Abstract
Whether political donors have greater access to government officials is a perennial question in politics. Using a freedom of information act (FOIA) compliance field experiment with US municipalities in California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania, we fail to find evidence that political donors have greater access to government officials compared to engaged citizens. We contribute to the lobbying literature by testing for preferential treatment towards political donors in municipal government. Consistent with the extant FOIA literature, we do find that a formal FOIA request increases compliance rates and decreases wait time before an initial reply. This is an important contribution because, although many polities have FOIA laws, it cannot be taken for granted that FOIA laws will lead to transparency in practice. Testing the effectiveness of FOIA laws in the US is particularly important because state laws vary substantially.
Highlights
I n April 2019, an Ann Arbor resident filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain council members’ communications
We are the first to embed a political donor condition in a FOIA compliance field experiment, but related studies find that campaign contributions (Kalla & Broockman, 2016), or even outright bribery (Peisakhin, 2012), can facilitate access to government service
Our second major contribution is that, consistent with prior FOIA studies, we find that a formal FOIA request substantially increases compliance rates
Summary
I n April 2019, an Ann Arbor resident filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain council members’ communications. We conduct a field experiment with US municipalities where we experimentally manipulate whether an engaged citizen or a political donor makes a FOIA request. We fail to find evidence that being a political donor provides inequitable access to government officials, at least with respect to municipal FOIA requests.
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