Congressional Parties, Fundraising,
and Committee Ambition
ERIC S. HEBERLIG, UNIVERSITY
OF
NORTH CAROLINA, CHARLOTTE
Congressional party leaders are hypothesized to use desirable committee assignments as a selective incentive
to entice incumbent members of Congress to contribute the collective good of the party’s campaign efforts.
Financial contributions to the party are an effective measure of party loyalty, particularly in an era of high levels
of party loyalty on roll call votes. This article analyzes committee transfers in the U.S. Congress from the 102nd
through the 107th Congresses. The evidence shows that the greater the amount an incumbent contributes to
party committees or party candidates, the more likely he or she will transfer to prestige committees. It also
demonstrates that fundraising has become more closely related to prestige committee transfers when margins
of party control in the House became very close after the Republican takeover.
and to party committees have increased substantially over
the past decade (Herrnson 1997, 2000).
This article examines the extent to which funds donated
by the campaign committees of incumbent members of
Congress to other candidates and to party election committees affect committee transfers. In doing so, it evaluates the
extent to which congressional parties channel the ambition
of individual members by using such institutional resources
as seats on prestige committees to reward members who
assist the party in attaining its collective goals. This reward
helps to explain why members vote with the party and contribute electoral funds to parties or colleagues when these
activities pose some risk to own reelection efforts.
The evidence presented here shows that contributions
affect transfers in the 102nd through 107th Congresses. The
evidence also indicates that contributions have a greater
influence on switches to prestige committees than to policy
or constituency committees. The results demonstrate the
importance of fundraising as an indicator of party loyalty in
the contemporary partisan, high-cost electoral environment.
O
n June 14, 2000, the Republican leadership of the
U.S. House of Representatives announced “Battleground 2000,” a plan for incumbent members of
the Republican caucus to raise $16 million for the National
Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) (Allen
2000). The leadership gave each member a “nonvoluntary”
yellow pledge card. The amount listed was determined by a
sliding scale based on the member’s position in the leadership, committee, and seniority hierarchy. A United Waystyle contribution thermometer, delineating each member’s
individual contribution, was posted outside of the suites
from which members made fundraising calls. A special seventeen-member whip organization monitored progress and
exerted peer pressure. Furthermore, Speaker Hastert explicitly told members that their contributions to the fundraising
drive would help to determine their committee assignments
and their rank within committees in the 107th Congress.
The techniques of congressional fundraising in the most
recent election cycle are more coercive iterations of trends
that started in the last few election cycles. The Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) formally initiated the practice of soliciting contributions from incumbents as “dues” during the 1991-92 election cycle, and the
Republicans followed in the 1993-94 cycle (Gimpel 1996;
Herrnson 2000; Sabato and Larson 2002: 87). Although a
member’s use of campaign contributions to colleagues to
advance within the House’s power structure is not unprecedented (see Baker 1989; Jackson 1988), incumbents’ contributions from their own campaign accounts and/or leadership PACs to the campaign treasuries of other candidates or
CONDITIONAL PARTY GOVERNMENT AND
COLLECTIVE ACTION
The aim of party leaders in Congress is to accomplish
the collective goals of the party through the achievement of
majority party status (Jacobson 1985-86). With majority
status comes the ability to structure and control the legislative process (Cox and McCubbins 1993), and thus makes it
easier for members of the majority party to achieve their
policy goals and to deliver benefits to constituents.
Although individual members favor majority status,
they also have individual goals. These include reelection,
advancement to leadership positions or another office, and
good public policy (Fenno 1973). Congressional party leaders face a free rider problem in mobilizing members to
achieve collective goals. Majority status is a collective good.
Its benefits are available to all members of the majority party
re g a rdless of any individual member’s contribution to
achieving it. Even if members are willing to contribute to
NOTE: An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2001 Annual
Meeting of the American Political Science Association. I thank Ben
Bishkin, Burdett Loomis, Peter Radcliffe, brownbag participants at
UNC Charlotte, and the editor and reviewers for their comments
and assistance. I especially thank Bruce Larson for sharing his data
on campaign contributions by members of Congress from 1990
through 1994.
Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 56, Number 2 (June 2003) pp. 151-161
151
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POLITICAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY
achieving majority status, the extent to which they can personally make a difference is doubtful, given the number of
variables that affect the outcome of congressional elections
(e.g., Jacobson 2001). The contribution to majority status
that each member is most able to affect is his or her reelection. Members traditionally have acted to assure their
reelection by amassing personal campaign war chests,
voting their district, and engaging in constituency service
with little regard for the collective partisan consequences
(Fiorina 1989; Mayhew 1974). Members delegated powers
to congressional party leaders to coordinate legislative business and strategy within the chamber. Parties provided technical and communications assistance and minimal funds, at
best, to congressional candidates.
