Federal Election Commission Research Articles

Political Giving by Retired U.S. General and Flag Officers

Why do retired U.S. General and Flag Officers (GOFOs) donate to political causes? I argue that retired GOFOs likely sort between nondonors, partisan donors, and corporate political action committee donors. Using a novel data set of all former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Combatant Commanders from 1979 to 2022 and drawing on data from the Federal Election Commission, I examine the conditions associated with increased likelihood of GOFO political giving. The results suggest that the majority of retired GOFOs are nongivers. However, retired GOFOs are more likely to donate to Republicans than to Democrats, and GOFOs are more likely to donate to Republicans during U.S. presidential elections. I find strong partisan trends in GOFOs’ political giving, and the results provide new insights into the conditions under which retired American GOFOs take domestic political action.

An analysis of the trends and distribution of political contributions from hematologists and oncologists in the United States.

e23041 Background: In today's increasingly tumultuous political landscape, understanding how healthcare providers are engaging the system to contribute to shaping the future of healthcare policy has become increasingly important. Policy can directly influence funding priorities, research agendas, and regulations for providers. This cross-sectional study aims to assess political contributions made by hematologists and oncologists across the United States from 2009-2022. Methods: Political donations to the U.S. Presidential, Senate, and House of Representatives campaigns made by hematologists and oncologists between 2009-2022 were collected from the Federal Election Commission database. Keywords used in the occupation search query were “oncologist”, “hematologist”, “oncology”, and “hematology”; the raw data was filtered to remove non-physicians. Each individual contribution was addressed to a recipient committee, which were characterized as “Democratic”, “Republican”, or “Independent”. Results: From 2009 to 2022, a total of 2889 contributions were made by hematologists and oncologists to campaigns for presidential and national legislative campaigns grossing a total of 1,324,397 with a mean donation value of $458 per contribution. Of campaign contributions, 68% ( $905,388), 31% ($405,257), and 1% ($13,751) went to democratic, republican, and independent campaigns respectively. The total number of contributions increased from 77 totaling a sum of $48,902 in 2009 to 203 totaling a sum of $107,281 in 2022. Republicans experienced an increase in total dollar amount of contributions of 9.42% from 2009 to 2022. The top five states with the highest contributions in dollar amount were California, Texas, Maryland, Florida, and Georgia, in descending order. Conclusions: The total political contribution amount made by hematologists and oncologists in the United States has increased from 2009 to 2022. Further investigation of how physician contributions influence the development and implementation of healthcare policies is imperative.

Health Care Lobbying and Oncology.

The health care industry spends more on lobbying than any other industry, with more than $700 million spent in 2022. However, health care lobbying related to cancer has not been characterized. In this study, we sought to describe overall health sector lobbying spending and oncology-related lobbying spending across patient and clinician organizations. We obtained lobbying data from OpenSecrets.org and the Federal Election Commission. Overall health sector lobbying spending was categorized by OpenSecrets into 4 groups: pharmaceuticals/health products, health services/health maintenance organizations (HMOs), hospitals/nursing homes, and health professionals. We then identified and categorized 4 oncology-related lobbying groups: oncology physician professional organizations (OPPOs), prospective payment system (PPS)-exempt cancer hospitals, patient advocacy organizations, and provider networks (eg, US Oncology Network). We described temporal trends in lobbying spending from 2014 to 2022, in both overall dollar value (inflation-adjusted 2023 dollars) and in per-physician spending (using American Association of Medical Colleges [AAMC] data for number of hematologists/oncologists) using a Mann-Kendall trend test. Among the overall health sector lobbying, pharmaceuticals/health products had the greatest increase in lobbying spending, with an increase from $294 million in 2014 to >$376 million in 2022 (P=.0006). In contrast, lobbying spending by health professionals did not change, remaining at $96 million (P=.35). Regarding oncology-related lobbying, OPPOs and PPS-exempt cancer hospitals had a significant increase of 170% (P=.016) and 62% (P=.009), respectively. Per-physician spending also demonstrated an increase from $60 to $134 for OPPOs and from $168 to $226 for PPS-exempt cancer hospitals. Overall, OPPO lobbying increased as a percentage of overall physician lobbying from 1.16% in 2014 to 3.76% in 2022. Although overall health sector lobbying has increased, physician/health professional lobbying has remained relatively stable in recent years, spending for lobbying by OPPOs has increased. Continued efforts to understand the utility and value of lobbying in health care and across oncology are needed as the costs of care continue to increase.

