Political Action Committees Research Articles

The Impact of Political Advocacy on the Plastic Surgeon: A Data-Driven Analysis.

Despite successful legislative efforts by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), the Plastic Surgery Political Action Committee remains underused. Participation in advocacy and financial contributions of ASPS members fall below those of similar surgical subspecialties. This study aims to perform a data-driven investigation into the impact of Plastic Surgery Political Action Committee efforts on the practicing plastic surgeon. A retrospective review of the ASPS procedural database from 1992 to 2018 and Plastic Surgery Political Action Committee contributions from 2012 to 2018 was performed. Postmastectomy breast and congenital anomaly reconstructions were analyzed. To determine significant variations in trends, change-point analyses were conducted. Changes in surgical volume were correlated to implementation of federal legislative efforts. Three significant trends of increased breast reconstruction volume were detected with associations to three specific legislative changes: 1992 to 1998, which correlates with the Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act; 2006 to 2009, which correlates with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of silicone breast implant use; and 2013 to 2015, which correlates with the Breast Cancer Patient Education Act. During the study period, breast reconstruction procedures increased substantially compared with all reconstructive procedures (146.6 percent versus 3.6 percent). There were no significant trends detected for birth defect reconstructions. Although contributions were relatively stagnant, resident member contributions increased after 2015, correlating with formation of the Political Action Committee's Resident's Club. This study demonstrates a correlation in timing between Plastic Surgery Political Action Committee legislative accomplishments and the resulting case volume increase in some areas of plastic surgery. The data highlight the importance of political advocacy and how political action committee activities can directly impact patient access to care and the practice of plastic surgery.

Development of AGA’s Policy Agenda During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Development of AGA’s Policy Agenda During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Political Will, Vaccines, and Community Immunity.

Political Will, Vaccines, and Community Immunity.

Perceptions of campaign donors and their impact on judgments of judicial fairness

ABSTRACT Perceptions of judicial fairness for elected state judges were examined across a series of studies. Of particular interest was how campaign donations and types of cases affect perceptions that judges could be fair. In Study 1, participants (N = 120) rated the political orientation of 14 groups or companies known to provide campaign contributions and rated how fair judges could be if they received donations from these entities. In Study 2, participants read about a judge who received donations from a liberal or conservative political action committee (N = 190) or corporation (N = 188). Study 3 (N = 809) tested whether judicial recusal in conflicted cases could repair perceptions of judicial fairness. Individual differences in participant political orientation were also examined. Across all studies, participants rated judges as less fair when they received donations during their campaigns and later heard cases that were clearly related to donors’ interests. Significant interactions between participant and donor political orientation were found. Generally, liberal participants thought judges would be less fair when donors were conservative, and conservative participants thought judges would be less fair when donors were liberal. Finally, judicial recusal led to higher future fairness ratings.

Persona and the Modern Republican: Constituting and Deconstituting Republican Ideals in Two Republican Political Ads

Ronald Reagan’s iconic, 1984 advertisement, “Morning in America,” has served as an ideological pole star for Republican identity for the past four decades. More recently, the political action committee, The Lincoln Project, a group of ex-Republicans, produced a number of ads highly critical of President Donald Trump’s administration. One specific ad, “Mourning in America,” uses the form of the original 1984 ad to communicate a set of radically different ideas from the original. This article fuses Black’s second persona and Wander’s third persona to Charland’s idea of constitutive rhetoric to explore how “Morning in America” constitutes a Republican identity via a matrimonial symbolism that connects candidate to a gauzy, constructed community and imagined culture. We argue that the Lincoln Project’s “Mourning in America” deconstitutes the very ideals promulgated in the original ad through a stark funereal symbolism. The implications of this symbolism on the Republican identity are discussed in the conclusion.

