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Pork Politics: How Earmarks Affect Voter Behavior and Federal Campaigns Travis Braidwood

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Pork Politics: How Earmarks Affect Voter Behavior and Federal Campaigns Travis Braidwood Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2013 Pork Politics: How Earmarks Affect Voter Behavior and Federal Campaigns Travis Braidwood Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND PUBLIC POLICY PORK POLITICS: HOW EARMARKS AFFECT VOTER BEHAVIOR AND FEDERAL CAMPAIGNS By TRAVIS BRAIDWOOD A dissertation submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2013 Travis Braidwood defended this dissertation on June 18, 2013. The members of the supervisory committee were: Cherie Maestas Professor Directing Dissertation Lance DeHaven-Smith University Representative Robert Jackson Committee Member Brad Gomez Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks to my dissertation committee: Bob Jackson, Cherie Maestas, Brad Gomez and Lance DeHaven-Smith for volunteering to help me through this long process. Thanks as well to my friend and colleague Scott Clifford for his assistance in making this project possible. I would like to thank the Claude Pepper Center and Jennifer Jerit for their time and resources that permitted me and several other professors and graduate students to conduct experiments in a controlled laboratory setting. I would like to thank Dale Smith, the Political Science Department at Florida State University, and, again, Cherie Maestas for availing me of opportunities to aid in data collection, including the Research Intensive Baccalaureate Certificate (RIBC) Program, and the option to teach several unique undergraduate courses. Thanks to these opportunities, I was able to recruit undergraduate students to assist in the data collection process, which saved me countless hours. Finally, I would like to thank my father, Ken, mother, Patricia, and sister, Jordan, as well as my close friends. Thank you all for always sticking by me and encouraging me to pursue my goals to the fullest. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES viii LIST OF FIGURES ix ABSTRACT x 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Defining Earmarks 3 1.2 Outline 7 2 THEORY AND DESIGN 9 2.1 Pork in the Eyes of Members: Needs and Motivations 9 2.2 Earmarks and Elections 13 2.2.1 The Rewards of the Enlightened 15 2.2.2 New Bridge, What Bridge? The Reality of the Unaware Voter 17 2.2.3 Rewarding Those Who Reward: Earmarks and Campaign Contributions 20 3 MEASURING EARMARKS 23 3.1 Data Accuracy and Sources 24 4 WHO BENEFITS FROM EARMARKS, AND WHY? 28 4.1 Getting Pork: Which Representatives Receive Earmarks? 28 4.2 Getting Pork: Which Senators Receive Earmarks and Why? 33 4.3 Frightened Into Action: Electoral Vulnerability and Effort to Secure Earmarks 37 5 DESIRABLE PORK: DO VOTERS REWARD FOR EARMARK ACQUISITION? 45 5.1 Introduction 45 5.2 Awareness, Credit Claiming, and Desirability 47 5.2.1 Credit Claiming 48 5.2.2 Issue Framing 50 5.2.3 Issue Publics 51 5.3 Hypotheses 52 5.4 Experimental Design 54 iv 5.4.1 Study 1 55 5.4.2 Results of Study 1 56 5.4.3 Study 2 59 5.4.4 Results of Study 2 61 5.4.5 Study 3 64 5.4.6 Results of Study 3 65 5.5 Conclusion 67 6 MYSTERIOUS PORK: THE LACK OF CITIZEN AWARENESS OF EARMARKS 70 6.1 Introduction 70 6.2 Earmarks and Electoral Behavior 71 6.2.1 Self-Interest, Information, and Electoral Rewards 73 6.3 Data Sources 76 6.3.1 Data Accuracy 77 6.4 Methodology 79 6.4.1 Model 1: Project Recall: 2008 CCES 79 6.4.2 Measuring Media Coverage 80 6.5 Results 81 6.5.1 2008 CCES Survey 81 6.6 Approval and Support 86 6.6.1 Pork and Approval 86 6.6.2 Earmarks and Support for the Procuring Incumbent 89 6.7 Conclusion 92 7 PORK AND CAMPAIGNING: FINANCIAL BENEFITS OF EARMARKING 95 7.1 The Entangled Campaign Process 97 7.2 Pork and Campaigning: Financial Benefits of Earmarking 100 7.2.1 Contributions for Projects Theory: Are Earmarks the Result of Campaign Contributions? 