The last decade has seen a resurgence of partisan activities in Congress. Parties have improved their resource bases
and technical sophistication to become more involved in
their candidates’ campaigns (Herrnson 2000). The ideological realignment of the party caucuses (Rohde 1991) has
made members more accepting of an aggressive party legislative agenda that is used to establish national themes for
local elections. In addition, the close partisan margins since
1994 may have made it easier to persuade individual members that their own contribution to the party campaign can
be efficacious. These factors plausibly could explain members’ increased willingness to contribute to party campaign
finances over the past few election cycles. Heberlig and
Larson (2002), for example, find that the 1996 election
cycle marked a dramatic change in the quantity and patterns of redistribution of funds by congressional incumbents as party control was up for grabs and both congressional parties mobilized to seize it.
Selective incentives provide the most effective method of
overcoming free rider problems (Olson 1965). Presumably,
there are a variety of selective incentives that party leaders can
bestow—information, favorable scheduling, assistance with
projects, visits to the district, etc. Either these traditionally
have not been used effectively by party leaders to solicit campaign funds or they were insufficient to overcome members’
incentives to use funds for their reelection. The selective
incentive that Speaker Hastert has now invoked—committee
assignments—are central to members’ ability to achieve a
variety of their goals in Congress (Fenno 1973). Rank-andfile members then have an incentive to donate to their party’s
fund redistribution efforts in order to fulfill their own personal ambitions for institutional advancement and the electoral and policy benefits derived from them.1 Importantly,
advancing to a more powerful committee based on one’s contributions to the party can occur regardless of whether the
party achieves its collective goal of majority status.
1
Other personal motivations that could increase a member’s campaign
contributions include: building up “chits” with colleagues for assistance
in passing legislation (Wilcox 1989), and policy and fundraising advantages (Cox and McCubbins 1993; Cox and Magar 1999) that derive from
majority status.
Mobilization is also a solution to the free rider problem.
Individuals commonly participate politically in response to
requests by others, particularly if they are personal acquaintances (Bianco and Bates 1990). Contemporary incumbents
may give funds to the party, where they had not in the past,
in part because now someone is explicitly asking them to do
so, and using social pressure, such as whip organizations, to
gain compliance. The relationship between fundraising and
committee assignments may become more apparent after
1994 once party leaders started to mobilize their members
as fundraisers in earnest.
Parties and Committee Assignments
One of the venues in which the tension between the
party’s collective goals and an individual member’s personal
goals has played out has been the committee assignment
process. Party leaders want to place party loyalists on influential committees. They also want to look after the electoral
needs of their members and to assure that states or regions
are not underrepresented on committees (Masters 1961). As
elected leaders, they face pressure to accommodate members’ demands (Shepsle 1978). The literature differs on how
this tension is resolved.2
The independent committees perspective argues that, for
the most part, members “self-select” their committees. They
request to be on committees that help them achieve their
dominant mix of goals—constituency, policy, and/or power
(Fenno 1973). The leadership has the most discretion on
“ p restige” committees where demand is usually greater than
available seats (Deering and Smith 1997; Jewell and ChiHung 1974; Shepsle 1978). The committee assignment
process largely accommodates their requests, going so far as
to expand committee ratios in order to meet the demand
(Shepsle 1978). Committees are filled with members who
share similar preferences, who are “high demanders” for the
policy outputs of that committee, and who make policy that
reflects their interests (Adler and Lipinski 1997; Hall and
Grofman 1990; Shepsle and Weingast 1987).
The party-dominated committee perspective argues that
party leaders, who are responsible to their caucus for producing policies that are consistent with its collective preferences, will attempt to assure that committee delegations are
responsible agents of the party (Cox and McCubbins 1993;
Kiewiet and McCubbins 1991). This is especially true on the
“prestige” committees that have jurisdiction over the most
important policies. Studies of Democratic committee assignments in selected Congresses in the 1970s did not find statistically significant relationships between members’ party
loyalty and their success in obtaining their committee
requests (Rhode and Shepsle 1973; Smith and Ray 1983).
2
For a concise review of the three main perspectives, see Maltzmann
(1997). The focus here is on the independent committees and partydominated committee theses; the chamber-dominated committee thesis
is not explored.
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CONGRESSIONAL PARTIES, FUNDRAISING, AND COMMITTEE AMBITION
More recent analyses, however, have found that party loyalty has a small but statistically significant influence on
committee assignments. Cox and McCubbins (1993) measure party loyalty based on a member’s party leadership loyalty scores, which occur when the party’s House floor leader
and whip vote together and in opposition to the same two
leaders of the other party. Using this measure, party loyalty
has a statistically significant effect on committee transfers
for both part i e s — p a rticularly for prestige committees.
Maltzmann (1997) finds that Democrats with higher levels
of party loyalty on “committee specific votes” are more
likely to receive their requests to selected committees. Like
others, he finds that the caucus is most concerned with loyalty on prestige committees.
Support for the hypothesis that party voting affects committee transfers is thus somewhat inconsistent. When it is
found, the magnitude of the effect is small. In part, this is
due to the nature of the committee transfer process. Transfers, particularly to prestige committees, are rare from the
perspective of the individual member of Congress. And
once a member has transferred to the desired committee, he
or she is likely to stay to build seniority, thus forgoing future
transfer opportunities.
