Candidate Attributes and Pac Contributions

Abstract

INTENSE political controversy has accompanied the growth of Political Action Committees (PACs) and their contributions during the last decade. In December 1986, 4,157 PACs were registered with the FEC. PACs contributed $87.2 million to House candidates running in 1986, an increase of about 15 percent from 1984.' This study focuses on which candidates PACs decide to support, and on what they hope to accomplish with their contributions. Others generally seek to explain how PACs allocate their money with three sets of legislator attributes: the position of the member of Congress on policy, measured by a vote on a specific piece of legislation or a series of votes summarized in PAC or interest group ratings; the vulnerability of the incumbent and the challenger's prospects for success, as measured by the electoral margin of the current or previous election or by an interactive term that reflects whether the vulnerable incumbent is a friend or a foe; and the power of the incumbent, as measured by seniority, rank on certain committees, and leadership position within the party. While researchers agree that issue positions and electoral competitiveness are important to most PACs, they disagree about the importance of incumbent power in the House. Senority is found generally to be unrelated to PAC contributions (Evans 1983, 1986; Poole, Romer, and Rosenthal 1987; Grier and Munger 1986; Nelson 1982). Wright (1985) reports that neither leadership within the party nor committee positions are consistently or strongly related to the allocation decisions of five association PACs. Herndon (1982) argues that labor is more concerned with voting records than with access to the powerful. Gopoian (1984) concludes that committee assignments are generally unimportant to labor, oil and auto PACs, but they are important to PACs affiliated with defense contractors. Grier and Munger (1986)