Credible Claims: The Effect of Committee Positioning on Congressional Credit Claiming

Members of Congress routinely seek to improve their institutional position to increase their influence over policy outcomes. Prominent among those policy outcomes is the distribution of federal spending projects, where members can simultaneously secure local particularistic spending and its consequential electoral benefits. While institutional position facilitates the receipt of these policy goods, it is less clear whether representatives' position facilitates the receipt of the associated electoral benefits. We test whether a representative's signaling of policy influence through references to committee positioning increases the effectiveness of credit claiming for particularistic spending. Using a survey experiment, we measure how respondents change their approval and effectiveness ratings for a member of Congress when presented with different versions of real-world credit claiming press releases. Overall, we find that signaling influence vis-à-vis committee positioning has an undetectable effect on the effectiveness of credit claiming. This research highlights an important challenge faced by members of Congress in publicizing their roles in favorable policy actions.