Chamber Competitiveness, Polarization, and the Redistribution of Campaign Funds

• In Event: Poster Session: Representation and Electoral Systems and Poster Session: Political Organizations and Parties
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Political Organizations and Parties

Abstract

As campaign spending has reached record levels in recent years, campaign finance has become a central issue in discussions of political legitimacy in both national and state politics. Questions about the source of campaign funds in elections are particularly relevant to issues of electoral legitimacy because voters perceive a link between money and political influence. One particular source of money in politics that has seen a substantial increase in recent years is that of legislative incumbents redistributing campaign or leadership PAC funds to their party’s efforts to win or maintain majority control of a legislative body (see Heberlig and Larson 2012).

In this paper, I examine how the chamber competitiveness of legislative bodies (i.e. how likely it is that they will flip majority control in the next election) and the extent to which these legislative bodies are polarized affect incumbent legislators’ willingness to contribute to party fundraising efforts to win or maintain majority control of that chamber. Consistent with Heberlig and Larson (2012), such efforts include contributions from a legislator’s campaign committee to other candidates’ campaign committees, contributions from these committees to party campaign committees (e.g. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee), and contributions from legislators’ leadership PACs to other candidates’ campaign committees. Such efforts were almost non-existent in 1990, but increased to tens of millions of dollars per election cycle by the early 2000s and have only grown since. Legislators in both parties have expressed distaste with party fundraising efforts, with Rep. John Larson (D-CT) calling it the “most painful thing” and Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI) saying there was “no way to make it enjoyable” (Grimm and Siddiqui 2013). Thus, I assume that legislators will not want to participate in party fundraising efforts if at all possible.

I theorize that conditions of high chamber competitiveness and polarization make members more willing to endure the unpleasantness associated with party fundraising efforts. When chamber competitiveness is high, legislators understand that their efforts could be decisive in terms of whether or not majority control of that legislative body flips. As such, the miserable reality of party fundraising efforts is balanced by the prospective benefits of serving in the majority party caucus after the next election. At the same time, increased polarization makes legislators more willing to endure these conditions because of the increased policy stakes in terms of which party has majority control of that legislative body after that election. For a legislator, the prospect of being able to pass what he or she views as favorable policy (or block what he or she views as unfavorable policy) increases their tolerance for the unpleasantness of party fundraising efforts. In order to assess the robustness of these hypotheses and to allow for comparisons between different legislative institutions, I examine the role of chamber competitiveness and polarization in the context of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate from 1990 to 2014 and U.S. states in 2012 and 2014, using FEC data for national institutions and data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics for state legislatures. Overall, consistent with the conference theme on the quest for legitimacy, this paper has the potential to shed light on the factors that may prompt legislators to become involved in providing campaign funds for their colleagues. Given voters’ perceptions of the connection between money and political influence, this research may prompt further inquiry into how voters may view a legislator’s actions as being driven by other legislators who contributed to his or her campaign either directly or through a party committee.

Author

• Jacob Forrest Harrison Smith, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill