About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

77 Tex. L. Rev. 1673 (1998-1999)
Money and Institutional Power

handle is hein.journals/tlr77 and id is 1689 raw text is: Money and Institutional Power Stephen Ansolabehere* and James M. Snyder, Jr.** I. Introduction Money is power. The identity is simple enough, even axiomatic. Most commentary on and criticism of American campaign finance begins with this proposition, though many social scientists are skeptical that donors get much for their contributions.' We come not to dispute this principle but to turn it on its head. We begin with the notion that interest group money, however much it recoups from politicians in services or public policies, is targeted at those in political power. Or, to be precise, the constitutive powers of offices determine the ability of the politicians within those offices to raise campaign contributions. This principle, if true, carries important lessons about both the amount of money flowing into legislative and executive races and which offices hold the balance of political power in the United States. Over the last two decades, political scientists have given careful consideration to the theoretical bases of institutional power in the United States.2 The core idea of these institutional arguments is that various arrangements-such as committees, party caucuses, and administrative agencies-create veto points that concentrate power within one branch of government and that might give that branch greater power than other bodies.' A number of important, potentially testable arguments about the * Professor, Department of Political Science, MIT. ** Professor, Departments of Economics and Political Science, MIT. 1. See FRANK J. SORAUF, INSIDE CAMPAIGN FINANCE: MYTHS AND REALITIES 166-72 (1992) (finding that academic studies on the impact of contributions in government have not supported the notion that money begets influence). 2. See, e.g., KEITH KREHBIEL, PIVOTAL POLITICS: A THEORY OF U.S. LAWMAKING 8-19 (1998) (discussing various theories and their relation to gridlock and coalition sizes). 3. Cf. Barry R. Weingast & William J. Marshall, The Industrial Organization of Congress; or, Why Legislatures, Like Firms, Are Not Organized as Markets, 96 J. POL. ECON. 132, 157-58 (1988) (theorizing that the committee agenda veto power induces coalition bargaining to secure floor access such that policy choices of those coalitions are stable in order to maintain those floor seats); KREHIEL, supra note 2, at 232 (explaining a committee-power theory that presents legislative committees as able to maintain and pass policies close to their interests by using political advantages such as ex post vetoes).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most