Joint Fundraising Committees in U.S. Senate Campaigns The Role of McCutcheon v. FEC

Abstract

We examine the use of JFCs by U.S. Senate candidates before and after the McCutcheon decision to determine how Senate candidates use these committees and to discover any changes in the use of JFCs and the amounts raised by Senate candidates. We develop a typology of Senate JFCs based the membership of the JFCs and on how the proceeds of the JFC are distributed. This preliminary analysis reveals different types of JFCs, and some modest changes after the McCutcheon decision. We do not find, however, that in the U.S. Senate context, JFCs are significant players that led to an explosion of additional contributions by wealthy donors. Our analysis has made clear that as one digs deeper into the activities of individual JFCs, a much more complex picture emerges of their utility for candidates.