Campaign Finance
Schattschneider (1960) famously wrote: “The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent.” What does he mean by this?
Hint: Define "pluralist heaven" and explain what it means for the chorus to sing with an "upper-class accent."
“Pluralist heaven”: idealized view that all interests in society can freely organize and compete for political influence (Federalist 10)
The “chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent”: interest groups disproportionately represent wealthy and elite actors, undermining the pluralist ideal of equal participation
What do Kalla and Broockman (2016) find? What method do they use?
(Hint: Do campaign donations facilitate access to elected officials?)
Method: field experiment; solicit meetings between an environmental groups’ members and their congressional representatives where disclosure of donor status was randomly assigned
Finding: congressional offices more likely to grant meetings to those believed to be campaign donors rather than other constituents; especially more likely to grant access to senior staffers and MCs
What is of Hall and Deardorff’s (2006) theory of lobbying?
Hint: Do they think of lobbying as vote-buying, persuasion, legislative subsidy? How does lobbying work?
Special interests provide resources (time, expertise, information) to legislative allies in support of their pre-existing, mutual goals (lobbying as legislative subsidy)
What types of information needs to be reported as per the Lobbying Disclosure Act?
Hint (choose from): issue area, names of politicians lobbied, specific bills lobbied, lobbying venue (e.g., US Senate), lobbyist name
Subject to disclosure: issue area, specific bills lobbied, lobbying venue, lobbyist name
Not subject to disclosure: names of politicians lobbied
What is the "electoral blind spot" described in Bawn et al. (2012)?
The "electoral blind spot" is a theoretical concept within which policy is too obscure or complex for voters to notice differential policy positions or evaluate party performance.
Inside this blind spot, interest groups and party activists can shape policy to favor their priorities without facing electoral punishment.
What was the primary impact of the Citizens United v. FEC decision?
SCOTUS found that any limits on election-related communications made independently of candidates or parties violate 1A speech rights
Unlimited independent expenditures are constitutional!
What does Meisels (nd) find regarding the impact of primary campaign platforms on campaign contributions from ideological interest groups?
Candidates are significantly more likely to receive contributions from groups related to issues they campaign on.
Issue groups’ contributions are even more responsive to campaign rhetoric than bill introductions related to their primary issue area!
Which types of special interests does Miller (2023) argue are more likely to be sought out by presidents?
Well-resourced (political, financial, institutional) interest groups
Groups that already strongly align with their ideological preferences
Why does Wirsching (2025) argue that the 2007 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA) failed to reform the revolving door?
HLOGA prohibited staffers-turned-lobbyists who earn at least 75% of an MC's salary from contacting their ex-employers in Congress for one year.
However, Wirsching (2025) finds evidence that staffers likely to become lobbyists sorted below the salary threshold post-HLOGA.
According to Lorenz (2020), what characteristic of the interest group coalition supporting a bill increases the likelihood that the bill will receive committee consideration?
Hint: similar to Dwidar's (2022) conclusion about the effectiveness of marginalized groups' intersectional advocacy efforts during notice-and-comment rulemaking
To the extent that the set of interest groups supporting a bill is higher in interest diversity than that opposing the bill, the bill is more likely to be granted committee consideration.
According to Yorgason (2025), among which demographic groups was voucher uptake in the Seattle Democracy Voucher Program greatest?
(Name at least 3 demographic groups to score points.)
Frequent voters, elderly (peak in late 70s), upper-income, Democrats, White
All these groups were already overrepresented within the donor pool!
As industries become more politically polarized, what types of candidates do Barber and Eatough (2020) find they will be more or less likely to contribute to?
Name at least 2 types of candidates for points.
As an industry becomes more politicized...
- PACs will be less likely to support incumbent legislators
- PACs will be more likely to give in competitive races
- PACs will be more likely to support members of the minority party
- PACs will be less likely to support committee chairs
The goal is to elect more partisan issue champions into office!
Kim, Stuckatz, and Wolters (2025) identify a relationship between corporate PAC spending and lobbying. What is the sequential nature of this relationship?
Firms are more likely to lobby bills connected to legislators to whom they have previously donated
* Remember: the LDA doesn't require lobbyists to disclose the names of the politicians that the lobbyists are meeting with
Blanes i Vidal, Draca, and Fons-Rosen find (2012) argue that revolving door lobbyists are valuable to clients because they exploit their network of friends and colleagues.
