The Financiers of Congressional Elections: Investors, Ideologues, and Intimates

Extract

The Financiers of Congressional Elections: Investors, Ideologues, and Intimates. By Peter L. Francia, John C. Green, Paul S. Herrnson, Lynda W. Powell, and Clyde Wilcox. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 205p. $59.50 cloth, $22.50 paper.

This book begins with a simple but important premise: “When political activists have distinctive views and special access to policymakers, representation and democracy may become distorted” (p. 18). Building on previous research showing that such representational “distortion” is particularly large in the case of campaign contributors, Peter Francia, John C. Green, Paul S. Herrnson, Lynda Powell, and Clyde Wilcox collect and analyze an ocean of new survey data on the characteristics, motives, participation, and activities of significant donors (those who contributed more than $200 to at least one congressional candidate in 1996). The authors reach the “troubling” conclusion that significant donors do, in fact, “have a greater voice both in elections and the policymaking process than do most other Americans…. The degree to which donors hold diverse views on policy and possess different motives for giving serves to mitigate but not eliminate this distortion” (p. 162).