Government redistribution programs designed by elected
legislatures are subject to political manipulation insofar as
the legislators who design such programs can use them to boost
aggregate wealth levels in key electoral districts, ignore districts
of lesser importance, and so forth. In light of this, we study
the properties of an Illinois state government program called
“member initiative spending” and examine the extent
to which three competing theories, two of which draw explicitly
on electoral competition and one of which is apolitical, are able
to explain this program’s funding allocations across Illinois.
Among the state’s 118 House districts we show that monies
distributed by the member initiative spending program in the year
and a half prior to the 2000 general election were disproportionately
allocated to districts that were politically competitive, to districts
represented by House legislative leaders, and to districts represented
by relatively moderate legislators. We find essentially no evidence
that, as one might imagine in light of the member initiative spending
program’s ostensible purpose, member initiative funds were
channeled to poor or otherwise needy Illinois House districts.
Overall, our analysis lends support to theories that posit that
budgetary decisions made by elected officials prior to elections
are tactical, and it also shows that the decision makers who allocated
Illinois’s member initiative spending pie prior to the 2000
general election had one eye solidly planted on upcoming political
battles and possibly another on Illinois’s future development.
Michael C. Herron,
Department of Political Science, Northwestern University
Brett A. Theodos, June 2002 graduate, Northwestern University
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