Details

Subject(s)

• Campaign funds—United States—States [Browse]
• Legislators—United States—States [Browse]
• Legislation—United States—States [Browse]

Publisher

Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan) [Browse]

Series

Legislative politics & policy making [More in this series]

Summary note

Campaign contributions are widely viewed as a corrupting influence but most scholarly research concludes that they have marginal impact on legislative behavior. Lynda W. Powell shows that contributions have considerable influence in some state legislatures but very little in others. Using a national survey of legislators, she develops an innovative measure of influence and delineates the factors that explain this great variation across the 99 U.S. state legislative chambers. Powell identifies the personal, institutional, and political factors that determine how much time a legislator devotes to personal fundraising and fundraising for the caucus. She shows that the extent of donors' legislative influence varies in ways corresponding to the same variations in the factors that determine fundraising time. She also confirms a link between fundraising and lobbying with evidence supporting the theory that contributors gain access to legislators based on donations, Powell's findings have important implications for the debate over the role of money in the legislative process.

Notes

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Source of description

Description based on information from the publisher.

Contents

• Measuring the influence of campaign contributions in the legislative process
• Patterns of state legislative campaign finance
• An investment model of campaign contributions
• The time legislators devote to fundraising
• How much is a legislator's time worth to a contributor?
• The influence of campaign contributions in legislative chambers
• Fundraising for the caucus: expectations and practices
• Fundraising and lobbying.

Show 5 more Contents items

ISBN

• 9786613532473
• 9781280128592
• 1280128593
• 9780472028276
• 0472028278

LCCN

2011043628

OCLC

781773108

Other standard number

10.3998/mpub.2454352

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