Capturing the state
Quid Pro Quo? Corporate Returns to Campaign Contributions
Anthony Fowler, Haritz Garro & Jorg Spenkuch
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Scholars, pundits, and political reformers have long worried that corporations distort public policy and subvert the will of the electorate by donating to politicians. Well-publicized anecdotes notwithstanding, whether and how much corporations actually benefit from supporting political candidates remains unknown. To systematically address this question, we utilize two complementary empirical approaches that isolate the monetary benefits a company derives from a favored candidate winning office. First, we use a regression discontinuity design exploiting close congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislative elections. Second, we leverage within-campaign changes in market beliefs about the outcomes of U.S. Senate races. We find no evidence that corporations benefit from electing candidates supported by their PACs, and we can statistically reject effect sizes greater than 0.3 percent of firm value. Our results suggest that corporate campaign contributions do not buy significant political favors - at least not on average.
Is Corporate Charitable Giving a Form of Indirect Political Donation?
Ana-Maria Tenekedjieva
University of Chicago Working Paper, November 2019
Abstract:
I test the hypothesis that companies engage in charitable giving as a form of political donation. I focus on changes in charitable giving by S&P500 companies’ foundations around the 2010 US Supreme Court Decision of Citizens United v. FEC, which lifted the constraints on corporate political donations. Using a difference-in-difference empirical strategy, I find that companies which were closer to the maximum political contribution decreased their charitable giving after the constraint was lifted. There were no simultaneous changes in the trends of RD investments, capital investments, firm profitability, or dividends. Furthermore, I compare state-level charitable giving patterns in states where the election laws were affected by Citizens United and in states with no election law change. I find that politically active firms in affected states decreased their charitable giving by more after Citizens United. These findings are consistent with politically active firms using charitable giving as a substitute for political donations.
Electoral Vulnerability, Party Affiliation, and Dyadic Constituency Responsiveness in U.S. Legislatures
Nathalie Giger, Heike Kluver & Christopher Witko
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is often argued that electoral vulnerability is critical to constituency responsiveness. We investigate this possibility using different measures of vulnerability, but argue that in the United States the Republican Party may be less responsive than the Democratic Party due to its core constituency and view of representation. We test our hypotheses relying on an innovative research design that exploits referenda in U.S. states to compare legislator voting behavior with voter preferences on exactly the same policy proposal, allowing us to overcome the measurement problems of much previous research. Based on a newly compiled data set of more than 3,000 voting decisions for 818 legislators on 27 referenda, we find high levels of congruence, but that congruence with the median voter is higher for legislators who are running for reelection. We also find that Democrats are more responsive after a close election but that Republicans are not sensitive to electoral margins.
Buying Amendments? Lobbyists' Campaign Contributions and Microlegislation in the Creation of the Affordable Care Act
Amy Melissa McKay
Legislative Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
When do campaign contributions matter? This article advances the claim that a group that gives campaign contributions to US Members of Congress is more likely to achieve legislative success when (1) a single legislator can deliver to the group (2) a private benefit (3) without attracting negative attention. Using an original data set based on the written comments of nearly 900 interest groups lobbying the US Senate Finance Committee on health reform legislation in 2009, I link group requests to corresponding legislation. The analysis shows a significant relationship between lobby groups' campaign contributions and their legislative success, and at distinct units of analysis - the group, the side, and the group‐senator dyad. The relationship is particularly strong in predicting senators’ amendments in committee. The rare data presented here offer compelling evidence that interest groups' legislative victories are sometimes connected to campaign contributions in a way that previous studies could not identify.
Gender Differences in Legislator Responsiveness
Danielle Thomsen & Bailey Sanders
Perspectives on Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
A growing body of research shows that women legislators outperform their male counterparts in the legislative arena, but scholars have yet to examine whether this pattern emerges in non-policy aspects of representation. We conducted an audit study of 6,000 U.S. state legislators to analyze whether women outperform or underperform men on constituency service in light of the extra effort they spend on policy. We find that women are more likely to respond to constituent requests than men, even after accounting for their heightened level of policy activity. Female legislators are the most responsive in conservative districts, where women may see the barriers to their election as especially high. We then demonstrate that our findings are not a function of staff responsiveness, legislator ideology, or responsiveness to female constituents or gender issues. The results provide additional evidence that women perform better than their male counterparts across a range of representational activities.