All of the above studies use some variation of voting as a
measure of party loyalty. There are many good reasons for
conceiving of party loyalty in this way, including evidence
that party leaders provide their own “leadership support
scores” to their Steering committees for consideration in
granting requests (Deering and Smith 1997: 107). However,
p a rties are also sensitive to members’ needs to vote their districts. Although they do not want to assign disloyal members
to important committees, they do pre s e rve regional and ideological balance (Cox and McCubbins 1993; Krehbiel 1991).
An alternative way for ambitious members to demonstrate their party loyalty is to raise substantial funds on
behalf of party candidates. Fundraising demonstrates one’s
willingness to contribute to the good of the party and to the
achievement of majority status without offending voters or
important interests in one’s district. Indeed, it is unlikely to
be noticed by anyone other than party leaders and the recipients of a member’s generosity. As levels of party voting have
increased dramatically over the past decade, fundraising
allows members to distinguish themselves from other members with high party voting scores.
Thus, we can define party loyalty broadly to include a
member’s behavior that is oriented towards helping the
party achieve its collective agenda. Party voting helps the
party achieve its policy agenda. Fundraising helps the party
achieve its goal of majority status, and thereby, its policy
goals through its control of the legislative process.
The empirical question is whether fundraising activity
for colleagues during the previous election has any effect on
committee assignments.3 To evaluate this relationship, we
3
Evidence of a relationship between fundraising and committee transfers
in Congresses prior to Speaker Hastert’s explicit linkage does not mean
153
must control additional variables that may affect the relationship. Most important is the existing committee position
of the incumbent. As Shepsle (1978) notes, there is a
“wealth effect” and an “opportunity cost effect” in committee transfers. The “wealth effect” is that members who
already have good committee assignments are less likely to
seek other assignments. The “opportunity cost effect” is that
members who have already gained seniority, particularly a
chairmanship or ranking position on the full or subcommittee, are unlikely to surrender their positions to become
junior members on a new committee. These effects are particularly important in assessing the relationship between
fundraising and committee assignments because members
with assignments to prestige committees or who have party
or committee leadership positions are also in a position to
raise more money to redistribute it to the party or to other
candidates (Grenzke 1989; Grier and Munger 1993; Romer
and Snyder 1994).
The availability of seats on desired committees also
a ffects the probability of transferring. Vacancies occur
through the retirement or defeat of members and by the
committee ratios set by majority party leaders. The availability of desirable seats affects the probability of transfer
directly as well as the ability of party leaders to restrict
assignments to members who have been the most loyal.
The hypotheses can be summarized as follows: (1)
Demonstrations of party loyalty increase the probability of
successful shifts to prestige committees. Party loyalty can be
demonstrated in two ways: by campaign contributions and
by roll call votes. Larger contributions and higher levels of
party voting will increase the probability of successful transfers. (2) The “wealth effect,” existing service on desirable
committees, and the “opportunity cost effect,” seniority and
a leadership position on a committee or subcommittee,
decrease the probability of a transfer because members are
unlikely to abandon their investments in their existing
assignments. (3) Higher numbers of available seats increase
the probability of transfer. (4) Fundraising will have a
greater effect on the probability of transferring to prestige
committees after the 1996 election cycle (starting with the
105th Congress) than in earlier congresses.
DATA AND METHODS
This article examines committee transfers in the 102nd
(1991-93) through the 107th Congress (2001-3).4 A transfer
4
that this was an intentional strategy by the party leaderships. Members
who donated excess campaign funds to others, particularly in eras when
such donations were less common, are likely to have been members
who engaged in other party-oriented activities. Contributions, then, like
party voting, are a quantifiable measure of party loyalty that is associated with other less-measurable partisan behaviors.
This decade is a challenging one in which to study committee transfers
because of the Republican takeover in the 104th Congress. Republicans
eliminated several committees, thus decreasing the opportunities for
transfers in later congresses. Their new majority status also entitled them
to make dramatic changes in each party’s committee ratios. Generally,
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154
POLITICAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY
was coded when any returning member of the House of Representatives switched from one committee to another or took
an additional assignment.5 These data were obtained from
CQ Almanacs for the relevant years. Transfers also were
divided into the traditional three types: prestige, policy, and
constituency committees. Cox and McCubbins’ coding
scheme was followed (1993: 20). It is based on the exclusiveness of the committees as defined by the party caucuses
themselves.6 Deering and Smith (1997: 64) was used for
committees not listed explicitly by Cox and McCubbins. The
prestige committees are Appropriations, Rules, and Ways
and Means. Energy and Commerce was counted as a prestige
committee for the Democrats starting in the 104th Congress,
when it became an exclusive assignment for their caucus.
Policy or semi-exclusive committees are: Agriculture, Armed
S e rvices, Budget, Energy and Commerce (for Republicans),
Banking, Education, Judiciary, Tr a n s p o rtation, Intelligence,
and International Relations. Although Budget is a control
committee, its members may serve for limited terms and on
an additional committee simultaneously. Constituency, or
nonexclusive committees, include: Government Reform ,
House Oversight, Resources, Science, Small Business, Standards of Official Conduct, and Veterans’ Affairs. Prior to the
104th Congress and their elimination, the Post Office and
Civil Service and the Merchant Marines and Fisheries committees were coded as constituency assignments.
Data were gathered on several other characteristics of
members of Congress: their seniority in each session of
Congress, their status as a party or committee leader, and
their CQ party loyalty voting score adjusted for participation during the previous Congress.7 These data were gath-
5
6
7
members who had assignments on eliminated committees were transferred to the committee that gained jurisdiction over the issues, e.g.,
Post Office and Civil Service committee members were transferred to
Government Reform and Oversight. I did not count these as transfers. I
coded other members who were removed from a committee in the 104th
due to changing committee ratios but who were returned to that committee in the 105th and entered this as a separate independent variable.
It is not statistically significant and does not affect the estimation of the
other variables in the model; therefore, I do not include it in the equations presented here.
I am studying transfers rather the success of a member’s committee
request for a number of reasons. Most prominently, the data on recent
requests is unavailable. Extant studies of requests focus on Democrats in
the 1970s, thus preventing analysis of Republican committee assignment
behavior. The campaign finance data during this time period is not of
high quality. Also, Cox and McCubbins (1993: 179-82) find that much
transfer activity is accomplished informally; those who make formal
requests have done so when informal means did not succeed.
Members of exclusive committees may not serve on any other committees. Members of semi-exclusive committees may serve on one other
non-exclusive committee. Members of nonexclusive committees may
serve on two nonexclusive committees or on nonexclusive and one semiexclusive committee.
For the 105th Congress, I also used Cox and McCubbins’ party leadership voting scores (1993: 146). These scores include only votes on which
the majority leader and whip vote the same way, in opposition to the
minority leader and whip who also vote the same way. Each member’s
p a rty leadership voting score is the standardized pro p o rtion of party leadership votes on which the member supports his or her leaders (on the
ered from the CQ Almanac and the Almanac of American Politics (Barone and Ujifusa 1990-2000) from the appropriate
Congress. Data on the value of committee assignments were
taken from Groseclose and Stewart (1998).
Contributions of members of Congress for the 1989-90
through the 1999-2000 election cycles were obtained from
the Federal Election Commission (www.fec.gov). Two sets of
data on members’ contributions were gathered: those from
a candidate’s campaign committee to other candidates’ campaigns, and those from a candidate’s campaign committee to
a party committee.8 Separate contributions were aggregated
to create measures of the total number of dollars each
member gave to candidates, to a congressional campaign
committee, and cumulative contributions to both sets of
recipients.
Contributions and Committee Transfers by
Members of Congress, 102nd-107th Congresses
The 1990s marked an era of extremely close partisan
competition, and following the 1994 election, a continuous
pitched battle for majority party status. The fundraising
spiral is easy to illustrate (Figure 1). In the 1989-90 election
cycle, congressional incumbents who sought reelection gave
just under $2 million in contributions: $1.6 million to party
candidates and just under $400,000 to party committees.
One hundred fifty-six members (39 percent) did not donate
either to other candidates or to party committees. Figure 1
also shows a shift in recipients, with other candidates as the
primary beneficiaries in 1990 (84 percent of total contributions; 98 percent from Republicans and 76 percent from
Democrats), while the party’s House campaign committees
were the primary beneficiaries in 2000 (71 percent of total
contributions; 76 percent from Republicans and 66 percent
from Democrats). In part, the dramatic increase of members’
donations from their principal campaign committees to
CCCs has occurred because these contributions are unlimited (11 CFR 113.2). (For further analysis of the changes in
the contribution patterns of members of Congress over time
see Heberlig and Larson 2002).
In the 1999-2000 election cycle, contributions totaled
$29.2 million, nearly a 1500 percent increase from the 198990 cycle. Only 30 re t u rning members (7 percent) did not
redistribute any money. Apparently party leaders’ efforts to
persuade members to participate in party building efforts have
had a substantial effect. Incumbents gave $5.3 million to other
candidates and $23.9 million to party committees. Republicans gave $15.7 million; Democrats gave $13.5 million.
Table 1 shows the number and percentage of committee
switches from the 102nd through 107th Congresses in
8
votes on which the member participates). These scores did not produce
results that differ from the CQ party loyalty vote scores re p o rted here.
Leadership PAC contributions are not very relevant to the analysis of
committee transfers because they overwhelmingly are sponsored by
members who are already on an exclusive committee or in a leadership
position (Heberlig and Larson 2002).
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CONGRESSIONAL PARTIES, FUNDRAISING, AND COMMITTEE AMBITION
155
≡
FIGURE 1
CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS BY MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
1990-2000 ELECTION CYCLES
aggregate and within each party. Twenty-two percent of
re t u rning members transferred committees during this
period. Only 5.7 percent of transfers were to prestige committees. The aggregate number of transfers and proportion
of members making transfers decreases across the decade,
with the 104th Congress marking the shift. Table 1 also
shows that the plurality of transfers was to policy committees. Transfers to prestige committees fluctuate, but are
always substantially fewer in number and proportion than
policy committee switches. The numbers and percentages of
members transferring to constituency committees are similar to those of prestige committees.
