Limited Time, Limited Resources: Trade

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