Explaining State Legislators' Casework and Public Resource Allocations

Abstract

Using survey data from more than 2400 members of the lower houses of 49 state legislatures, this article examines the influence of a set of variables on the amount of time that state legislators spent on the service activities of casework and public resource allocations (“pork”). This research finds that state legislators distinguish between casework and pork activities, rank casework ahead of pork, and that the only common variable predicting both types of service activities is members' perceptions of their constituents' preferences; otherwise, a different set of variables predicts each type of service activity