A foot in the door: do PAC contributions buy access?

Abstract

A between-groups experimental design tests the theory that PACs have an advantage over constituents in gaining access to members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Sixty-nine congressional staffers participated in an exercise designed to simulate the process by which scheduling decisions are made. The study was conducted in Washington, DC in the Fall of 1996. Analysis of variance reveals constituency to be the main effect. There are, however, partisan differences in the way access is granted to PACs. When making decisions on requests from non-constituents, Democrats and Republicans behave alike, favoring PAC associated requests over the non-PAC requests. But when responding to requests from constituents, Democrats favor requests from constituent PACs over those from constituents not associated with a PAC, while Republicans exhibit the opposite pattern, granting greater access to constituents not associated with PACs than constituents associated with PACs. Nevertheless, constituency remains the strongest influence as both Democrats and Republicans are more likely to grant requests from constituents than from non-constituents with the same PAC status. Further analysis of covariance suggests that a member's historical dependence on PAC contributions may influence the priority of access granted to PACs.