FEMA and Patronage

Via Robert Farley and the Monkey Cage here's some hot political science from Jowei Chen:

In the aftermath of the summer 2004 Florida hurricane season, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) distributed $1.2 billion in disaster aid to Florida residents. This research presents two empirical findings that collectively suggest the Bush administration engaged in vote buying behavior. First, by tracking the geographic location of each aid recipient, the data reveal that FEMA treated applicants from Republican neighborhoods much more favorably than those from Democratic or moderate neighborhoods, even conditioning on hurricane severity, home value, and demographic factors. Second, I compare precinct-level vote counts from the post-hurricane (November 2004) and pre-hurricane (November 2002) elections to measure the effect of FEMA aid on Bush’s vote share. Using a two-stage least squares estimator, this analysis reveals that core Republican voters are easily swayed by FEMA aid - $16,800 buys one additional vote for Bush - while Democrats and moderates are not. Collectively, these results suggest the Bush administration maximized its 2004 vote share by concentrating FEMA disaster aid among core Republicans.

As Farley says, this kind of finding makes you think about Katrina and New Orleans; would the response have been nearly so inept and ineffective if the victimized area had been more of a GOP-friendly kind of place?

Comments

So Democrats are complaining about vote buying now? That's rich.

Posted by Brad | March 31, 2008 1:19 PM

The number of times I have thought "This cannot possibly be true" with regards to the Bush administration is barely finite. And yet even the most outrageous charges have tended to understate their incompetence and disregard for the American people. I am sick at this.

Posted by Curtis | March 31, 2008 1:20 PM

this analysis reveals that core Republican voters are easily swayed by FEMA aid - $16,800 buys one additional vote for Bush

This kind of thing is why I feel like I'm just incapable of understanding politics sometimes. Aren't "core Republican voters" already voting for Bush? Why do they have to spend $16,800 to get a core Republican voter to vote for Bush?

Posted by live | March 31, 2008 1:29 PM

I have not looked into in depth but as I recall those areas in Mississippi that were hit by Katrina received a faster response. Wasn't there also a deal with large amounts of money to pay for the relocation of the train tracks?

Posted by Michael Fisher | March 31, 2008 1:29 PM

Matt -

The variable is the amount of money, so you could still have an inept and ineffective response as long as you handed out the money to the right people. That's one skill that the Bush administration has consistently demonstrated effectiveness and eptitude at.

Posted by Ted | March 31, 2008 1:31 PM

Looks like Bush put that Harvard MBA to good use.

Posted by CParis | March 31, 2008 1:35 PM

Way to blame the victims, Matt.

Posted by aleks | March 31, 2008 1:41 PM

At least MattY's childlike post is a step up from the usual "liberal" race-baiting.

Meanwhile, the time when the Dems were able to get buses to the poor areas of NO might be informative:

tinyurl.com/2om492

Of course, that was 1996, not 2005. But, 1996 was when they needed it, not so much the latter date.

For future reference, the best way to shut-up Democratic Party hacks about Katrina is to remind them of the Dem complicity in this scheme. The Dems would sorely love to use Katrina to bash Bush, but it's kind of hard to do when that party assisted his corrupt, anti- and un-American scheme.

Posted by TLB | March 31, 2008 1:52 PM

Since it was Governor Blanco (let's play "Name that Party!") who said that her state didn't need or want Federal help until days later, perhaps you could rethink this one.

Posted by James Robertson | March 31, 2008 2:15 PM

The Market works!

Posted by John McCain: More of the Same | March 31, 2008 2:15 PM

Who knows if this actually happened but it's possible because the database for targeting these voters is there. The Republicans don't even have to target "Republican neighborhoods," they can actually target individuals. My brother-in-law's consulting firm developed a voter data warehouse for the Florida Republican Party for "target marketing" and communicaiton. Easy to run the names of those voters against the FEMA applicants.

Posted by SMN | March 31, 2008 2:18 PM

As Farley says, this kind of finding makes you think about Katrina and New Orleans; would the response have been nearly so inept and ineffective if the victimized area had been more of a GOP-friendly kind of place?

This is JUST NOW occurring to you?