Measurement and Analysis Strategy
To evaluate the effect of a member’s campaign contributions on committee assignments, a series of probit equations
were estimated. Probit with robust standard errors is the
appropriate estimation pro c e d u re because there are
repeated observations of the same case—each member for
each Congress in which he or she served between 1991 and
2001. Members who served throughout this period consequently are observed six different times. Although our
observations are not independent of one another, a probit
model still produces unbiased coefficients. The coefficients,
however, may be inefficient due to the lack of independence. The robust standard errors procedure reduces the efficiency problem and allows us to assess the statistical significance of each independent variable more accurately.
In estimating the models, prospective and retiring members of Congress in the previous election cycle are excluded.
Newly elected members are receiving their original committee assignment rather than transferring, and do not have
party voting records or the “wealth” values from existing
assignments. Retirees who supplied funds to colleagues or
party committees in the previous election cycle did not have
the opportunity to transfer and are excluded.
The dependent variable is whether or not the member
transferred between committees or added an additional
assignment from one Congress to the next. The independent variables are the total value of the member’s campaign
contributions, party loyalty voting score, seniority, leadership position, value of the member’s committee assignments
in the previous Congress, and committee vacancies.
Campaign contributions are the total amount a member
redistributed from his or her principal campaign account to
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156
POLITICAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY
≡
TABLE 1
COMMITTEE TRANSFERS, 102ND-107TH CONGRESSES
Transfer to
102nd
103rd
104th
105th
106th
107th
102 (25%)
15 (4%)
50 (14%)
48 (12%)
105 (30%)
26 (7%)
56 (16%)
23 (6%)
73 (19%)
20 (5%)
42 (11%)
13 (4%)
82 (23%)
33 (9%)
40 (11%)
10 (3%)
116 (29%)
25 (6%)
44 (11%)
19 (5%)
70 (18%)
14 (3.5%)
51 (13%)
12 (3%)
Republicans
Any
Prestige
Policy
Constituency
46 (29%)
8 (5%)
18 (11%)
20 (13%)
37 (27%)
6 (4%)
22 (16%)
8 (6%)
44 (28%)
13 (8%)
27 (17%)
3 (2%)
46 (21%)
15 (7%)
20 (9%)
7 (3%)
64 (29%)
9 (4%)
23 (11%)
15 (7%)
45 (21%)
8 (4%)
34 (16%)
10 (5%)
Democrats
Any
Prestige
Policy
Constituency
56 (23%)
7 (3%)
32 (13%)
28 (11%)
68 (32%)
20 (9%)
34 (16%)
15 (7%)
29 (13%)
7 (3%)
15 (7%)
10 (4%)
36 (21%)
18 (10%)
20 (12%)
3 (2%)
52 (25%)
14 (7%)
21 (10%)
4 (2%)
25 (12%)
6 (3%)
17 (8%)
2 (1%)
Any
Prestige
Policy
Constituency
Note: The number and percentage of members of Congress who compromise the total for “any” transfer are not the sum total of the number and percentage
of members who make transfers to each type of committee because some members transferred to multiple types of committees in the same Congress.
other House candidates or to his or her party’s House campaign committee during the previous election cycle.9 To
compare contributions across six election cycles in which
the amount of funds contributed escalated substantially, all
contributions were set at their 2000 “value.”10
9
10
I also estimated the equations with incumbent’s contributions to other
candidates and to party committees separately. These measures obviously produce effects that are similar to the cumulative measure. The
aggregate amount of money given to both sources, however, consistently produces stronger results than either type of contribution alone.
Apparently, parties are not just rewarding members who contribute
directly to the party campaign committee or only to candidates in competitive elections, but those who maximize their assistance by doing
both. Further, I attempted to model the possibility that those who “gave
more than expected” would be more likely to transfer successfully. Contributions were modeled as function of a number of variables (including elected and unelected leadership positions, existing committee
memberships, electoral margin) to estimate the predicted amount a
member could be “expected” to raise. Actual contributions were then
subtracted from their projected contributions. This method produced
results in the committee transfer equations that were very similar to
those produced by using the total amount contributed. I use the
member’s actual contributions as the measure for the sake of parsimony
and because it avoids the additional error of using an instrumental variable produced by equations with low explanatory power. In addition,
leadership positions, seniority, and existing committee assignments,
three predictors of fundraising capacity, already are controlled in the
transfer model. The only committee from which members typically
raise substantial sums that does not have a high “wealth value” is Banking. Thus, the most important variables that explain variation in
fundraising capacity already are included in the model.
The total contributions for each year were multiplied by the appropriate
pro p o rtion to make them equivalent to the total contributions in 2000.
Each member’s contribution for that year was then multiplied by the same
pro p o rtion. In this way, the effect of each year’s contribution on committee transfers can be assessed on the same basis as every other year’s.
Party loyalty voting is measured by the z-score of Congressional Quarterly’s party voting scores, adjusted for
attendance, during the previous Congress. The scores were
calculated separately for each party during each Congress.
Z-scores are used to assure that the relative loyalty of members compared to their colleagues is measured. In an era of
homogenized and polarized parties, there is restricted variation in the raw voting scores. Z-scores also standardize the
party voting scores to allow for comparisons across sessions
of Congress and political parties.
