Campaign Contributions as Investments: The U.S. House of Representatives, 1980-1986

1990 ◽  
Vol 98 (6) ◽  
pp. 1195-1227 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Snyder,
1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Wright

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.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Ferguson ◽  
Paul Jorgensen ◽  
Jie Chen

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.


1986 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Theilmann ◽  
Al Wilhite

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.


2002 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-405
Author(s):  
Brian Newman ◽  
Charles Ostrom

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