Posted by Anderson | March 31, 2008 2:20 PM

If New Orleans had been Houston (GOP-friendly city) I suspect the repsonse would have been not much better because under Bush FEMA had become incompetnt. It's one thing to hand out money well after the fact; it's something else again to coordinate a massive rescue mission for a stricken city. Florida's 2004 hurricanes simply don't compare with what Katrina did in New Orleans. They mainly struck less populated areas (OK, Ivan did hit near Pensacola, and there were complaints there about the poor response) and there was noen of the massive flooding or loss of life that New Orleans saw.

Posted by JonF | March 31, 2008 2:40 PM

I don't think this story holds water. The orchestration and collusion required to make this happen would have been way too complex and sophisticated for bureaucrats to handle.

There might be some iniquitous underlying causes for the disproportion of funds, but I find it difficult to believe it was grand conspiracy to buy up votes (votes they would have received anyway, by the way).

Posted by AKBY | March 31, 2008 2:45 PM

What Anderson said. Before reading Anderson's post I was prepared to say: " 'would the response have been nearly so inept and ineffective if the victimized area had been more of a GOP-friendly kind of place?' No. This has been another edition of simple answers to easy questions." Or whatever the hell it is Atrios says. Look at the before and after voter demographic and imagine how it might have been different if all those non-white non-wealthy non-Republican residents had been able to stay.

Posted by bobbo | March 31, 2008 2:51 PM

On the one hand, Bush made the decision to treat FEMA as an opportunity for political patronage rather than as an agency that had to be run by competent people long before Katrina hit.

On the other hand, recall the Bush Administration's response to another crisis hitting an area that voted Democratic in the presidential election: the California energy crisis. The response of FERC (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) to that crisis wasn't inept, it was nonexistent.

My take, for what it's worth, is that Bush doesn't accept the notion that the government has a moral obligation to help people. All of the money spent in response to Katrina is intended to serve on purpose: enhancing Republican political power.

Posted by Kenneth Almquist | March 31, 2008 2:51 PM

And in California, the fake energy crisis created by Enron and by FERC's non-response led directly to the Gray Davis recall and the election of Schwarzeneeger, who, it has been said many times, could never have won an election where he had to run in a GOP primary.

Posted by bobbo | March 31, 2008 2:55 PM

Count me among the confused.

I can understand vote buying. One only needs to look at any Congressman's webpage to see the "Creating Jobs" section, where he or she catalogues every dime of Federal pork that came into the district.

But this sort of scheme requires that you tell the voters what you've given them. The FEMA grant process is supposed to be impartial, and no Republican has advertised otherwise. No one has been out there letting these 80,000 likely Republican voters know who did them a favor.

Anonymous donations? Even the GOP isn't that silly.

Posted by heedless | March 31, 2008 2:56 PM

I'd guess it's the other way around. Republican-heavy areas were probably just more successful at lobbying for FEMA $.

Posted by Matt | March 31, 2008 3:46 PM

"I'd guess it's the other way around. Republican-heavy areas were probably just more successful at lobbying for FEMA $."

I think that's probably close to correct for the first part of the study. But I think the second part of the study is more interesting - attempting to isolate the change in county votes between the pre-hurricane and post-hurricane elections. Though again, "vote-buying" may not be the correct intreptation. If your county is successful at lobbying for aid money, you're probably more inclined to be satisfied with the adminstrative response to the crisis. If you're unsuccessful, not so much.

Posted by TheF79 | March 31, 2008 5:18 PM

I think it's fairly clear that ascribing the handout recipients specifically to "vote-buying" is reaching a bit.

It's probably what others have said - a combination of better lobbying due to better Republican connections and more satisfaction with the Administration as a result.

Still a negative situation for Democratic areas, but the notion that somehow FEMA was tracking Republican areas vs Democratic areas during the aid handout is somewhat unlikely, if not impossible.

Now if you look at the Iraq war, I'm sure you'd find that the Administration was quite explicitly supporting Bush and Cheney cronies, if not entirely to the exclusion of anyone else at the trough.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 31, 2008 5:57 PM

Since it was Governor Blanco (let's play "Name that Party!") who said that her state didn't need or want Federal help until days later, perhaps you could rethink this one.

Since it was governor Blanco who declared a state of emergency on Aug 26 and requested a federal state of emergency on Aug 27 (begging, “Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you’ve got” on the 29th), perhaps you could get your head out of your ass.

Posted by nolaboyd | April 1, 2008 4:03 AM