The Wealth Effect is measured with two values of a
member’s committee assignments in the previous Congress
taken from Groseclose and Stewart’s cardinal committee
values during the 94th-102nd Congresses (1998: 470).11
The value of the member’s most valuable committee assignment and the value of the member’s least valuable assignment are entered because each may operate independently.
That is, a member who is switching committees may surrender one assignment and keep others or surrender all of
them. The relationship between both committee values and
transfers is likely to be negative: the more valuable a
member’s existing assignments, the lower the probability
should be that he or she changes committees.
The Opportunity Cost Effect is measured by the
member’s seniority and leadership status. Seniority is the
number of years the member has served in Congress. Leadership status is measured: 2 = elected party leader or full
11
These sessions are closest available to those being studied in this article.
Because the cardinal values for the Appropriations, Rules, and Ways and
Means Committees are “infinity” during this period, I use value of the
A p p ropriations committee during from the 81-102nd Congre s s e s
(Table 4: 467) for these three committees.
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CONGRESSIONAL PARTIES, FUNDRAISING, AND COMMITTEE AMBITION
157
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TABLE 2
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS FOR INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
Adjusted Contributions
Party Voting
High Committee Value
Low Vommittee Value
Seniority
Leadership
Prestige Vacancies
Policy Vacancies
Constituency Vacancies
Min
Max
Mean
Standard Deviation
0
–5.44
–0.17
–0.31
1
0
6
15
1
1,711,210
1.38
5
5
27
2
20
34
28
68,013
0.01
2.06
1.11
6.0
0.63
10.9
23.9
10.8
135,360
1.06
1.83
1.87
3.92
0.70
4.69
6.60
8.03
committee leader; 1 = subcommittee leader; 0 = no leadership position.12
Committee vacancies are measured by the number of
seats available to returning members on prestige, policy, and
constituency committees for each party. The vacancies for
each type of committee are measured separately and the
appropriate committee vacancy is entered into the equation
for transfers to that type of committee (e.g., policy committee vacancies are included into the policy committee transfer equation). This measure accounts for the changing committee ratios for each party across the sessions of Congress
during the decade. The descriptive characteristics of these
variables are presented in Table 2.
Change scores for each independent variable were calculated in order to assist in the interpretation the substantive effect of logit coefficients. The change in the dependent
variable, the probability of transferring, was calculated
based on changing the value of the independent variable
from one standard deviation below the mean to one standard deviation above the mean. All other independent variables were set at their respective means.
FINDINGS
The results of the model for committee transfers from
the 102nd through the 107th Congresses are presented in
Table 3. The results provide considerable support for the
hypotheses. The evidence supports the contention that
members who seek prestige committee assignments have an
incentive to demonstrate their party loyalty, but that parties
are less concerned with the loyalty of members on policy or
constituency committees.
All of the variables in the prestige committee equation are
significantly related to transfers in the predicted directions.
Both measures of party loyalty—a member’s level of campaign contributions and party voting—are significantly
associated with moves to prestige committees (p < .05). It is
notable that each has an independent effect on prestige
transfers. The magnitude of the change scores shows that
party loyalty voting has a somewhat larger effect than contributions on probability of transferring to prestige committees.13 Neither measure of party loyalty is related to shifts to
policy or constituency committees, consistent with the literature’s traditional finding.
Other hypotheses also are strongly supported. The
Wealth Effect is demonstrated by the finding that members
who already have better committee assignments are significantly less likely to transfer to prestige committees. Those
whose “best” and “worst” committee assignments are more
highly valued relative to their colleagues’ assignments tend
to keep what they have, while those whose assignments are
relatively undesirable are more likely to switch. Members
whose least valuable committee assignment is relatively
high, however, are significantly more likely to transfer to
policy or constituency committees, perhaps in order to find
a better match between their personal or their constituents’
interests and their committee responsibilities.
Similarly, the Opportunity Cost Effect is most clearly
demonstrated in prestige transfers. Members who have
accrued seniority and party or committee leadership positions are less likely to give these up or take on additional
responsibilities by transferring to a prestige committee.
Higher levels of seniority significantly inhibit switches to
policy and constituency committees as well. Seniority consistently has the largest change scores for each type of committee. Members are loath to surrender their cumulative
expertise and experience on a committee, independent of
gaining a leadership position through seniority, even for the
presumed benefits of service on a prestige committee.
Finally, the more transfer opportunities for each type of
committee per party per session, the higher the probability
of transfer.
Table 4 presents separate equations for prestige transfers
in the old (1990-1994 election cycles or 102nd-104th Congresses) and new eras (1996-2000 election cycles or 105th13
12
Republican party rules prohibit party leaders from serving as full or
subcommittee committee chairs.
The change scores for all independent variables and the R2 values are
relatively small. This is consistent with the fact that committee transfers
are a relatively rare event; thus, the probability of doing so in any given
Congress is low.
