Modeling State Representation On Defense Committees in Congress,1959-1989

Abstract

Since World War II, why have defense committees in Congress tended to represent some states rather than others? To address this question we use a variation of two-stage least squares (2SLS) to analyze the effects of each state's share of prime military contracts, military payrolls, delegation size, and legislator ideology on representation on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and the Appropriations Subcommittees of the Department of Defense. We find that during the period 1959-1989 defense committees have been dominated by large ideologically conservative states that received the largest shares of defense contracts and payrolls. The only exception is Democrats on these committees, who did not tend to overrepre sent states with above average levels of defense contracts. These findings correct earlier studies that have stressed the influence of only some of these factors (ideology or payrolls) in models of defense committee membership.

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