What specific evidence do they provide in support of this claim?
Lobbyists who used to work in Congress generate more revenue for their firm than lobbyists who never worked in Congress
Revenue associated with a lobbyist decreases immediately after a former boss leaves Congress
According to Barber and Dynes (2023), which types of municipalities are more likely to get preempted by their state governments?
(Name at least 2 factors in order to get points.)
Municipalities that have greater ideological incongruence with the state
Municipalities with larger populations
Municipalities in states where there is unified party control over the state government, especially unified Republican control
How do Kilborn and Vishwanath (2021) argue public financing of campaigns negatively affects representation?
(Hint: your answer should highlight two mechanisms/effects)
Candidates who exclusively use public campaign financing are more extreme and less representative of their districts than nonpublicly financed candidates.
Selection effect: public funding broadens the marketplace of viable candidates to include fringe candidates
Adaptation effect: candidates shift their ideological positioning away from the median voter to "reward" their extreme donors that enabled them to get public funding
How does nominating an extreme candidate in a House primary election affect general election contributions from corporate PACs compared to nominating a moderate?
Hint: findings from Meisels (2025)
Extreme candidates receive at least 50% fewer contributions from corporate PACs compared to moderate candidates.
Individual donors respond similarly to extreme and moderate candidates.
Name two goals of outside lobbying.
Signaling: demonstrating that a segment of the population cares deeply about an issue
Conflict expansion: change how the public considers and responds to a policy issue
Shepherd and You (2020) argue that future career concerns affect the behaviors of revolving-door lobbyists while they still work in government. What types of behaviors do the authors highlight?
Employing staffers who later become lobbyists is associated with:
Higher legislative productivity for MCs; especially when the number of staffers serving a final term before becoming lobbyists increases (unless the MC unexpectedly exited Congress)
Increase in the MC's sponsorship of bills related to top lobbying industries (i.e., healthcare, environment, commerce)
Greater number of meetings with lobbying firms representing foreign governments
Strolovitch (2006) examines the advocacy politics of marginalized identity groups in relationship to their intersectionally marginalized members. What does she find?
Organizations are substantially less active when it comes to issues affecting disadvantaged subgroups than they are when it comes to issues affecting more advantaged subgroups.
Organizations downplay the impact of issues impacting the disadvantaged and frame them as narrow and particularistic, while framing issues affecting advantaged subgroups as if they affect a majority of their members.
What types of political expenditures are often referred to as “dark money”?
What is the relationship between "dark money" groups and Super PACs?
"Dark money": political expenditures where the source of the funding is not disclosed, primarily flowing through politically active nonprofits like 501(c)(4)s and 501(c)(6)s
These nonprofits can spend money on political ads themselves, or their funding can be further obscured when they contribute to Super PACs.
Interest groups contribute much less to campaigns than the maximum limits. What explanation does Li (2018) offer for this?
Corporate PACs rely on voluntary contributions from affiliated individuals, who may believe that advancing the company’s bottom line will benefit them.
However, bipartisan contributions risk alienating employees with partisan preferences, and most corporations have PAC donors from both parties.
You (2017) describes lobbying as a collective action problem among interest groups, who must trade off between spending money to lobby for a bill’s passage and spending money to lobby over the details of its implementation.
What types of bills draw more ex post lobbying?
What types of interest groups disproportionately engage in ex ante lobbying?
Bills with high proportions of particularistic provisions draw more ex post lobbying.
Interest groups with more resources (e.g., trade associations, large firms) within the sector are most likely to engage in ex ante lobbying
According to findings from Strickland (2020), how do increases in turnover or assembly size impact the number of revolvers?
Increases in turnover or assembly size increase the number of former legislators who can then become revolvers, but there are diminishing marginal increases.
In Crosson, Furnas, and Lorenz’ (2020) study of interest group position-taking, the authors find that interest groups polarize along partisan lines, with two modes of distinctly liberal and distinctly conservative groups.
How does the distribution change when they weight for number of positions taken? What about when they weight for PAC and lobbying spending?
Groups that take a lot of positions tend to have more extreme preferences.
Well-resourced groups have preferences that are closer to the median Republican MC.