Advocacy to Government and Stakeholders

Participation in the health care and government advocacy arena may represent new and challenging perspectives for the traditional neurosurgeon. However, those with a strong understanding of the laws, rules, regulations, and fiscal allocation process can directly influence the practice of neurosurgery in the United States. We seek to shine light on the black box of how health care laws are passed, the influence and techniques of lobbying, and the role and rules surrounding political action committees. This practical review of health care advocacy is supplemented by a blueprint for engagement in the political arena for the practicing neurosurgeon.

What Can We Expect From New Congress on Mental Health Care?

What Can We Expect From New Congress on Mental Health Care?

United we stand, divided we fall? How signals of activist cohesion affect attraction to advocacy organizations

Advocacy organizations—such as political parties, political action committees, and interest groups—have the potential to shape public policy and opinion. But to realize that potential, they must mobilize participants, sympathy, and funding. This article explores whether advocacy organizations gain more support when they signal greater cohesion. A conjoint experiment tests the effects of member cohesion, along with other attributes including group size and use of violent tactics, on people’s attraction to hypothetical organizations that were founded to elect candidates from their preferred political party (in this study, the Democratic Party). Results show that Americans who identify as Democrats are more likely to join, donate to, and generally feel positive toward cohesive organizations, but will embrace those with heterogeneous goals so long as members do not actively disagree with one another. These findings can inform the strategies of “intersectional” advocacy organizations that assemble people of diverse and sometimes conflicting interests.

An Analysis of Political Contributions from Neurosurgeons in the United States

As the uncertainty surrounding the future of U.S. health care policy intensifies, political advocacy and campaign contributions have become increasingly relevant. This study describes the trends of political contributions of U.S. neurosurgeons from the years 2003-2019. Individual contribution data from 2003-2019 were obtained from the Federal Election Commission website. Contributions were filtered for occupation lines matching either "neurosurg," "neurologic surgeon," or "neurological surgeon." Each contribution is designated to a recipient committee associated with a political candidate or group. The party designations of these committees were used to catalogue donations as "Republican," "Democratic," or "Independent." From 2003-2019 a total of 9242 political donations were made by self-identified neurosurgeons amounting to $8,469,121. Most of these contribution dollars were directed to Independent committees (47.9%). Of all Independent contribution dollars from 2005-2019, 95.9% were directed to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons Political Action Committee. The total number of unique contributions increased from 442 contributions in 2003 to 650 in 2019. Democrats experienced the most substantial increase in support, from 4.8% of all contribution dollars in 2003 to 26.3% in 2019. Republican support was noted to be more widespread across the United States compared with Democratic support. Political contributions from U.S. neurosurgeons have increased steadily over time. Donations were largely Independent but became increasingly partisan in recent years. Overall, this displays an increase in political involvement among the neurosurgeon community. Future studies are warranted into how this involvement translates to representative health policy.

Direct Democracy, Corporate Political Strategy, and Firm Value

We analyze a novel data set of corporate contributions to ballot initiatives and referendums at the U.S. state level between 2003 and 2018. Ballot initiatives and referendums allow citizens of 26 U.S. states to vote directly on legislation. Firms make significant campaign contributions to ballot measure committees in favor of or against specific initiatives that exceed on average their political action committee contributions. Firms that contribute to successful (failed) direct initiated state initiatives generate positive (negative) CARs of 0.32% (-0.21%) on average around the election. They also experience significant sales growth in the two years surrounding successful ballot measure campaigns.

An information marketing campaign promotes physician donation to a radiology political action committee: Campaign Promotes Donation to Radiology PAC

ObjectiveTo evaluate the impact of an informational marketing campaign on radiology political action committee (PAC) donations. MethodsThe Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) Resident and Fellow Section (RFS) Advocacy Committee implemented an informational marketing campaign beginning with an email survey in January 2017. Society of Interventional Radiology Political Action Committee (SIRPAC) donors (n = 564) and donations were compared prior to and after the marketing campaign. ResultsComparisons from 2015-2016 (n = 353, 62.6%) to 2017-2018 (n = 432, 76.6%) showed a statistically significant increase (p < 0.001) in donors. Comparisons from 2015-2016 (M=$124.73, SD = 202.18) to 2017-2018 (M=$229.96, SD = 404.72) showed a statistically significant mean increase (p < 0.001) in donations. DiscussionRaising awareness of SIRPAC through a targeted informational marketing initiative had a positive impact on PAC donations. Although a causal relationship cannot be definitively determined, we believe that implementation of similar interventions can be useful in order to help raise funds for other medical specialty PACs.