Are Political and Charitable Giving Substitutes? Evidence from the United States

Using microdata from the American Red Cross (ARC) and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in two natural experiments, we provide evidence that political giving and charitable giving are substitutes. In the first natural experiment, we estimate the effects of a positive shock to charitable donations to the ARC: foreign natural disaster events. We find that although charitable donations to ARC increase by 34.9% in the six weeks following a disaster, political donations decline by 18.8% in the same period. Put differently, each 1% increase in the charitable giving to ARC is accompanied by a 0.53% drop in political donations. At the average county-week–level donations, the implied effect of a $1 increase in charitable giving is a $0.42 decline in political donations. In the second natural experiment, we estimate the effects of a positive shock to political giving: advertisements for political campaigns. Exploiting geographic discontinuities in advertising markets, we find that political advertisements increase political giving, whereas they decrease charitable donations to ARC. Our estimates imply that each 1% increase in the political giving is accompanied by a 0.59% drop in charitable donations to ARC. At the average county-week–level donations, the implied effect of a $1 increase in political giving is a $0.33 decline in charitable donations. The crowding-out elasticities suggest that political giving and charitable giving are relatively close substitutes. We provide a number of robustness checks, and we discuss potential causal mechanisms. This paper was accepted by Eric Anderson, marketing. Funding: P. Yildirim thanks the Dean’s Research Fund and the Mack Institute at the Wharton School as well as the Wharton Behavioral Laboratory for their financial support. M. Petrova thanks financial support from the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (Barcelona School of Economics CEX2019-000915-S), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.00845 .

Firm executive political leanings, Washington, and stock market returns

In this paper, we study the effects of political identity on firm market performance. Specifically, we investigate whether a shared political orientation between a firm's executives and Congress, or the President, affect the firm's stock performance. Using hand collected political contributions data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to identify an executive's political orientation, we find evidence that firms with executives' political orientations matching that of the President or the Senate are associated with higher excess and abnormal returns and outperform other firms. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the market perceives political alignment positively.

Comparative Study of the General Election Commission (KPU) in the United States and South Korea

According to Article 22 E of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, Indonesia is a democratic country where the people hold the highest power with a representative system, namely general elections. General elections are one way for people to participate in politics. The type of research used is library research, where the research is centered in the library to obtain data without carrying out field research. So the data source is obtained using literature or regulations and norms related to the problem to be studied, namely in the form of books that examine the Position and Authority of the General Election Commission (KPU). The results of the research are 1) That the Juridical Study of the Position and Authority of the General Election Commission (KPU) in the perspective of the State Administration of the Republic of Indonesia is to realize the instrument of popular sovereignty, which aims to create a legitimate government and provide a way for the people to express their ambitions and interests. 2) That the comparison of the position and authority of the General Election Commission (KPU) in the United States and South Korea is that the United States has two general election commissions, namely the Electoral College and the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Healthcare lobbying and oncology.

5 Background: The healthcare industry spends more on lobbying than any other industry, with over $700 million spent in 2022. However, healthcare lobbying related specifically to cancer has not been characterized. In the current study, we analyze both overall health sector lobbying spending and oncology-related lobbying spending across both provider and patient organizations. Methods: We obtained lobbying data from OpenSecrets.org and the Federal Election Commission website. We categorized overall health sector lobbying spending as (1) Pharmaceuticals/Health Products, (2) Health Services/HMOs, (3) Hospitals/Nursing Homes, or (4) Health Professionals. We identified and categorized oncology-related lobbying organizations: (1) Oncology Physician Professional Organizations (OPOs, e.g., ASCO); (2) PPS-Exempt Cancer Hospitals; (3) Patient Advocacy Organizations; and (4) Provider Networks (e.g., US Oncology Network). We analyzed temporal trends in lobbying spending, in both overall dollar value (inflation-adjusted 2023 dollars) and in per-physician spending (using AAMC data for number of hematologists/oncologists). Significance was analyzed using a Mann-Kendall Trend Test. Results: Of overall health sector lobbying, Pharmaceuticals/Health Products had the greatest increase in lobbying spending from 2014 to 2022, with an increase from $294 million to $376 million (28%, p = 0.0006). In contrast, lobbying spending by health professionals did not change over this period, remaining at $96 million (p = 0.35). Regarding oncology-related lobbying, per-physician spending by OPOs and PPS-exempt cancer hospitals increased (Table). Overall, OPO lobbying has increased as a percentage of overall physician lobbying from 1.16% in 2014 to 3.76% in 2022 (not shown). Conclusions: While overall health sector lobbying spending by physicians/health professional lobbying has been relatively stable in recent years, lobbying spending by OPOs has increased. Continued efforts to understand the utility and value of lobbying in healthcare and across oncology are needed as the costs of care continue to rise. [Table: see text]

