In the news<\/strong><\/h3>\nThe New York Times<\/em><\/a> references Gamm and Kousser\u2019s latest study in a story on how state politics often cleave along the same fault lines as national politics: blue versus red, big city versus rural districts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nGiven the importance of race, class, and immigration status in shaping American politics, two political scientists\u2014Gerald Gamm<\/a> at the University of Rochester<\/strong><\/a> and Thad Kousser<\/a> at the University of California San Diego<\/strong><\/a>\u2014wondered how demographic characteristics might affect state spending. Has state spending across constituencies reflected the same biases that have been shown to shape voting patterns, representation, and policymaking?<\/p>\nTo answer that question, Gamm\u2014an expert on Congress, state legislatures,\u00a0urban politics<\/strong><\/a>, and modern party politics\u2014and Kousser\u2014a specialist on term limits, voting reforms, and state politics\u2014took the long view, diving into historical archives and collecting data from six states for 1921, 1941, and 1961. The researchers picked this time frame to incorporate the sweeping changes in American society and government brought first by the New Deal and then the Second World War. Their results, titled \u201cThe Last Shall Be Last: Ethnic, Racial, and Nativist Bias in Distributive Politics<\/a>,\u201d are published in Legislative Studies Quarterly<\/em>.<\/p>\nAs the title suggests, the duo found \u201c<\/em>clear evidence of bias\u201d and discovered that race, class, and immigration status played important roles in how and where state legislatures spent money. Examining historical budget and spending patterns from the state legislatures in California, Illinois, Montana, New York, Vermont, and Virginia\u2014states selected to encompass the widest possible variety \u201cin their region, party systems, size, level of urban development, and in their demography\u201d\u2014the authors discovered that certain demographic factors had a direct effect on how much a state spent on its constituents. Districts with more immigrants or larger numbers of nonwhite residents got significantly less money, while districts dominated by US-born, white Anglo constituents received more state dollars.<\/p>\n\u201cWe demonstrate that there is a strong and persistent bias in who gets what based on the demographics of constituents,\u201d Gamm and Kousser write.<\/p>\n
The researchers examined 2,517 legislative districts, along with their legislators and constituent populations, to explain spending patterns. They controlled for a host of factors, across two categories, including non-demographic features of the districts and characteristics of the individual legislators.<\/p>\n
\u201cLegislators themselves have been the focus in most studies of distributive politics, as scholars have examined the advantages accruing to those with more seniority, those chairing committees, and those in the majority party,\u201d Gamm and Kousser write. But recent scholarship, they note, find the effect of these factors \u201cquite modest.\u201d<\/p>\n
The significance of the New Deal and post-World War II period<\/strong><\/h3>\nThere\u2019s a reason that Gamm and Kousser stopped their historical analysis at 1961. It\u2019s likely the same reason previous scholars have not explored the relationship between district-level spending and demographics: to isolate and test a single explanatory factor in a complex political system encompassing 48 to 50 states, over any period of time, is daunting. To develop a database of every dollar in state spending targeting a specific district\u2014as was necessary for the study\u2014involved hand coding of entire state budgets, line by line, to isolate district-level spending. Some budgets took a full year to code.<\/p>\n
Given those constraints, Gamm and Kousser were not able to collect and analyze data that would have shed light on the decades since, taking us up to the current moment when racial resentment, wealth inequality, and nativist fears have featured especially prominently in American politics.<\/p>\n
But the period they studied offers a sound basis for speculation. The New Deal brought a period of rapid growth of public spending of all sorts\u2014a trend that accelerated in the post-World War II period. Expectations about the role of government changed dramatically, and the terms were set for a debate that persists to this day over who should receive public funds.<\/p>\n
So while the data cannot speak directly to the current era, the scholars conclude, \u201cwe speculate that the patterns of discrimination in state spending that we uncovered have persisted to the present day, given the evidence of continuing discrimination in other realms of American life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nRead more<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Given the importance of race, class, and immigration status in shaping American politics, two political scientists\u2014Gerald Gamm<\/a> at the University of Rochester<\/strong><\/a> and Thad Kousser<\/a> at the University of California San Diego<\/strong><\/a>\u2014wondered how demographic characteristics might affect state spending. Has state spending across constituencies reflected the same biases that have been shown to shape voting patterns, representation, and policymaking?<\/p>\n To answer that question, Gamm\u2014an expert on Congress, state legislatures,\u00a0urban politics<\/strong><\/a>, and modern party politics\u2014and Kousser\u2014a specialist on term limits, voting reforms, and state politics\u2014took the long view, diving into historical archives and collecting data from six states for 1921, 1941, and 1961. The researchers picked this time frame to incorporate the sweeping changes in American society and government brought first by the New Deal and then the Second World War. Their results, titled \u201cThe Last Shall Be Last: Ethnic, Racial, and Nativist Bias in Distributive Politics<\/a>,\u201d are published in Legislative Studies Quarterly<\/em>.<\/p>\n As the title suggests, the duo found \u201c<\/em>clear evidence of bias\u201d and discovered that race, class, and immigration status played important roles in how and where state legislatures spent money. Examining historical budget and spending patterns from the state legislatures in California, Illinois, Montana, New York, Vermont, and Virginia\u2014states selected to encompass the widest possible variety \u201cin their region, party systems, size, level of urban development, and in their demography\u201d\u2014the authors discovered that certain demographic factors had a direct effect on how much a state spent on its constituents. Districts with more immigrants or larger numbers of nonwhite residents got significantly less money, while districts dominated by US-born, white Anglo constituents received more state dollars.<\/p>\n \u201cWe demonstrate that there is a strong and persistent bias in who gets what based on the demographics of constituents,\u201d Gamm and Kousser write.<\/p>\n The researchers examined 2,517 legislative districts, along with their legislators and constituent populations, to explain spending patterns. They controlled for a host of factors, across two categories, including non-demographic features of the districts and characteristics of the individual legislators.<\/p>\n \u201cLegislators themselves have been the focus in most studies of distributive politics, as scholars have examined the advantages accruing to those with more seniority, those chairing committees, and those in the majority party,\u201d Gamm and Kousser write. But recent scholarship, they note, find the effect of these factors \u201cquite modest.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason that Gamm and Kousser stopped their historical analysis at 1961. It\u2019s likely the same reason previous scholars have not explored the relationship between district-level spending and demographics: to isolate and test a single explanatory factor in a complex political system encompassing 48 to 50 states, over any period of time, is daunting. To develop a database of every dollar in state spending targeting a specific district\u2014as was necessary for the study\u2014involved hand coding of entire state budgets, line by line, to isolate district-level spending. Some budgets took a full year to code.<\/p>\n Given those constraints, Gamm and Kousser were not able to collect and analyze data that would have shed light on the decades since, taking us up to the current moment when racial resentment, wealth inequality, and nativist fears have featured especially prominently in American politics.<\/p>\n But the period they studied offers a sound basis for speculation. The New Deal brought a period of rapid growth of public spending of all sorts\u2014a trend that accelerated in the post-World War II period. Expectations about the role of government changed dramatically, and the terms were set for a debate that persists to this day over who should receive public funds.<\/p>\n So while the data cannot speak directly to the current era, the scholars conclude, \u201cwe speculate that the patterns of discrimination in state spending that we uncovered have persisted to the present day, given the evidence of continuing discrimination in other realms of American life.\u201d<\/p>\nThe significance of the New Deal and post-World War II period<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\nRead more<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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