Who Franks? Explaining the Allocation of Official Resources.

All members of Congress utilize their official resources, even if the electoral effect is minimal. Congressional reforms in 1995 created the Members Representational Allowance, providing members with more flexibility in deploying their official resources. However, these reforms also created a zero-sum game where a dollar spent on travel is a dollar not available for sending mass mail or paying staff salaries. Using a newly created dataset, we argue and find evidence that members allocate resources to support their particular representational goals, which change throughout the course of a member's career (Fenno 1973; 1978). We conclude that the re-election motive alone cannot explain how members run their offices and technological changes increasingly make the district-Washington dichotomy a false one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]