Eric S. Heberlig and Bruce
A. Larson, "Congressional Parties and the Mobilization of
Leadership PAC Contributions," Party Politics, 16
(July, 2010), 451-475. [Available at
]
First paragraph:
Political parties must find resources to finance the
achievement of their collective good, i.e. winning office.
In the United States, congressional parties increasingly
rely on donations from incumbent office-holders contributing
to the party and its candidates from their principal
campaign committees (PCCs) and leadership political action
committees (LPACs) (Dwyre et al., 2007). LPAC critics have
complained that they allow their sponsors to advance their
own political careers by contributing to colleagues in
exchange for support in leadership contests (e.g. Baker,
1989; Mann and Ornstein, 2006), and that LPACs underwrite
the personal goal achievement of the PAC sponsor more than
the collective good of the party, much like leaders of
'self-financed' parties (Hopkin, 2004).
Figures and
Tables:
Table 1. Incumbent contributions in the 1990, 1998
and 2004 election cycles
Table 2. Republican house members' Personal Campaign
Committee (PCC) versus Leadership Political Action
Committee (LPAC) contributions, rare events analysis
Table 3. Democratic house members' Personal Campaign
Committee (PCC) versus Leadership Political Action
Committee (LPAC) contributions, rare events analysis
Table 4. Party orientation of contribution networks -
PCCs versus LPACs
Table 5. Number of members with leadership PACs, by
position, 1990-2004
Table 6. Party orientation of LPAC contribution
networks in 2004, by position
Appendix: Measure of Non-Incumbent Ideology
Table A1. Predicting non-incumbents' ideology
(DW-NOMINATE scores), OLS with robust standard
errors
Last Paragraph:
Ambitious members no doubt use LPACs to advance their own
career and power goals, but the party ensures that LPAC
contributions advance the interests of the entire party
caucus. By controlling the structure of opportunities for
institutional advancement, parties organize themselves to
guarantee that members advance their own personal goals and
the party's collective goals simultaneously.