Managerial Political Spending Choice and Earnings Management

This study investigates whether and how the CEOs’ political spending choice is associated with their earnings management behavior. Using a sample of 8,502 firm-year observations from S&amp;P 500 firms during 1993–2012 over 10 election cycles, we provide empirical evidence that CEOs making political spending mainly through the corporate channel to recipients advised by the firms’ own political action committees engage in less earnings management than those making political spending mainly through the private channel to their own selected recipients. This finding suggests that CEOs’ political spending choice of the private channel over the corporate channel represents their strong self-interests and is associated with higher agency costs. We further show that the distinction between the two channels is less important when the CEOs’ private political spending patterns are aligned with those of their own firms. Our results are robust to techniques alleviating the potential endogeneity issue related to political spending behavior.

Why PACs Are an Essential Part of Advocacy

Advocacy is a broad term which encompasses a range of activities, from direct advocacy of patients, their parents and their community, to population-based federal and state legislative advocacy through statutory policy and program changes.1 It has been suggested “that advocacy occurs on a spectrum that includes legislative, administrative, clinical and patient-centered endeavors.”2 As child and adolescent psychiatrists, we are well suited to be advocates for children’s mental health at all of these levels, because we are “immersed in the communities directly affected by these policies and can more quickly synthesize personal experience and scientific research to inform the debate.”1 The American Medical Association declaration of professional responsibility states that physicians commit ourselves to, “advocate for social, economic, educational, and political changes that ameliorate suffering and contribute to human well-being.”3 In order to be effective advocates for our patients and our profession there are multiple ways to get involved, for example direct lobbying from AACAP’s Government Affairs Department, grassroots lobbying by our members individually or in coordination with the Association, and AACAP-PAC contributions by our Association members. In this article we will be focusing on Political Action Committees’ (PACs) basis for advocacy and education, and more specifically the AACAP-PAC.

Editorial introductions

Editorial introductions

COVID's Impact on the US 2020 Election: Insights from Social Media Discourse in the Early Campaign Period

The impact of COVID on the upcoming November 2020 US electionwill be an important topic in the coming months. In order to contribute to these debates, this data memo, the final in our summer 2020 series on COVID, considers this question based on an analysis of social media discourse in two week-long periods in late May and early July. We findthat only a very small proportion of tweets in election-related trends concern both the election and COVID. In the May period, there was much evidence of conspiracy-style and misinformative content, largely attacking the Democrats, the seriousness of COVID and postal-voting. Tweets also showed that the stances of the Presidential nominees towards the coronavirus has emerged as a major point of political differentiation. In the July period, tweets about COIVD and the election were dominated by the influence of a new anti-Trump Political Action Committee's viral videos, with the hashtags associated with these videos found in 2.5% of all tweets in election-related trends across the period. However, this criticism was not mirrored in the wider dataset of election-related or political tweets in election-related trends. Criticism of Trump was frequent across all time periods and samples, but discourse focused far more on Trump especially in the July period in which tweets about Trump outnumbered tweets about Biden 2 to 1. We conclude that these patterns suggest the issue of COVID in the US has become so highly politicised that it is largely only one side of the political spectrum engaging with how COVID will impact the US election. Thus, we must ask going forward not how COVID will impact the process and outcome of the election but rather how COVID will be used as a political and campaign issue in the coming election.