Healthcare lobbying and campaign finance activities of vision-related professional societies, 2015 to 2022

Purpose To compare the lobbying expenditures and political action committee (PAC) campaign finance activities of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS), and American Optometric Association (AOA) from 2015 to 2022. Methods Financial data were collected from the Federal Election Commission and OpenSecrets database. Analysis was performed to characterize and compare financial activity among the organizations. P < 0.05 was considered significant and all analyses were two-sided. Results From 2015 to 2022, the AAO, ASCRS, and AOA spent $6,745,000, $5,354,406, and $13,335,000 on lobbying, respectively. The AOA’s annual lobbying expenditure (median, $1,725,000) was significantly greater than AAO’s ($842,500, P = 0.03) and ASCRS’s ($694,289, P < 0.001). In PAC donations, OPHTHPAC, affiliated with AAO, received $3,221,737 from 2079 donors (median, $900); eyePAC, affiliated with ASCRS, received $506,255 from 349 donors ($500); and AOA-PAC received $6,642,588 from 3641 donors ($825). Compared to eyePAC, median donations to OPHTHPAC (P = 0.01) and AOA-PAC (P = 0.04) were significantly higher. In campaign spending, OPHTHPAC contributed $2,728,500 to 326 campaigns (median, $5000), eyePAC contributed $293,500 to 58 campaigns ($3000), and AOA-PAC contributed $5,128,673 to 617 campaigns ($5500). eyePAC’s median campaign contribution was significantly lower than the AOA’s (P < 0.001) and AAO’s (P = 0.007). Every PAC directed most of its contributions toward Republican campaigns; eyePAC donated the highest proportion (64.9%). Conclusions AOA was more assertive in shaping policy by increasing lobbying expenditures, fundraising, and donating to a greater number of election campaigns.

An Analysis of Political Contributions by Urologists in the United States: 2003-2022.

We sought to better understand the amounts and distribution of political contributions made by urologists in the United States. The Federal Election Commission was analyzed for political contributions from 2003 to 2022 using the search terms "urology," "urologist," or "urologic surgeon." Contributions were classified by political party (Democratic, Republican, or Independent) and were analyzed for temporal, geographic, and demographic trends. There were a total of 26,441 unique contributions that resulted in $9,943,205 after adjusting for inflation. The total amount of political contributions increased significantly over time, with higher numbers during presidential election years. The Republican party received the highest proportion of donations (69.1%). Importantly, women urologists and urologists working in academic centers were significantly more likely to contribute to Democratic committees (P < .001 for both). Texas had the highest total amount of contributions ($395,152). Overall contributions to urology political action committees have steadily decreased since 2011, while contributions to individual campaigns and nonurology political action committees have increased. Urologists have been increasingly contributing to political campaigns over the past 19 years, with most of their individual and political action committee contributions going to Republican committees and candidates. Future research evaluating how growing political engagement by urologists affects the development of new health care policy will be important as a new generation of urologists begins to enter practice.

Corporate political spending and state tax policy: Evidence from Citizens United

To what extent is U.S. state tax policy affected by corporate political contributions? The 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling provides an exogenous shock to corporate campaign spending, allowing corporations to spend on elections in 23 states which previously had spending bans. Ten years after the ruling and for a wide range of outcomes, we are not able to identify statistically significant effects of corporate independent expenditures on state tax policy, including tax rates, discretionary tax breaks, and tax revenues. Our results allow for a moderate economic effect on corporate tax rates and revenues, but suggest economically insignificant effects for other tax outcomes of interest to firms and their owners. A complementary analysis of the original introduction of the spending bans supports our finding that corporate spending has modest, if any, effects on tax policy.

Corporate political activism, information transparency and IPO compliance costs

AbstractDue to their covert and often dubious nature, corporate political activities may encourage or facilitate opportunistic behaviors. Yet, they also subject firms to heightened visibility, which brings greater public and regulatory scrutiny. Using a hand‐collected data set of politically connected US initial public offerings (IPOs), we investigate how this tension shapes the financial reporting incentives of firms going public and the accompanying direct compliance costs. Consistent with the agency view of corporate political activism (CPA), politically active IPO issuers have worse financial reporting quality, more litigation risk and eventually pay 28% more accounting fees than their peers. Additional analysis exploiting the US Supreme Court's landmark ruling on Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission suggests that the link between CPA and IPO accounting fees is likely to be causal. Finally, our evidence indicates that the involvement of specialized financial intermediaries in the political process has implications for the IPO financial reporting quality.