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158
POLITICAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY
≡
TABLE 3
PROBIT WITH ROBUST STANDARDS ERRORS ON COMMITTEE TRANSFERS, 102ND-107THCONGRESSES
Variable
Party Loyalty
Adj. Contributions (3 10,000)
Prestige Transfer
_____________________
Coefficient
% Change
Policy Transfer
_____________________
Coefficient
% Change
Constituency Transfer
_____________________
Coefficient
% Change
0.13**
(0.060)
0.8
0.08
(0.053)
2.1
–0.01
(0.063)
–0.1
0.25**
(0.126)
1.1
–0.004
(0.064)
–0.1
0.11
(0.102)
0.9
–0.34***
(0.096)
–2.7
–0.18***
(0.067)
–6.2
0.003
(0.095)
0.1
–0.29**
(0.135)
–2.4
0.12*
(0.068)
–4.2
0.14*
(0.086)
–2.3
–0.20***
(0.057)
–3.9
–0.24***
(0.037)
–19.0
–0.27***
(0.051)
–10.5
Leadership
–1.01***
(0.309)
–2.8
–0.18
(0.146)
–1.1
0.25
(0.192)
1.4
Vacancies
0.07***
(0.019)
1.3
0.06***
(0.009)
4.2
Party Voting
Wealth Effect
Highest Committee Value
Lowest Committee Value
Opportunity Cost Effect
Seniority
Constant
N=
Pseudo R2 =
–2 * Log Likelihood =
Model significance, p-value =
–1.85***
(0.314)
2227
0.19
812
0.00
0.04***
(0.009)
4.7
–1.31***
(0.261)
2227
0.09
1632
0.00
–2.43***
(0.232)
2227
0.08
948
0.00
Note: Standard errors are in parentheses. *p < .10; **p < .05; ***p < .01 (two-tailed test).
107th Congresses) of congressional fundraising.14 Hypothesis 4 stated that contributions would have a greater effect on
changing committee assignments after the Republican
takeover increased the pressure for members of both parties
to raise funds to compete for majority control. The evidence
in the “Overall” columns of Table 4 strongly supports this
hypothesis. Prior to the 105th Congress, the amount of
money a member redistributed to colleagues was not significantly related to his or her probability of obtaining a prestige transfer. After control of Congress is in doubt, however,
prestige assignments are given to those who demonstrate
that they are team players by sharing their campaign wealth.
The importance of party voting also shifts between the eras.
14
Analysis of each session of Congress separately produces results that are
consistent with the aggregate analysis presented here. The limited
number of transfers in each Congress, especially to prestige committees,
makes these finding less robust than the pooled model. At least one
variation of the measure of contributions (logarithmic or linear measures of total contributions or contributions to candidates) was related to
a transfer any type of committee and/or to prestige committees specifically in every Congress during the period for members of at least one
party. The relationship between contributions and transfers were especially strong in the 102nd, 105th, and 107th Congresses.
Party voting is significantly related to prestige transfers early
in the decade, but they are not associated later in the
decade. This suggests that contributions may be replacing
voting as the most important measure of party loyalty. Similarly, the change score produced by the party voting variable is nearly twice the size of the score for contributions
early in the decade, but the change score of contributions is
nearly twice the size of voting’s score late in the decade. In
contrast, the other variables in the model behave consistently and as hypothesized in both eras. Specifically, members with committee “wealth,” who face high opportunity
costs, and who have fewer opportunities are less likely to
transfer to prestige committees in both eras.
Table 4 also shows that when equations for each era are
estimated separately for each party, the relationship between
fundraising and prestige committee transfer is statistically
significant for the minority parties. In the 102nd through
104th Congresses, Republicans who furnished more money
were more likely to receive prestige committee transfers,
while in the 105th through 107th Congresses, Democrats
who gave generously were more likely to make these
switches. In contrast, party loyalty voting attains significance only for the Democrats while they held the majority
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CONGRESSIONAL PARTIES, FUNDRAISING, AND COMMITTEE AMBITION
159
≡
TABLE 4
PROBIT WITH ROBUST STANDARDS ERRORS ON PRESTIGE COMMITTEE TRANSFERS, 102ND-104TH CONGRESSES
VS. 105TH -107TH CONGRESSES
102nd-104th Congress
_____________________________________________
Overall
Republicans
Democrats
_____________
_____________
_____________
Variable
MLE
Party Loyalty
Adj. Contributions
(3 10,000)
Party Voting
.14
.30**
Wealth Effect
High Committee
value
Low Committee
value
%
Change
MLE
%
Change
0.6
1.3
.03*
.15
1
0.7
MLE
105th-107th Congress
_____________________________________________
Overall
Republicans
Democrats
_____________
_____________
_____________
%
Change
–.007
–0.1
.77*** 1
MLE
%
Change
MLE
%
Change
MLE
%
Change
.20*
.17
1.3
0.7
.02
.55
0.3
1
.09**
–.02
5
–0.2
–0.7
–.45*** –4
–.53*** –4
–.44*
–1
–.20*
–2
–.34*
–1
–.07
–.22
–.34
–2
–.25
–0.5
–.39**
–3
–.22
–0.5
–.57*** –5
Opportunity Cost Effect
Seniority
–.20** –4
Leadership
–1.1**
–3
Prestige Vacancies
.07*** 1.4
–.28*
–.79
–.03
–6
–2
–0.6
–.38*
–1.5**
–.03
–3
–2
–0.2
–.24*** –6
–.39
–1
.12*** 3
Constant
–.08
–3.1***
–2.34***
–.60
–2.9***
1069
.22
436
.21
633
.30
1134
.16
539
.21
545
.16
406
.00
188
.00
184
.00
394
.00
164
.00
228
.00
–1.56***
N=
Pseudo R2 =
–2 * Log
Likelihood =
Model sig., p-value =
–2
–.02
–0.1
–3.3*** –4
.12*** 1
–.19*** –4
–.87** –2
.09*** 2
Note: Standard errors are in parentheses. *p < .10; **p < .05; ***p < .01 (two-tailed test).
