scholarly journals How Much Can the U.S. Congress Resist Political Money? A Quantitative Assessment

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Ferguson ◽  
Paul Jorgensen ◽  
Jie Chen
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Quantitative Assessment ◽  
Campaign Contributions ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
Panel Analysis ◽  
Organized Interest ◽  
Push Out ◽  
The U.S

The extent to which governments can resist pressures from organized interest groups, and especially from finance, is a perennial source of controversy. This paper tackles this classic question by analyzing votes in the U.S. House of Representatives on measures to weaken the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill in the years following its passage. To control as many factors as possible that could influence floor voting by individual legislators, the analysis focuses on representatives who originally cast votes in favor of the bill but then subsequently voted to dismantle key provisions of it. This design rules out from the start most factors normally advanced by skeptics to explain vote shifts, since these are the same representatives, belonging to the same political party, representing substantially the same districts. Our panel analysis, which also controls for spatial influences, highlights the importance of time-varying factors, especially political money, in moving representatives to shift their positions on amendments such as the “swaps push out” provision. Our results suggest that the links between campaign contributions from the financial sector and switches to a pro-bank vote were direct and substantial: For every $100,000 that Democratic representatives received from finance, the odds they would break with their party’s majority support for the Dodd-Frank legislation increased by 13.9 percent. Democratic representatives who voted in favor of finance often received $200,000–$300,000 from that sector, which raised the odds of switching by 25–40 percent.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 198-222
Author(s):  
Matthew N. Green ◽  
Douglas B. Harris
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Candidate Emergence ◽  
The Past ◽  
Leadership Elections ◽  
The U.S

This chapter reviews the examination of the factors behind candidate emergence and the analyses of vote choice in fourteen contested leadership elections in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1965. It then discusses additional possible explanations of vote choice, how applicable the present findings may be to other legislative settings, and how the politics of leadership races has changed in the past and may change in the years ahead. The chapter concludes that we may see more ethnically diverse leadership candidates than in the past, with voters, interest groups, and new media playing more significant roles in shaping lawmakers' vote choice. However, so long as the central elements shaping the House's leadership elections—the size of the chamber, the service orientation of party leaders, committees and states as the bases for professional connections—do not change, professional connections and salient goals will remain fundamental to how the rank-and-file decide who will lead them.

Contributions, Lobbying, and Committee Voting in the U.S. House of Representatives

1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Wright
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Mail Survey ◽  
Campaign Contributions ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
Voting Decisions ◽  
Committee Voting ◽  
The U.S

Lobbying efforts and campaign contributions from coalitions of groups are used to explain representatives' voting decisions within the U.S. House Ways and Means and Agriculture Committees. Information about which groups worked together on two controversial issues and which representatives they lobbied was obtained through personal interviews and a mail survey of professional lobbyists. The analysis reveals that committee-level voting, particularly in the Ways and Means Committee, is best explained by the total number of lobbying contacts representatives received from groups on each side of the issue. Campaign contributions proved somewhat useful for explaining groups' lobbying patterns; but it appears to be lobbying, not money, that shapes and reinforces representatives' policy decisions.

Differences in Campaign Funds: A Racial Explanation

1986 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Theilmann ◽  
Al Wilhite
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Campaign Contributions ◽  
Political Action Committees ◽  
Black Candidates ◽  
The U.S

Black candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives receive substantially lower levels of campaign contributions than non-black candidates. This article investigates the reason for this discrepancy. Are blacks discriminated against or do they receive less money because they are riskier candidates? The results suggest that blacks do receive less money because of their race and that the source of the funds is important. Political action committees and political parties tend to discriminate but individual contributors do not.

Gift Travel in the U.S. House of Representatives

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110208
Author(s):  
Zachary A. McGee ◽  
Philip Moniz
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Real World ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Private Organizations ◽  
Core Questions ◽  
Legislative Effectiveness ◽  
The U.S

Members of Congress take more than 2,000 trips sponsored by private organizations and interest groups every congress. Using a new data set of gift travel from 2007 to 2019 and interviews with former members of Congress, current and former congressional staffers, and staffers from interest groups that fund trips, we attempt to answer two core questions about this increasingly frequent behavior. Why do members take privately sponsored trips and what types of groups are driving this behavior? We argue that members of Congress take trips because they believe it makes them more effective legislators by exposing them to real-world consequences of their policy decisions and forcing them to build relationships with their fellow members. Trip sponsors, alternatively, seek to persuade and build relationships with members of Congress that ultimately shape their legislative coalitions. We find that trip-taking is associated with greater legislative effectiveness, in particular for Democrats, and that the provision of policy-specific information is a valuable benefit from taking these trips.

Legislators and Interest Groups: How Unorganized Interests Get Represented

1986 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur T. Denzau ◽  
Michael C. Munger
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Comparative Statics ◽  
Campaign Spending ◽  
Campaign Contributions ◽  
Constrained Maximization ◽  
Committee Assignments ◽  
Organized Interest ◽  
Supply Price

This paper derives a supply price for public policy using a constrained maximization model. In the model, three sets of agents each have preferences over outcomes: organized interest groups offer campaign contributions to improve their own wealth, voters offer votes to obtain outcomes closer to their most preferred outcomes, and legislators seek both campaign contributions and votes to obtain reelection. A given legislator's supply price for policy is shown to depend on the productivity of his effort, as determined by committee assignments, priority and ability, and by the preferences of his unorganized constituency in the home district. Two extreme assumptions about the effectiveness of campaign spending in eliciting votes are used to illustrate the comparative statics properties of the model. The prediction of the model is that interest groups will, in general, seek out legislators whose voters are indifferent to the policy the interest group seeks. Thus, voters who do have preferences over policy are in effect represented, even though they are not organized.

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