Who gets the goods? Moderate Voting Records, Diminishing Returns, and PAC Contributions
Gregory M. Dempster Department of Economics, Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden-Sydney, VA 23943,USA Christopher Westley Department of Finance, Economics, and Accounting, Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, Alabama 36265, USA
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.