103 7.3 Data and Methods 104 7.4 Results 106 7.5 Conclusion 109 8 CONCLUSION 111 8.1 Earmarks and Institutions 112 8.2 Earmarks and Electoral Outcomes 113 8.3 The Future of Research Regarding Pork Politics 115 A SUPPORTING MATERIAL TO CHAPTER 4 117 v B SUPPORTING MATERIAL TO CHAPTER 5 123 C SUPPORTING MATERIAL TO CHAPTER 6 135 D SUPPORTING MATERIAL TO CHAPTER 7 150 BIBLIOGRAPHY 151 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 161 vi LIST OF TABLES 4.1 Representatives Securing Earmarks, Fiscal Years 2008-2010 31 4.2 Senators Securing Earmarks, Fiscal Years 2008-2010 35 4.3 Regression of Past Earmarks on Future Vote, Freshmen Only 39 4.4 2SLS Model Predicting Pork’s Effect on Future Vote Share 42 5.1 The Effect of Positively Framed Pork Treatments on Support for Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Summer 2011 57 5.2 The Effect of Positively Framed Pork Treatments on Support for Rep. Miller (R, FL-1st), Fall 2011 62 5.3 The Effect of Negatively Framed Pork Treatments on Support for Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Spring 2012 66 6.1 Project Recall, CCES 2008 82 6.2 Senator and Representative Approval, CCES 2008 87 6.3 Pork and Incumbent Support, CCES 2008 90 7.1 The Effect of Contributions on Freshmen Representatives Securing Earmarks 107 A.1 Freshmen Representatives Securing Earmarks, Fiscal Years 2008-2010 117 A.2 Heckman Two-Step Estimation of Earmark Acquisition 119 A.3 State Population and Representatives Securing Earmarks, Fiscal Years 2008-2010 120 B.1 The Effect of Pork Treatment on Support for Rep. Miller (R, FL-1st) 123 B.2 Number of Subject Surveys and the Effect of Pork Treatments on Support for Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) 124 B.3 Disaggregated Dependent Variables, Study 1 (Summer 2011, Sen. Nelson) 125 B.4 Disaggregated Dependent Variables, Study 2 (Fall 2011, Rep. Jeff Miller) 125 B.5 List of Utilized Local Newspapers 127 B.6 Political Sophistication and Positively Framed Pork Treatments on Support for Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Summer 2011 130 B.7 Disaggregated Dependent Variables, Spring 2012 (Sen. Bill Nelson) 131 B.8 Favorability of the Tea Party on Support for Senator Nelson (FL), Summer 2011 133 B.9 Exclusion of the Party Identification Control Variable, All Models 134 vii C.1 Variable Information Utilized in the Analysis of the 2008 CCES 136 C.2 Variable Information Utilized in the Analysis of the 2006 CBS/NYT Poll 137 C.3 The Number of Earmark Projects on Predicting Project Recall 138 C.4 Local News Papers 141 C.5 Pork Dollars and the Ability to Recall Projects, 2008 CCES 143 C.6 Incumbent Approval and Earmark Allocations, CCES 2008 145 C.7 Incumbent Vote, CCES 2008 147 D.1 Tobit Analysis of the Effect of Contributions on Freshmen Representatives Secur- ing Earmark 150 viii LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 Earmark Projects to States and Districts, Fiscal Year 2008 10 2.2 2011 CBS Poll: Identification of Earmark’s Share of the National Budget 11 2.3 Previous and Revised Theories of Earmark Attribution 21 3.1 Federal Earmark Allocations, FY2008: Comparing TCS, CAGW and FAADS 26 3.2 Earmarks FY2008-2010: Comparing TCS to CAGW Measurements 27 4.1 Dollar (logged) and Number of Representative Earmarks, FY2008-2010 30 4.2 Dollar (logged) and Number of Senator Earmarks, FY2008-2010 34 4.3 Marginal Effect of Past Earmarks on Future Vote, Freshmen Only 40 4.4 Marginal Effect of Earmarks on Future Vote, 110th and 111th Congresses (2SLS) 43 5.1 2010 CNN Poll: Acceptability of Earmarks 49 5.2 Treatment Effects of Pork on Support for Sen. Nelson (Positively Framed) 58 5.3 Treatment Effects of Pork on Support for Rep. Miller (Positively Framed) 63 5.4 Treatment Effect of Pork on Support for Sen. Bill Nelson 67 6.1 Project Recall and Representative Pork Dollars (logged) 84 6.2 Project Recall and State Newspaper Coverage of Senator Pork 85 6.3 Representative Media Coverage (of Earmarks) on Incumbent Support 92 7.1 The Earmark-Contribution Endogeneity Problem 102 7.2 Marginal Effect of Contributions on Earmark Acquisition, 110th and 111th Con- gresses 108 B.1 Lexis-Nexus Media Search on Earmarks and Congress 132 ix ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the role of earmarks, also known as pork projects, in several facets of American politics. After reviewing the changing history and various means of measuring earmark projects, I attempt to determine which Members of Congress are most adept at securing earmarks, and whether these projects affect electoral security. Second, this work departs from previous as- sumptions that pork projects are viewed equally by all recipients, given recipients are made aware of the projects at all. Third, this work challenges existing claims that contend a direct linkage be- tween voter awareness of earmark projects and electoral support for an incumbent; instead, I argue for the role of media dissemination of this information. Finally, this project differentiates itself from the current literature by approaching the impact of earmarks not solely as a means to directly appeal to the majority of voters, but as a quid pro quo to be invoked by Members looking to shore up campaign support. Rather than contend that only voters reward incumbents for project dollars, this paper explores the impact of earmarks on campaign contributions provided by special interest groups.
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