Donors, Lobbyists, and Democracy

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel will examine new research on the relationship between wealthy political donors, lobbyists, parties, and public policy in the United States at both the federal and state levels. Together, the papers bring new data, methods, and theories to bear on longstanding debates in the party, Congressional, and interest group literatures, asking which interests are represented in elections and public policy and how those patterns of representation both reflect and shape broader economic inequalities in society.

Sara Yeganeh, Nathan Lee, Elizabeth Suhay, and Erin Nash use text analysis methods to explore the content of testimony in Congress on issues of climate change, tracing how influence by the fossil fuel industry has helped to sow doubt regarding the existence of human-led climate change much in the same way as the tobacco industry did in earlier decades. Their paper thus speaks to issues of corporate influence in Congress over important policy debates and explores how the information-gathering functions of Congress can be coopted by organized interest groups.

In contrast, Zhao Li’s paper switches to examine the interaction between economic shocks, campaign contributions, and Congressional elections. More specifically, Li uses new matched data on campaign finance activity as well as real estate transactions to explore how exposure to the mortgage crisis affected GOP donors’ support for Tea Party Congressional candidates. Her findings indicate that Republican donors in high-foreclosure areas gave less to Tea Partiers, but not to other GOP candidates—and thus spell out the ways that Congressional campaign donors respond to changes in economic circumstances.

Stan Oklobdzija’s paper also examines electoral contributions, exploring the types of elite donors that choose to contribute to non-disclosing organizations (as opposed to organizations subject to more disclosure) during election campaigns. Oklobdzija studies “pop-up” PACs in the 2018 election—organizations that formed just after the last disclosure before Election Day—in order to examine the ideological characteristics of their donors, as well as donors’ choices about giving to other, more traditional vehicles. Oklobdzija’s contribution thus helps us to understand how wealthy political contributors are adapting to new campaign finance rules—and what the implications of that elite behavior are for Congressional elections.

Lastly, the paper by Hertel-Fernandez, Skocpol, and Tervo focuses on an individual interest group—the Koch brothers-backed conservative federated advocacy group Americans for Prosperity (AFP)—and uses newly-gathered archival data on AFP’s expansion across a number of states to examine the group’s relationship with the Republican party and its influence on state policy. In particular, the paper focuses on AFP’s effects on tax, labor, and environmental policies, as well as on the stands held by state and local Republican politicians. Hertel-Fernandez, Skocpol, and Tervo’s paper thus considers how wealthy donors can construct organizations to parallel and ultimately leverage political parties’ stands and behaviors.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 35: Political Organizations and Parties

Cosponsor

• Related Groups / Campaign Finance Research Group

Individual Presentations

• The Subprime Mortgage Crisis and the Tea Party Movement - Zhao Li, Princeton University

• Pop-Up PACs”: What Delayed Disclosure Can Teach Us About Dark Money Donors - Stan Nguyen Oklobdzija, Claremont McKenna College

• Partisan Debate over Climate Change and Scientific Information in Congress - Sara Shahmirzadi Yeganeh, Stony Brook University; Nathan Ross Lee, Stanford University; Elizabeth Suhay, Government, American University

• Conservative Cross-State Mobilization and Democratic Responsiveness - Alexander Warren Hertel-Fernandez, Columbia University; Theda Skocpol, Harvard University; Caroline Tervo, Harvard University; Vanessa Williamson, Brookings Institution

Chair

• Raymond J. La Raja University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Discussants

• Raymond J. La Raja University of Massachusetts, Amherst

• Michael T. Heaney University of Glasgow