All the President's Senators: Presidential Co-Partisans and the Allocation of Federal Grants
Presidential copartisan senators secure more federal grant dollars for their states than opposition party senators, and presidents target grants to states that gain copartisan senators.
Why It Matters
The publication begins with a motivating question: Do presidential politics shape distributive outcomes in the Senate, specifically in the allocation of federal grants across states?
Its central contribution is to show that presidential copartisan senators secure more federal grant dollars for their states than opposition party senators, and presidents target grants to states that gain copartisan senators.
It matters because the findings connect institutional choices to the way authority, public responsibility, and political behavior are experienced in practice.
Key Findings
- Presidential copartisan senators are more successful than opposition party senators in securing federal grant dollars for their states.
- Presidents target grants ex post to states that gain presidential copartisans in recent elections.
- The number of presidential copartisan senators is a strong predictor of per capita grant spending a state receives.
- No similar effect is found for federal retirement and disability spending, which is not subject to political influence.
Research Design
- Design
- Article
- Data
- Consolidated Federal Funds Reports (CFFR) for state-level federal grant allocations
- Geography
- United States (all 50 states)
- Time Period
- 1984 to 2008
- Unit of Analysis
- state-year
- Methods
- Quantitative analysis of state-level federal grant allocations from 1984 to 2008.; Least squares regression models with state and year fixed effects, standard errors clustered on state.; Control variables for majority party status, committee membership, electoral vulnerability, and House delegation partisanship.; Placebo test using retirement and disability spending.
Full Abstract
Analyzing the allocation of more than $8.5 trillion of federal grants across the states from 1984 to 2008, we show that presidential copartisan senators are more successful than opposition party members in securing federal dollars for their home states. Moreover, presidents appear to target grants ex post to states that gain presidential copartisans in recent elections.
Citation
Legislative Studies Quarterly 42 (2): 269-294.
- Venue
- Legislative Studies Quarterly
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 269-294
- DOI
- 10.1111/lsq.12160