early in the decade. Lest too much emphasis be placed on
the majority versus minority party distinction, the relationship between fundraising and committee assignments is statistically significant for both political parties (p < .01 for
Republicans, p < .10 for Democrats; results not shown) in
the 107th Congress, when Speaker Hastert made the linkage explicitly and publicly.
The potential for and limitations of the influence of
party loyalty can be seen in the substantive effects of contributions and party voting on prestige committee transfers.
During the 102nd through 104th Congresses, when party
voting was related to prestige transfers at a statistically significant level, an increase in the standard voting score from
two standard deviations below the mean to two standard
deviations above the mean, only increases the probability of
a prestige transfer in a given Congress by about 3 percent.
Similarly, between the 105th and 107th Congre s s e s ,
increasing one’s contributions from nothing to $500,000 (in
2000 dollars), totaling roughly seven times the mean contribution, increases one’s probability of transferring to a
prestige committee in a given Congress by 5 percent. In
short, a lot of partisan votes and contributions would be
required to have a substantial probability of attaining a prestige transfer. But with all independent variables set at their
means, one only has a 2.1 percent probability of making a
prestige transfer, so anything that can improve this low
probability may be worth it to ambitious members. Such
members would need to set themselves apart from competitors to achieve a rare and valuable assignment. Likewise,
votes and contributions are the only variables in the model
that members have under their own control that actually
increase the probability of a successful transfer; the other
variables are largely outside of a member’s control.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Since the Republican’s takeover of majority status in
Congress in the 1994 election, there has been a close and
intense battle for majority control. Republicans seek to preserve their ability to control the legislative agenda. Democrats are desperate to regain their status as the governing
party. The evidence in this paper shows that institutional
resources such as committee assignments are now being
marshaled as instruments of the permanent campaign.
Though members traditionally have been primarily concerned with their own reelection, the battle for majority status
has given party leaders greater leverage to ask their members
to make contributions to achieving this collective good. Party
leaders also may have discovered a new selective incentive—
committee assignments—to exchange for a member’s
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POLITICAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY
c o n t r ibutions to the good of the part y. Members make financial contributions to colleagues or to the party because they
can benefit with a better committee assignment, regardless of
whether their party succeeds in reaping the collective reward
of majority status. As a sign of conditional party government
(Rhode 1991), it is noteworthy that members have accepted
party leaders’ imposition of fundraising duties on them and
the allocation of valued committee assignments based on
their compliance. It seems hard to imagine either of these
occurring in eras when congressional parties were less united
and invested less power in the leadership.
The evidence presented in this article has important
implications for the committee assignment literature. In general, evidence that party loyalty voting affects committee
switches has been mixed. The evidence here, consistent with
the party-dominated committees thesis, supports the
hypothesis that campaign contributions to the party or part y
candidates is a measure of party loyalty that can significantly
affect the success of moving to prestige committees. Traditionally, party leaders sought to reward party loyalists with
seats on prestige committees (with debatable success because
of the other important concerns in the assignment process).
In an era of spiraling campaign costs and razor-thin part y
control of the House, the ability to raise campaign funds may
now be a critical measure of party loyalty. Thus, an ambitious
member from a district whose constituency preferences
make high levels of party voting difficult can use contributions to demonstrate his or her loyalty to attain assignments
to party-controlled committees. It is also noteworthy that
recent evidence (Wawro 2000: 124-26) demonstrates that
legislative entrepreneurialism is not related to prestige transfers. The inference that partisan considerations dominate
considerations of legislative craft is important given the centrality of committees to the development of legislation.
On the surface, the fact that larger contributions to a
party’s electoral effort are associated with committee assignments seems to distort republican democracy. This concern
parallels the question of whether Political Action Committee contributions “buy” access, votes, and legislative
activism. There has been a long, vigorous, and inconclusive
debate within the interest group literature on this question
(see Smith 1995 for a review). Within this context, it necessary to emphasize that contributions are one indication of
party loyalty. Members of Congress are likely to measure
party loyalty mainly based on personal interactions and reputation, and less so by any indicators that can be quantified
such as vote scores or aggregate campaign contributions.
Those who donate to colleagues and to party committees are
also likely to provide other assistance and courtesies to their
colleagues that gain them a positive image and respect
within the caucus. This gains legislators support from members of the Steering committees for desirable committee
assignments where the party must trust its members to
behave responsibly with the power delegated to them. Willingness to contribute to the collective good of majority
status should be an excellent indicator of one’s willingness
to protect the party’s interests in committee.
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Received: July 19, 2002
Accepted for Publication: September 8, 2002
[email protected]
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