Political Accountability, Legislator Gender, and the Status Quo Bias
Lior Sheffer
Politics & Gender, forthcoming
Abstract:
A large body of literature in political science documents differences between elected men and women in their substantive policy preferences, representation styles, and effectiveness as legislators. We know far less about whether female and male representatives respond differently to being held politically accountable for their decisions. Although it is a difficult concept to evaluate empirically with incumbents, this absence of research is nevertheless surprising considering the central role of accountability in legislative behavior and the nonelite evidence that women and men respond differently to attributions of accountability. I provide evidence for the existence of such an accountability gender gap in an experiment with 377 incumbent legislators in three countries, in which they were asked to choose between economic policy plans alternately presented as the status quo, with varying levels of implied task accountability. Elected women and men reacted significantly differently when the political accountability levels of the task increased: female politicians exhibited a stronger preference for policies presented as the status quo, whereas male politicians were more likely to abandon the status quo and favor change. This pattern is unique to politicians and is not observed in nonelites. I discuss processes that motivate this divergence and the implications for research on gender and political representation.
Diversity and Power: Selection Method and Its Impacts on State Executive Descriptive Representation
Sarina Rhinehart & Matthew Geras
State Politics & Policy Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article explores diversity within top leadership positions in state governments, specifically, the role that position selection method plays in promoting the inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities into positions of power. We hypothesize that minorities will be more likely to serve in appointed positions as governors consider diversity in making appointments and less likely to serve in elected positions due to the additional hurdles for candidates of color. Using an original data set of state executive leaders from 2001 to 2017 from all 50 states, we find evidence that institutional design influences levels of diversity among state executive leaders. Racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to be appointed than elected to state executive leadership positions. In addition, we find that Democratic governors are more likely than Republican governors to appoint minorities. Ultimately, this evidence is important for understanding how institutional design can have consequences for descriptive representation, specifically for groups that have been historically excluded from political life.
Policy Making in the Shadow of Executive Action
Ashley Moraguez
Presidential Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Presidents have prerogative powers, such as signing statements, that seemingly undo legislative bargains. Why do legislators commit to bargains within the legislature if the president can unravel those deals? I argue that legislators bargain over both their policy and electoral interests in the face of looming presidential action and that this induces legislators to commit to bargains, even when they know the president will not maintain their agreements. I derive the prediction that signing statements are more likely when congressional polarization is low. I find support for this expectation, using data on polarization and signing statements from 1981 until 2012.
How Many Seats in Congress Is Control of Redistricting Worth?
Michael Peress & Yangzi Zhao
Legislative Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
How large a benefit is partisan control of the redistricting process? Do legal constraints on redistricting - such as the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act - alter this benefit? Are institutions designed to reduce the benefit to partisan control - such as redistricting commissions - effective? To measure the effects of partisan districting on the electoral fortunes of the parties, we collect data on the partisan composition of state government, House election outcomes, and moderating institutions over an 80‐year period. Our results suggest that over time, both parties have benefited from unified control, with the effects largest in states where voters were evenly divided among the parties and smallest in states where the controlling party had a large advantage in the electorate. The effects have changed over time, with both parties having equally benefited from control during the middle of the 20th century, the benefit largely disappearing in the late part of the century, and the Republican Party seeing a moderate advantage from control in the current century. The benefits of partisan control were not diminished in states with redistricting commissions. The preclearance requirement appears to have hurt the Democratic Party except when its vote share was very low. The aggregate effects of partisan redistricting are moderate in magnitude - in the modern period, this effect has typically been less than 10 House seats, with the last election where control of the House would have flipped in expectation occurring in 1954.
The Government Receives Moral License to Commit Transgressions When Compared to Other Entities
Jamie Hughes, Rebeca Harpster & Naomi Gonzales
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this paper, we examine moral judgments about different entities including individuals, corporations, nonprofits, and governments following a transgression. Although there is some research examining inferences about groups, there is little work addressing attributions about institutional entities such as governments. Across six studies we found that moral character judgments are greater for governmental entities compared to other entities. This effect was driven by moral licensing and the values one shares with the government. The finding was not caused by intuitions about paternalism, the relative age of governments compared to other entities, and was also not explained by nationalism or system justification. Discussion centers on implications of the data for moral licensing theory and moral attribution.