There is no capitalist conspiracy and the rich are not all‐powerful

There is no capitalist conspiracy and the rich are not all‐powerful

Rola federalnej komisji wyborczej w procesie wyborczym – uwagi na tle wyborów do Bundestagu w 2021 r.

During the preparation and conduct of elections to the Bundestag, up to the determination and confirmation of the election result and the allocation of seats, electoral and administrative bodies and other institutions make a number of decisions and actions related to the elections. The procedure for verifying the correctness of the elections takes place after the elections, so it comes too late. The Federal Elections Act provides for legal remedies that can be taken before the elections, i.e. a complaint against the decision of the Federal Election Commission not to grant party status and a complaint against the decision of the State Election Commission not to admit the national list to the elections. The article is a synthetic analysis of the competence of the federal election commission in the field of applying legal measures to prevent irregularities during elections.

The Position of the Russian Federation Regarding the “Bulldozer Revolution” in Serbia in 2000

The authors examine the evolution of Russia&amp;apos;s position regarding the “Bulldozer Revolution” in Serbia in 2000. The response of official Moscow to the &amp;apos;colour revolutions&amp;apos; at the beginning of the twenty-first century is a blank spot in Russian scholarly discourse, and the issue is being analysed in Russian and international historiography for the first time. In the course of the study, the documents of the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, the Digital Library of B. Clinton (USA), the Federal Election Commission of Yugoslavia, statements by major Russian politicians and diplomats, materials from leading domestic and Western media, many of which are published for the first time in the academic literature. The authors come to the conclusion that the official reaction of the leadership of the Russian Federation to the crisis events of autumn 2000 in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was cautious and restrained, which excluded open support for one of the parties to the internal political confrontation. While the collective West openly advocated the removal of Slobodan Milošević from power, Russia sought to ensure that the president of the country was elected by the Yugoslav people legally, without foreign interference and internal unrest. That is why, during the elections and before the victory of the “Bulldozer Revolution”, Russian officials and diplomats did not speak out in favour of any candidate, but also did not succumb to the pressure of Western politicians who sought to use Moscow to put pressure on Milošević. Russia attempted to play the role of mediator between the authorities and the opposition, yet in the face of proactive action by Western countries to overthrow the ruling regime, this policy was doomed to failure.

A Retrospective Analysis of American Dietitian Financial Donations to Political Parties

Background: Political advocacy surrounding healthcare policy has become increasingly relevant as key platform issues focus on preventive care and the impact of nutrition on health outcomes. Contributions from individuals and political action committees are pivotal in determining the direction of political advocacy. Objective: This study aimed to examine the trends of political contributions of U.S. dietitians from the years 2003-2021. Methods: This study was a retrospective review using the 2003-2021 cycles of the U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC) database. Contributions were filtered for occupation lines matching either “registered dietitian nutritionist,” “registered dietitian,” “rdn,” “rd,” “dietitian,” and “dietetic.” Each contribution is designated to a recipient committee associated with a political candidate, group, or political action committee. The party designations of these committees were used to catalog donations as “Republican,” “Democratic,” or “Independent.” Results: From 2003-2021, a total of 1,612 political contributions were made to ADAPAC/ANDPAC by self-identified dietitians. ADAPAC/ANDPAC then directed these donations, making a total of 1,372 contributions to Democratic (857) or Republican (514) candidates and only 1 donation to an independent candidate for a total of $1,685,977. Excluding contributions to ADAPAC/ANDPAC, from 2003-2021, a total of 115,407 individual dietetic contributions were made to Democratic (103,061), Republican (12,010), Independent (34), bipartisan/nonpartisan (1,896), Green (7), and Libertarian (8) candidates or committees. Individual contributions from individual dietitians to political parties totaled $3,148,371, with Democratic contribution dollar amount ($2,304,918) almost triple the Republican amount ($792,516). Conclusion: Dietitian political contributions in the U.S. have increased over the past two decades. Donations from dietitians are largely polarized and skewed towards the Democratic Party. Future studies are warranted to identify how this changes preventive care policies.

Digital Advertising in U.S. Federal Elections, 2004-2020

Digital advertising is now a commonplace feature of political communication in the United States. Previous research has documented the key innovations associated with digital political advertising and its consequences for campaigns and elections. However, a comprehensive picture of political spending on digital advertising remains elusive because of the challenges associated with accessing and analyzing data. We address this challenge with a unique dataset (N=3,639,166) derived from over 13 million expenditure records reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) between 2004 and 2020. Employing a machine learning model to classify expenditures into nine categories including digital ads and services, this paper makes four key observations. First, 2020 was a watershed election in the growth of digital campaign spending. Second, there are clear partisan differences in the resources allocated to digital advertising. Third, platform companies play a central role in an otherwise partisan market for digital ads and services. Fourth, digital platforms and consultants occupy a distinct ideological niche within each party.

