Academic Research

In 1998, Arizona voters passed the Citizens Clean Elections Act. Its purpose was to eliminate the alleged deleterious effect of private money on state politics: the ...

In this article, Jay Goodliffe challenges conventional wisdom on the effect of war chests in U.S. House elections. As many "reformers" suggest that war ...

Proponents of new restrictions on campaign finance often argue that the United States spends too much money on campaigns and elections. That proposition is difficult to sustain ...

Scholarly attention to congressional campaign spending has focused primarily on the benefits candidates receive from that spending, from challenger deterrence to election victory to ...

The campaign finance reform ‘campaign’ is controlled and financed by liberal Democrats: wealthy soft money donors to the Democratic party and candidates, liberal foundations and Democratic ...

This chapter explores the relationship between U.S. House primary and general elections, focusing specifically on campaign finance. In the chapter, we assess how competitiveness in primaries ...

Rational political action committees (PACs) will give campaign contributions to candidates for two main reasons. Either the contributions are intended to influence the actions taken ...

The relationships between political action committees and political parties are at once symbiotic and parasitic. Both parties work hard to cultivate PACs and secure their money, ...

House and Senate candidates raise approximately $200 million in campaign contributions from political action committees each election cycle. The lion’s share of this money goes ...

Campaign contributions from political action committees (PACs) are often portrayed in the media as the functional equivalent of bribes. In particular, corporate PAC contributions are ...