Election Spending Research Articles

Decline and Fall? The Roberts Court and the Challenges to Campaign Finance Law

The Supreme Court has had a major impact on the development of campaign finance law. Court decisions have barred most expenditure limits, upheld contribution restrictions and disclosure requirements, and limited the kinds of electoral ads that can be subject to regulation. In the McConnell decision in 2003 the Court demonstrated a greater openness to campaign finance regulation when it upheld McCain-Feingold's soft money and issue advocacy restrictions. Since McConnell, however, the composition of the Court has changed, and in two decisions in the past two years, the new majority has been much more hostile to campaign finance limits. In particular, last year's WRTL decision significantly eroded McConnell's issue advocacy holding and opened the door to considerably more corporate and union spending in elections. Three new cases are currently moving through the judicial system, with one soon to be argued before the Supreme Court, a second pending there, and a third in the early stages of litigation. These cases have implications for contribution limits, public funding, and the fundraising restrictions and disclosure requirements that apply to independent committees. Their resolution will shape the effectiveness of current campaign law and signal the direction of the Roberts' Court's emerging campaign finance jurisprudence.

Paying the Price for a Seat on the Bench: Campaign Spending in Contested State Intermediate Appellate Court Elections

AbstractThe subject of judicial elections has garnered an increasing amount of attention by scholars over the past decade. Campaign spending in judicial elections has occupied a central focus of this research, but most of this scholarship has examined campaign finance at the state supreme court level. Our study departs from that tradition by examining what factors predict campaign expenditures in 172 contested state intermediate appellate court (IAC) races from 2000–06. The results indicate that the characteristics of the race, institutional factors, and the context of the campaign all influence how much money is spent in IAC elections. Although similar in some respects to state legislative and supreme court elections, notable differences exist as well.

The Effects of Campaign Spending in State Supreme Court Elections

Electoral competition has been an important subject of political science research over the past several decades. This article examines the effects of campaign spending on electoral competition in state supreme court elections. Specifically, the author addresses the question, How do campaign expenditures affect the performance of incumbents in supreme court elections? The author finds that, just like elections to Congress and state legislatures, electoral competition in state supreme court elections can be understood by looking at characteristics of the candidates, the state and electoral context, and institutional arrangements.

How Prices Matter in Politics: Returns to Campaign Advertising

The apparent ineffectiveness of incumbent campaign spending in congressional elections is one of the enduring puzzles in the political economy literature. Intuitively, higher spending should translate into more advertising, and more advertising should translate into more votes. Previous work in this area has assumed that advertising prices are uniform across congressional districts, and therefore that campaign spending alone is a good proxy for campaign advertising. However, candidates in different districts face widely different advertising prices. This paper emphasizes the importance of media advertising prices for the analysis of campaign spending and shows that differences in advertising costs are one source of the apparent ineffectiveness of campaign spending. Accounting for the price of advertising, this paper shows that campaign spending is productive for both incumbents and challengers.

Contribution Limits and the Effectiveness of Campaign Spending

Much work on the apparent ineffectiveness on incumbent spending in congressional elections has hypothesized that the productivity of incumbent spending is low because incumbents operate on the 'flat part' of their election returns function. Differences in campaign spending associated with state campaign finance laws allows for a test of this hypothesis. Exploiting cross-state variation in campaign finance laws, this paper tests whether campaign expenditures by state House candidates are more productive in increasing vote shares when candidates are subject to contribution limits. The results show that campaign expenditures by incumbents and challengers are more productive when candidates run in states with campaign contribution limits, as opposed to in states without limits. Further, in states with contribution limits, incumbent spending and challenger spending are equally productive, and spending by both candidates is quantitatively important in increasing their vote shares.

Class Politics and Political Context in Britain, 1964-1997: Have Voters Become More Individualized?

We assess the impact of social class and local context on individual vote in Britain from 1964 to 1997. Multilevel multinomial logit models are fit to British Election Survey data for eight elections and constituency-level data on social class composition and election spending by the major political parties. We find no evidence for a process of individualization of the voter. Our findings suggest that both individual and contextual social class effects on vote have remained fairly stable over time. Moreover, although we find an increase in the impact of campaign spending over time, this increase was similar among all social classes. Were the individualization thesis to hold, changes would have been most notable among the working class. These findings suggest that the declining salience of social class for electoral outcomes better reflects changes in class structure and party platforms rather than a lessening of importance of social class as a social identity.

Incumbent Spending in Gubernatorial Elections: An Investigation of Primary Type and Candidate Deviation

In the public choice literature, it has been shown that (i) candidates deviate from their median voter based upon the primary election type, and (ii) incumbents that deviate from the median voter will pay for deviating with higher campaign expenditures. This paper examines the relationship between gubernatorial incumbent campaign spending and the degree of openness of political primaries in the United States to examine if the type of primary system influences campaign spending. The authors find that incumbent candidates who face a more open primary will deviate less and therefore spend less to win elections.

