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The Impact of Unified Party Government on Campaign Contributions
Author(s) -
ENGSTROM ERIK J.,
EWELL WILLIAM
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
legislative studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.728
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1939-9162
pISSN - 0362-9805
DOI - 10.3162/036298010793322348
Subject(s) - legislature , government (linguistics) , divided government , argument (complex analysis) , politics , state (computer science) , political science , power (physics) , public administration , political economy , law and economics , public economics , business , economics , public relations , law , philosophy , linguistics , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , algorithm , quantum mechanics , computer science
This article examines the connection between unified party government and campaign contributions. Our central argument is that unified party government confers a substantial, but previously overlooked, fundraising advantage to intra‐chamber majority parties. We examined data on corporate campaign contributions to U.S. House incumbents and state legislators in 17 different legislative chambers. We found a strong fundraising benefit accruing to intra‐chamber majority status across all of these legislatures, but the benefit is heavily conditioned by the presence of unified or divided government. The results offer important implications for our understanding of the financial balance of power in American politics and for the vast scholarly literature on unified party government.