While many people associate the word “pork” with lawmakers wasteful spending for pet projects, new Vanderbilt political science research demonstrates the importance of cabinet secretaries and their political beliefs in the distribution of lucrative federal grants. Vanderbilt Assistant Professor of Political Science Christian Grose and Anthony Bertelli, a professor at the University of Georgia, studied the allocation of discretionary government contracts in the Labor and Defense departments from 1991 to 2002. They also examined the political leanings of the various heads of these two departments during the same time period. “Our research found that a more conservative cabinet secretary will choose states represented by conservative senators and the opposite happens when a more liberal secretary is in office,” Grose said.
Contact: Ann Marie Deer Owens, 615-322-NEWS
annmarie.owens@vanderbilt.edu