Subordinating the Economic to the Political: The Evolution of the Corporate Speech Doctrine

The jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States on corporate speech regulation has evolved to distinguish markedly what once appeared a more expansive precedent in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti. This article considers the manner in which a doctrine of corporate speech regulation has been fashioned in the case law that derives from the special nature of the corporate form and justifies regulation of corporate political spending in candidate elections in order to address the potential for real or apparent corruption of democratic processes. That line of jurisprudence was most recently extended in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, the Court's landmark ruling on campaign-finance regulation handed down at the end of 2003. As it had done on multiple occasions since early in the twentieth century, the Court accepted legislative judgment that corporate treasuries represent a threat of corruption when deployed directly in candidate elections.

Liberte, Egalite, Argent: Third Party Election Spending and the Charter

Both the federal government and the courts have brought about changes in election law. The author reviews these recent changes In the legal landscape that surround election rules, in particular third party election spending. The questions of what rules exist" and "who shall make them" are particularly important to the discussion as this area of law tries to reconcile individual interests in liberty and equality in a democracy. The trio of Supreme Court of Canada decisions. Libman v. Quebec (A.G.), Thomson Newspapers v. Canada (A.G.) and Sauvi v. Canada (Chief Electoral Officer), reveal ambiguity in the Court's rationale for limiting individual liberty at election time. This ambiguity is broached in the recent Supreme Court of Canada case of Harper v. Canada (A.G.) where the Court accepted that Parliament may legitimately seek to create a "level playing field" at election time.

Campaign Finance Laws and the Competition for Spending in Gubernatorial Elections*

Objective. The diversity of campaign finance laws in the U.S. states allows the effects of these reforms to be measured. I investigate the impact of contribution limits and public financing on campaign spending in gubernatorial elections.Methods. I conduct a multivariate regression analysis of general election spending in races for governor from 1980 to 2000. I analyze levels of spending per voter, as well as challengers' share of total spending.Results. State contribution limits do not hold down overall spending. Candidate acceptance of public funding and spending limits reduces spending by incumbent governors more than it reduces that of challengers. As for challengers' share of spending, I find that public funding programs improve challengers' ability to match incumbents' spending dollar for dollar.Conclusions. State programs that offer public funding to candidates effectively favor challengers. This points to the potential of these reforms to make federal elections more competitive.

The constitutional protection of freedom of expression

In this book, Richard Moon puts forward an account of freedom of expression that emphasizes its social character. Such freedom does not simply protect individual liberty from state interference; it also protects the individual's freedom to communicate with others. It is the right of the individual to communicate: an activity that is deeply social in character, and that involves socially created languages and the use of community resources, like parks, streets, and broadcast stations. Moon argues that recognition of the social dynamic of communication is critical to understanding the potential value and harm of language and to addressing questions about the scope and limits on one's rights to freedom of expression. Moon examines the tension between the demands for freedom of expression and the structure of constitutional adjudication in the Canadian context. The book discusses many of the standard freedom of expression issues, such as the regulation of advertising, election spending ceilings, the restriction of hate promotion and pornography, state compelled expression, freedom of the press, access to state and private property and state support for expression. It examines several important Supreme Court of Canada decisions including Irwin Toy, Dolphin Delivery, RJR Macdonald, Keegstra and Butler.

New Evidence for New Arguments: Money and Advertising in the 1996 Senate Elections

We present an individual-level analysis of the effects of campaign advertising on vote choice in the 1996 Senate elections. Drawing on a unique data set that merges the 1996 National Election Study with detailed satellite tracking data showing when, where, and how many times every. Senate campaign ad was aired in each of the nation's top media markets, we develop an alternative measure of media exposure and a different way of measuring the effect of campaign spending. We use this new approach to address long-standing questions about the effect of political advertising and the role of campaign spending in congressional elections. This cleaner measure yields results contrary to some of the conventional wisdom on the effect of campaign spending.

Constituency Campaign Intensity and Split-Ticket Voting: New Zealand’s First Election Under MMP, 1996

New Zealand’s first MMP general election in 1996 witnessed a large proportion of the electorate splitting their votes. This varied very substantially across the 65 constituencies, and estimating procedures have been used to show similar variations in the proportions of those who voted a straight-ticket and those who split their tickets between different party combinations. It is hypothesised that some of this variation was related to the intensity of the campaigns for constituency votes. The candidates’ returns on election spending are used as a measure of this intensity, and regression analyses provide strong support for the hypothesis. In general, the more that candidates spent, the better their performance relative to that of their party (and the poorer their opponents’ performance).

Election spending and freedom of expression

WITH the imminent incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights and the recent publication of the Report of the Neill Committee on Standards in Public Life (Cm 4057), these are exciting, if fluid, times for those with an interest in party political funding. In tandem these initiatives will begin the long overdue process of reform to the law and practice of elections in the UK. A key difficulty awaiting the new regime is one long familiar to many other Western democracies, namely how to regulate election spending whilst preserving the integrity of an entrenched right to freedom of expression, a question recently considered by the European Court of Human Rights in Bowman v. UK (141/1996/762/959).

