The Impact of Unified Party Government on Campaign Contributions

Engstrom, Erik J.; Ewell, William Henry

doi:10.3162/036298010793322348

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The year 2000 represents the first year for which the NIMSP systematically collected campaign contribution data for the 22 states with partisan or nonpartisan judicial elections. To make the estimates comparable over time, contributions were adjusted to constant dollars (2012) using the Consumer Price Index, which is customary in the literature where multiple years are evaluated (see Engstrom and Ewell 2010). The dependent variable ( Contribution ) is the natural log of the total amount contributed by an individual to a specific state supreme court election campaign, and contributions were transformed using the natural log to better achieve a normal distribution, which was otherwise not present with nontransformed values.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual Contributions to State Supreme Court Campaigns: Context and the Impact of Institutional Design

Boyea

2017

State Politics Policy Q.

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Building upon existing theories of political fundraising and citizen participation in elections, this study examines contributions from individuals as an essential form of political participation in state high court elections from 2000 through 2012. Specifically, I explore the degree to which candidate characteristics, state political environments, and the attributes of state institutions affect the size of individual contributions. The findings of this investigation indicate the participation of contributors in judicial elections closely resembles the activities of voters. Like voters, contributors respond to contextual forces that increase or decrease salience and the political information available to state citizens. Of particular importance are state decisions to use partisan or nonpartisan election designs. Decisions by states to use partisan elections have important consequences for the generosity of contributors with larger donations directed to candidates seeking office in the most professionalized elective state supreme courts.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual Contributions to State Supreme Court Campaigns: Context and the Impact of Institutional Design

Boyea

2017

State Politics Policy Q.

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“…The results were unaffected by the adjustment. In order to be consistent with previous literature (e.g.,Engstrom and Ewell 2010;Bonneau 2007;Boyea 2017), we use the adjusted measure. The logged variable reduces the effects of outliers and enhances linearity, making coefficients easier to interpret and enhancing statistical properties.10 These reports are available at: https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/strengthen-our-courts/promotefair-courts/money-judicial-elections.…”

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confidence: 99%

Recusal as Remedy: Disincentivizing Donors

Edelstein,

Benesh

2024

State Politics Policy Q.

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As judicial elections become increasingly expensive, recusal has emerged as a way to address concerns about the impartiality of judges who receive contributions from lawyers or potential litigants. While it is unclear if strict recusal rules are the best remedy for conflicts of interest created by contributions, they may disincentivize potential donors from investing in judicial campaigns by negating their potential goal of influencing decisions. We consider whether donor behavior in judicial campaigns – especially for those donors most likely to be interested in specifically currying favor with judges – responds to differences in recusal standards. Using data from 219 state supreme court races in 22 states from 2010 to 2020, we find that states with stricter recusal rules attract fewer campaign donations to judicial races, and states with more lax rules attract more overall and, most especially, for attorney donors.

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“…Converting contributions to constant dollars is standard in the literature where using more than one year of data (see Engstrom & Ewell, 2010).…”

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confidence: 99%

Giving to Governors: State Contribution Limits and the Incumbency Advantage

Boyea,

Brace,

Canelo

2023

BLR

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Consistent with elections throughout the United States, the majority of contributions in gubernatorial campaigns come from individuals. Understanding the incentives for why individual donors give money in varying political environments is essential for understanding the influence of political donors. Using contribution data from 2009 through 2015, this paper considers whether state campaign finance reform has had unintended effects for how incumbent and non-incumbent candidates raise money. This study demonstrates that individual donations vary in theoretically driven ways. Few factors, however, affect donor generosity more than the relationship between a candidate's incumbency status and the severity of state contribution laws. Consistent with Jacobson's early concerns, restrictive contribution laws appear to strengthen the position of incumbents and place non-incumbent candidates at a disadvantage. Where states apply less restrictive limits, however, the advantage held by incumbents among donors largely disappears.

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The Impact of Unified Party Government on Campaign Contributions

Cited by 5 publications

References 27 publications

Individual Contributions to State Supreme Court Campaigns: Context and the Impact of Institutional Design

Individual Contributions to State Supreme Court Campaigns: Context and the Impact of Institutional Design

Recusal as Remedy: Disincentivizing Donors

Giving to Governors: State Contribution Limits and the Incumbency Advantage

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