Who Gets the Goods? Moderate Voting Records, Diminishing Returns, and PAC Contributions
Economics & Politics, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 321-333, November 2000
13 Pages Posted: 15 Sep 2011
Date Written: September 14, 2011
Abstract
Assuming that a legislator representing a moderate constituency (with respect to a variety of interests) may be expected to vote moderately in general, the authors suggest a measure of the “moderateness” of a legislator’s voting behavior and use it to determine whether a relationship exists between PAC contributions and the degree of moderateness. The results suggest that PACs exhibit a tendency to give more, at the margin, to legislators with moderate voting records.
Keywords: ideology, voting, voting models, politics
JEL Classification: D72
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation