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Recent years have witnessed an increase in members' use of lettermarks-letters written to the bureaucracy in an effort to secure federal funding for their districts. In spite of the vitriol that has been directed toward the practice, it is unclear whether lettermarks are even effective in aiding legislators' attempts at funneling dollars toward their districts. In an effort to determine whether lettermarks "work," we combined content analysis of letters sent by members to the Department of Labor with data on monies awarded to particular districts through the Department of Labor from the stimulus to investigate the relationship between letter writing and awards to members' districts. We find that, conditional on ideology, lettermarking can have an effect on the likelihood that a district received stimulus money through the Department of Labor. For most legislators, though, lettermarking does not appear to be an effective device for securing federal dollars for their districts. This nuanced set of findings suggests that the bureaucracy may be sensitive to member ideology when deciding whether to fund certain projects. Given the limited time frame and scope of our data, though, we urge researchers to continue to pursue this important line of inquiry.

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The ability of American political parties to change issue positions is potentially hindered by problems of coordination. Research on parties since the 1990s has shown what tools party leadership can use to enforce discipline and cohesion among its ranks. We, however, question whether those theories of party control, which explain party stability, can straightforwardly explain party change. Oftentimes we think of parties strategically altering issue positions, but what is “the party?” Rather than a monolithic group, American parties are relatively decentralized, weak, and individualistic compared with other party systems. We present an evolutionary game theoretic example to illustrate the problem of coordination in party change. This theoretical framework suggests an empirical focus on individual-level behaviors to better understand the dynamics of party change. We analyze roll call voting of members of Congress on the environment and abortion to illustrate micro-level behaviors suggested by our theoretical discussion.

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