Money and Elections: Can Citizens Participate on Fair Terms amidst Unrestricted Spending?

AbstractIn 1996 the Alberta Court of Appeal struck down election spending limits for individuals, interest groups, corporations and unions for violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These spending restrictions were part of a complex regulatory regime which sought to promote fairness by controlling the election spending of candidates and parties. Although this decision was not appealed to the nation's highest court, the Supreme Court disapproved the Alberta ruling in an unrelated decision. This suggests that spending limits are justifiable under the Charter. Yet if new legislation is not introduced, the Alberta decision will continue to govern election conduct throughout the country and could undermine the democratic ideal of citizens participating in fair terms in the act of self-governance.

Fiscal Consistency and Federal District Spending in Congressional Elections

Theory: Conventional wisdom holds that legislators win votes by acquiring federal spending for constituents. Scholars have struggled, however, to support this belief empirically. This paper links federal district spending and pork with an explanation based on consistency: electoral performance hinges on legislators' fiscal consistency, i.e., whether their votes on federal spending are consistent with their credit claiming for pork flowing to their districts. Hypotheses: In districts receiving substantial pork, fiscally liberal incumbents perform better electorally than fiscal conservatives. In low-pork districts fiscal conservatives perform better. Methods: These hypotheses are tested using aggregate-level data from the 198490 United States House elections and individual-level data from the 1988 Senate Election Study. Results: The hypotheses are supported on the aggregate and individual levels. Fiscally consistent legislators receive more votes than fiscally inconsistent legislators.

THE VARIABLE EFFECTS OF CHALLENGER SPENDING IN U.S. HOUSE ELECTIONS

This paper extends the work on challenger spending in congressional elections to allow for the possibility that such spending has varying effects, depending upon circumstances. Using data from the 1988 and 1990 U.S. House elections, it begins with a baseline model for the incumbent's margin. Pairs of dummy variables and interaction terms were then added to test several hypotheses. The results provide some evidence to suggest that challenger spending is less effective if the challenger faced a toughprimary. Contrary to previous work, an advantage was found for repeat challengers. Also contrary to previous work, the results do not suggest that high‐quality challengers spend their money more efficiently than do other challengers.

A Dynamic Model of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections

In contrast to conventional studies on campaign finance, which focus on the aggregate effect of money on the vote, we propose a more general dynamic model based on temporally disaggregated data. The model is supported by the substantive understanding that at different stages of the campaign process candidates have different goals, and their expenditures should have different effects on the final election outcome. Using Achen's (1986) framework of quasi experiments, the model includes dynamic “assignment equations” and “outcome equations”, which address the problem of nonrandom assignment. A final vote equation is derived in which the coefficients of period-specific incumbent expenditures are constrained by an Almon polynomial. Empirical estimation provides evidence for a three-stage dynamic campaign process.

Competence, Integrity, and the Electoral Success of Congressional Incumbents

All voters may share a common interest in maximizing the quality of representatives in the U.S. House. If voters act on this interest when evaluating congressional candidates, then the electoral system will function with a collective sense of rationality. Incumbents who lack competence or integrity will be voted out, whereas skilled and principled incumbents will be retained. Quality, competence, and integrity scores are produced in this study for representatives who entered the U.S. House in the period 1969-1981. These values then are used to assess the role of incumbent quality within the electoral system. Results reveal that incumbents who are low in quality are highly likely to leave Congress after only a few years, either because of voluntary retirement or electoral defeat. Further, incumbent quality is shown to affect the dynamics of primary elections, the level of challenger spending in general elections, and the general election margin. Cumulatively, this study's findings strongly support the claim that the electoral system functions rationally. Systemic emphasis on candidate quality provides new perspective on possible electoral reform. Most specifically, this study's findings suggest that term limitations would be likely to reduce the aggregate level of competence and integrity in the U.S. House.

An Individual-Level Multiequation Model of Expenditure Effects in Contested House Elections

We shall address questions concerning the impact of candidate spending in congressional elections in a new way. We develop a multiequation model of congressional vote choice that takes the endogeneity of expenditures into account. We then estimate both this model and the more traditional single-equation model using individual level survey data. The substantial differences we find between the two models indicates that the simultaneity bias present in the single-equation model is not trivial. The challenger and incumbent expenditure terms are each significant (whereas only challenger expenditures are in the single-equation setup) and of much greater magnitude in the multiequation case. In addition, we evaluate hypotheses grounded in persuasive communications theory concerning the type of individuals most affected by the messages emanating from the campaigns. We find that individuals with higher education, those with greater interest in campaigns, and those with strongly held convictions are unaffected by candidate spending, whereas individuals lacking each of these attributes are greatly influenced by campaign expenditures.