Allocating Unlimited Money: What Explains Super PAC Spending in Congressional Elections?

How do Super PACs allocate their resources? The question is both timely and relevant, particularly as we reflect on the ten-year anniversary of the Citizens United ruling. Super PACs now outspend – sometimes by huge margins, as in the 2016 presidential election – all other groups’ independent expenditures including those of parties, unions, and 501(c) organizations. The issue is especially important in congressional politics, where Super PACs have an opportunity to shape the institution every two years through congressional elections. Utilizing outside spending data from the Center for Responsive Politics, we analyze four U.S. House election cycles since the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United ruling (2012–2018). The likelihood that Super PACs invest in a race is strongly determined by the electoral context, even after controlling for the legislative influence of the incumbent member of Congress.

Purchasing negativity: public opinion on "Super PAC" advertisements during the 2012 American presidential election

This major research paper is a qualitative study of American “Super PAC” advertising during the 2012 American presidential election. Super PACs, a type of “political action committee,” have the ability to collect unlimited funds to advertise on behalf of candidates and parties. Super PACs have attracted criticism from scholars due to the Super PACs’ negativity against opposing candidates. Using Albert Bandura‘s Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communication, and existing literature on political advertising, this study explores public opinion on negative television commercials. It employs data collected by The Super PAC App – a mobile application that recorded individual reactions to political advertising. It also employs qualitative content analysis on 20 negative Super PAC advertisements using codes created by political scientist John Geer. The results suggest that users of the App generally disliked negative Super PAC advertisements. Furthermore, the results indicate there are certain characteristics within negative advertisements that make them more liked or disliked by users of the App.

Purchasing negativity: public opinion on "Super PAC" advertisements during the 2012 American presidential election

This major research paper is a qualitative study of American “Super PAC” advertising during the 2012 American presidential election. Super PACs, a type of “political action committee,” have the ability to collect unlimited funds to advertise on behalf of candidates and parties. Super PACs have attracted criticism from scholars due to the Super PACs’ negativity against opposing candidates. Using Albert Bandura‘s Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communication, and existing literature on political advertising, this study explores public opinion on negative television commercials. It employs data collected by The Super PAC App – a mobile application that recorded individual reactions to political advertising. It also employs qualitative content analysis on 20 negative Super PAC advertisements using codes created by political scientist John Geer. The results suggest that users of the App generally disliked negative Super PAC advertisements. Furthermore, the results indicate there are certain characteristics within negative advertisements that make them more liked or disliked by users of the App.

The Impact of Citizens United on Large Corporations and Their Employees

The goal of this research is to determine whether the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United ruling changed the contribution strategies of employees of major corporations. Using an original dataset of campaign contributions by employees of Fortune 500 companies, we analyze the contribution strategies of these individuals in the 2008 and 2012 presidential election cycles. Overall, our results suggest three important conclusions. First, Citizens United did not alter Fortune 500 employees’ contribution patterns to traditional political committees. However, the emergence of Super political action committees (PAC) in 2012 may have pulled employees’ contributions from 527 groups, at least in the short term. Second, we find large differences in contributions across resources, and the differences become even more dramatic after Citizens United when CEOs contributed millions to Super PACs. Finally, Fortune 500 employee contributions to traditional political committees still outweigh Super PAC contributions in both numbers and amount. And, importantly, employees of the world’s largest corporations were not the driving force behind the increase in spending after Citizens United.

Billionaires

The rise of the super PAC was also the rise of the politically active billionaire. Dropping the old restrictions on who could give how much to whom did more than turn the attentions of fundraisers from millionaires to billionaires. It also freed billionaires to...

Transparency will wait on US agency resets

Significance Clinton has weathered a scandal in which it was revealed that she used a private email service (based on a server located in her home in New York) for official correspondence as secretary of state. Clinton has pledged to turn all emails over to government archives, but deleted 30,000 messages deemed personal. The story raised questions of balancing government transparency and proper functioning in an era where most communications are recorded electronically. Impacts The United States will likely continue to fail to fund and effectively administer existing FOIA requirements. Improving public access to information remains a matter for partisan jostling, and has little priority at the national level. Issues of transparency may shift to focus on campaign donations and Super PAC collaboration.