Political spending, related voluntary disclosure, and the cost of public debt

Following the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case of 2010, which removed restrictions in relation to firms’ political spending, and building on the growing debate over whether voluntary political spending disclosure (VPSD) provides valuable information, we examine the effect of political spending on the cost of public debt and the role of VPSD on this effect. Based on a measure of VPSD that became available in 2012 and a large dataset on US firms’ actual political spending, manually extracted from different filings, we provide novel evidence that, in the post-Supreme Court decision period, political spending increases the cost of public debt. This is consistent with the uncertainty associated with political spending. Moreover, we find that the level of voluntary disclosure weakens the positive association between political spending and the cost of public debt. These results hold across multiple specifications as well as when we use a sudden release of firms’ political spending as an exogenous shock to political spending.

Organizational Purpose, Ideology, and Carbon Emissions

Which characteristics make companies differ in their stances toward the reduction of carbon emissions? Carbon neutrality entails a drastic technological and organizational change, and specific internal drivers may endorse its effectiveness. Recent literature proposes that organizational purpose can function to advance organizational efforts towards sustainability; however, not much is known about the condition through which this relationship can be effective. In this paper, I build on the open polity perspective on organizations and propose that organizational carbon emissions reduction may stem from interactions between the prevailing values and beliefs among the body politic of the firm. Specifically, I look at organizational purpose and political ideology as explanatory variables towards reducing carbon emissions. I gathered data from Glassdoor reviews to measure employees' perception about the organization's purpose and the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which provides individual contributions to political parties. My preliminary results show that organizational purpose and ideology (i.e., liberal vs. conservative firms) alone do not explain significant differences towards CO2 reductions. However, when mediated, I find that liberal organizations with high employee perception of organizational purpose explain substantial reductions in carbon emissions.

Out-of-State Contributions Provide Non-Incumbent House Candidates with a Competitive Edge

Out-of-state donors’ contributions represent a growing share of fundraising receipts for House candidates. This raises the question of whether out-of-state contributions simply represent more money flowing to the campaigns’ coffers or whether these monies could be worth more than their outright cash value. Using campaign finance data from the U.S. Federal Election Commission 2010-2018, I examine both the fundraising and electoral impacts of non-incumbent House candidates’ receipt of these funds using structural equation modeling, a matching analysis, and a regression analysis. I uncover evidence that out-of-state contributions are an indication of the candidate’s integration into the extended party network (EPN) finding they are closely tied to interest group support. Out-of-state contributions are also found to have a positive impact on non-incumbent House candidates’ competitiveness, which likely stems from the broader support of the EPN.

An Analysis of Political Contributions From Dietetic Professionals in the United States

ObjectivesThe Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) created a nonpartisan political action committee, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Political Action Committee (ANDPAC), formerly known as the American Dietetic Association PAC (ADAPAC), to support political candidates backing the Academy's public policy priorities. We aimed to reveal how this political action committee utilized the funding from health care occupations (primarily nutritionists or registered dietitians) by analyzing the patterns of their political contributions.MethodsContribution data collected from the United States Federal Election Commission (FEC) database from 2003 through 2021 was examined. Each contribution from 2003 through 2010 was made to the ADAPAC and thereafter contributions were made to ANDPAC. Occupation lines were used to filter for dietitians. Patterns of funding, unique contributions, and total amount of contributions were collected. Donations from ANDPAC to Democratic, Republican, or Independent candidates in each congressional election cycle was analyzed utilizing Microsoft Excel.ResultsIn 2003, there were 3 unique RD contributions to ADAPAC. By 2017, ANDPAC received contributions from 181 unique RD contributors. This declined to 68 unique RD contributors by 2021. Total RD monetary contributions to ANDPAC also declined from 2017 to 2021 ($24,071.00 to $13,835.61, respectively). From 2003 to 2021, ANDPAC contributed a total of $1,685,977.41 to political parties. Democrats received more contributions than Republicans or Independents from ANDPAC in 14 of 19 years.ConclusionsUnderstanding political contributions in today's society is pivotal to interpreting policy changes. In its 19 years of existence, the ADAPAC/ANDPAC has primarily funded the Democratic political party. Although there have been recent fluctuations, RD contributions to ADAPAC/ANDPAC has substantially grown since 2003.Funding SourcesNone.