Distributive politics, the electoral connection, and the antebellum US Congress: The case of military service pensions

Abstract

We investigate the early emergence of distributive politics in Congress -a key component of the electoral connection -by examining the rise of federal military pensions prior to the Civil War. The political responses of members of Congress to external pressures for military service pensions reveal that distributive interests, coupled with fiscal policies that exacerbated sectional animosities, significantly shaped the adoption and evolution of military pension legislation. Specifically, what began as a relatively simple program to provide for disabled Revolutionary War veterans grew into a mass entitlement program based on military service. Two cases are of particular interest -the Pension Acts of 1818 and 1832 -and we examine the politics of each, as well as pension-related politics in the intervening years, in detail. We contend that our analysis is crucial in establishing the applicability of key aspects of the electoral connection in the early Congress, as well as for understanding the antebellum foundations of important aspects of subsequent American political development.

The Impact of Nonpartisan Fiscal Institutions on Budgetary Delay

“…Despite the potential for electoral sanctions after a budget is late, lawmakers seem unconcerned with delayed budgets during an election year (Cummins 2012). Despite a long literature in legislative politics arguing that distributive benefits directly affect lawmakers’ electoral outcomes (e.g., Mayhew 1974; Fenno 1978; Arnold 1990; Finocchiaro and Jenkins 2016), fear of electoral reprisal may be reduced since state legislators are reelected at exceedingly high rates and therefore lawmakers may not feel pressure to reach a budgetary compromise (Rogers 2015). This finding has important implications for electoral accountability because a cornerstone of democracy is the mass public’s evaluation of elected officials’ performance (Healy and Malhotra 2013).…”

The Development of Representation in American Political Institutions

“…When did representatives transition to acting like delegates bringing about the electoral connection and why did this occur? Previous research on the electoral connection in Congress provides various types of evidence as far back as 1816 (Bianco et al 1996; Carson and Engstrom 2005; Finocchiaro and Jenkins 2016). This leaves two important decades of congressional history to explore.…”

Ballot Reform, the Personal Vote, and Political Representation in the United States

“…These data come from the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Pensions to the Secretary of the Interior , describing the number of pension recipients and the total dollar amount of pension payments 8 . Pension payments for disabled veterans in the US were initiated in 1776 and later expanded in the early part of the nineteenth century as members of Congress recognized the benefits of using pension payments as particularistic goods (Finocchiaro and Jenkins 2016). During this period, both anecdotal evidence and the enormous volume of correspondence from members of Congress to the Bureau of Pensions indicate that pension assistance was an essential source of constituency service 9 .…”

“…These three measurespensions, post offices, and rivers and harbours projectsprovide a comprehensive portrait of the provision of constituency service at the turn of the twentieth century. The pension system was the most important social welfare programme prior to the New Deal and, for many years, accounted for a large share of federal expenditures (Finocchiaro and Jenkins 2016). Likewise, the post office was 'one of the most important institutions of the day' House-district level to the state level for analysis; we also report results from a district-level analysis in Appendix Section A.13.…”