The Last Shall Be Last: Ethnic, Racial, and Nativist Bias in Distributive Politics

Abstract

Examining historical budget and spending patterns from state legislatures, we show that inequality evident in other realms of American politics had a profound, dollars-and-cents, impact on the expenditures that flowed to political districts. Given the salience of race, class, and immigration status to American politics, we would expect that distributive spending reflects the same biases that shape voting patterns, representation, and policymaking. But, to our knowledge, this question has not previously been studied. Drawing on detailed, archival data from six states in the 1921–61 era, we uncover clear evidence of bias. Districts with more immigrants win significantly less money, controlling for a host of other factors. So do districts with large numbers of non-whites. Thus residents of districts dominated by native-born, Anglo constituencies receive more dollars than those in other districts, even when controlling for the identities of legislators and other characteristics of the districts.