Leah Rosenstiel VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY


Research

Book

Politics by Formula: How Congressional Policymaking Creates Disparities


May 2026, University of Chicago Press (Chicago Studies in American Politics)

From Medicaid to Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers, a large percentage of the annual US federal budget (approximately $1 trillion) is distributed through grants-in-aid, a policy tool that allocates aid to state and local governments rather than to individual Americans. When members of Congress use grants-in-aid to fund healthcare, housing, and other forms of support, they are not solely determining how much assistance one person receives. Instead, they can allot certain localities larger grants, which carry big implications for the quality of public services available to citizens living in different states.

Many reasonably assume that these assistance programs distribute funding to states impartially because they use statistical formulas based on population levels, poverty, and other characteristics that, ostensibly, measure need. However, in Politics by Formula, Leah Rosenstiel shows how this seemingly technocratic aspect of federal policymaking is deeply affected by both the structure of political institutions and the motivations of elected officials. Key congressional committees—and especially their leaders—design formulas to benefit their constituencies. Superficially neutral formulas can shield these political decisions from scrutiny, but formulas also constrain congressmembers. Drawing on formal modeling and quantitative and qualitative evidence, Rosenstiel elucidates how these dynamics shape whose and what needs are met and where.

Articles

Unorthodox Lawmaking and the Value of Committee Assignments


(with James Curry)
Forthcoming at the Journal of Politics.

Partisan disparities in the funding of science in the United States


(with Alexander C. Furnas, Nic Fishman, and Dashun Wang)
Science, 2025.

The Distributive Politics of Grants-in-Aid


American Political Science Review, 2025.

Congressional Bargaining and the Distribution of Grants


Legislative Studies Quarterly, 2023.

Measuring the Influence of Political Actors on the Federal Budget


(with Ben Hammond)
American Political Science Review, 2020.