold War and significant growth in military spending. Over the past fifty years, this spending has encompassed more than 50 percent of the federal budget year after year (Executive Office of the President of the United States 2012); it is redistributive spending over which the parties have more visibly fought. Despite its decreased salience, reactions to the pork barrel are still rooted in the ideological fabric of the parties, giving them the potential to become divisive if conditions are right.
Data and Methods Polarization has conditioned the effects of pork barrel spending on election outcomes since the end of Reconstruction. To illustrate this, I present analyses of aggregate House election results from 1878, just after the conclusion of the Reconstruction era, through 2012. As previously noted, one small drawback to much of the work on distributive benefits is that the empirical analyses are limited to the most recent era, with data sets typically starting in 1983, the first year for which FAADS data are 46
“Providing new insights about a very old practice of government, Pork Barrel Politics details how pork barrel spending operates and shapes congressional politics and policy making over the history of the Republic in an exhaustive and comprehensive analysis. Sidman demonstrates how legislators use and benefit from pork barrel spending, affecting a host of electoral and policy outcomes. A crucial book.” —ROBERT STEIN, coauthor of Perpetuating the Pork Barrel: Policy Subsystems and American Democracy
“A comprehensive and timely study, Pork Barrel Politics traces the history of distributive spending in Congress and its relation to congressional elections at the primary and general election stages. Sidman finds that the effects of distributive benefits vary across parties and can include significant indirect effects by deterring potential party primary challengers.” —GREGORY KOGER, University of Miami “This book engages in a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between party and pork barrel spending, presents a robust body of evidence, and—most importantly—models the effects of party polarization.” —DANIEL PALAZZOLO, author of The Speaker and the Budget: Leadership in the Post-Reform House of Representatives ANDREW H. SIDMAN is associate professor of political science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
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“Sidman convincingly explains why Republicans and Democrats respond so differently to the pork barrel, once thought to be an unambiguous benefit to all members of Congress, and why the impact of pork barreling has varied over time. His central insight is that the electoral impact of pork depends on the type of benefits awarded and on levels of polarization. A rich historical account with persuasive theory and wide-ranging, sophisticated empirical analysis.” —DIANA EVANS, author of Greasing the Wheels: Using Pork Barrel Projects to Build Majority Coalitions in Congress
COVER PHOTOGRAPHS: TAKUMA NAKAHIRA © GEN NAKAHIRA COURTESY OF OSIRIS
Conventional wisdom holds that legislators who bring “pork”—federal funds for local projects—back home to their districts are better able to fend off potential challengers. Andrew H. Sidman offers a systematic explanation for how political polarization affects the electoral influence of district-level federal spending. During periods of low polarization, pork barrel spending has little impact, but when polarization is high, it affects primary competition, campaign spending, and vote share in general elections. Pork Barrel Politics is an empirically rich account of the surprising repercussions of bringing pork home, with important consequences in our polarized era.