The Origin and Evolution of Super PACs: a Darwinian Examination of a Campaign Finance Species

A series of campaign finance rulings, most notably the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, set off a sea change in how electoral politics are funded in the United States. The result is an evolutionary break that disrupted the campaign finance environment in ways that allowed a new species of organization, the super PAC, to thrive. Other traditional campaign finance organizations, such as political parties and political action committees, have not adapted as well and now play a reduced role relative to the new “super species.”

Health Care Lobbying, Political Action Committees, and Spine Surgery.

Retrospective review. The aim of this study was to analyze the political contributions and strategies of the Political Action Committee (PACs) lobbying for the political interests of spine surgeons. In 2016, a presidential election year, $514,224,628 was spent on health care lobbying. Only 16% ($85,061,148) was on behalf of health professionals providing care. Below we chronicle the overlapping contributions between the three different physician-based Political Action Committee (PAC) lobbying entities as it relates specifically to spine surgery. Data were abstracted for the PACs of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS), and the North American Spine Society (NASS). These data were obtained using OpenSecrets (opensecrets.org), and the Federal Election Commission (fec.gov) website. All data points were collected biannually from 2006 to 2018 and statistically analyzed as appropriate. In 2016, the AAOS PAC contributed $2,648,218, the AANS PAC $348,091, and the NASS PAC $183,612. After accounting for respective group size, the AAOS spent >2.34 times that of the AANS. Orthopedists were 3.84 times (95% confidence interval 3.42-4.3) more likely to donate to their PAC than neurosurgeons (P < 0.001) during the 2016 election. The majority of contributions among the three different lobbyist organizations were to federal candidates, followed by fundraising committees, and finally to the national party. Eighty-eight percent of AANS donations went to Republican candidates, whereas AAOS and NASS were 63% and 67%, respectively. From 2008 to 2016, the AAOS PAC had a highest political contributions spend per active member of parent organization ($126.39) as compared to AANS ($80.52) and NASS ($17.81). The AAOS had five surgeons for every donor to the AAOS PAC, whereas the AANS had 14 surgeons and NASS 38 members per each donor. The AANS had a higher percentage of Republican donations with 78.9% of donations going to Republicans as compared to 61.8% of AAOS contributions and 67.9% of NASS contributions. Spine surgery is unique in that three different physician-based lobbyist organizations seek to influence legislative priorities with the AAOS having the most substantial fiscal impact and greatest participation. Choreography of donation strategies is essential to maximize physician voice at the policy level. 5.

Price discrimination in political advertising: Evidence from the 2012 presidential election

AbstractIn 2010, the US Supreme Court loosened contribution limits to Political Action Committees (PACs), sparking fears that big donors could exert outsize influence on elections by funding PAC advertising. However, PACs are potentially handicapped when buying advertising time; data from 2012 reveal that PACs pay 32% above regulated campaign rates. I estimate a model of demand for advertising by PACs, exploiting the misalignment of state and media market borders to address price endogeneity. I find that prices reflect willingness‐to‐pay for viewer demographics rather than media bias. The estimates further suggest that network‐owned stations discriminate more successfully than do local affiliates.

Philanthropy—or tax-exempt lobbying?

Follow the Money Major corporations appear to fund their charitable foundations in part to cater to politicians who are important to the firm's profitability. Integrating corporate tax returns, lobbying data, and data on U.S. congressional committee assignments, Bertrand et al. show that donations from a given corporate-funded foundation to charities in a particular congressional representative's district, or for which a congressional representative is a board member, ebb and flow according to whether the representative sits on a committee that is of interest to the corporation. The patterns parallel spending by political action committees (PACs). Around 7% of charitable giving (∼$1.2 billion annually) appears to be politically motivated, amounting to about 2.5 times the annual PAC spending and one-third of the total federal lobbying spending—and it is tax exempt and thus subsidized by taxpayers. Am. Econ. Rev. 110 , 2065 (2020).

Are Nurse Practitioner Students Learning About Medicare Fraud?

Are Nurse Practitioner Students Learning About Medicare Fraud?