Out-Of-State Donors and Legislative Surrogacy in the U.S. Senate

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129241249171
• Author: Alex Keena
• Date: 01 September 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(3) 880–890

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129241249171

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Out-Of-State Donors and Legislative

Surrogacy in the U.S. Senate

Alex Keena

1



Abstract

Studies show that the extraordinary growth in campaign expenditures is fueled by a small, elite subset of the donor

population that gives generously to candidates across the country. It is often assumed that the wealthy inf‌luence

policy outcomes through such gifts to politicians; however, the representational benef‌its of giving to politicians

out-of-state are unclear. What do donors gain legislatively when they give to legislators living out-of-state? I study

the campaign f‌inancing of US senators over three decades (1989–2018) and f‌ind that senators receive the most

money from out-of-state donors when they face reelection and risk losing. In this context, donors invest in the

collective benef‌its of party representation when they give money to out-of-state senators. However, when giving

to senators “off cycle,”out-of-state donors behave as “consumers”who reward senators for the positions they

have taken. Each bill sponsored by a senator when they are not up for reelection leads to a corresponding increase

of about 1% in receipts from out-of-state donors. These results offer a more complete view of the legislative

surrogacy that the wealthy receive when they give to politicians out-of-state and suggest possible links between

campaign contributions and public policy outcomes.

Keywords

campaign f‌inance, legislative behavior, elections, senate, representation, bill sponsorship

The costs of campaigning in the US have skyrocketed over the

past three decades, outpacing inf‌lation, the growth of

healthcare spending, and even college tuition. In 1990, can-

didates running in 35 Senate races raised a collective

$212 million. By 2020, total candidate fundraising in

35 Senate races exceeded $2.1 billion—an increase of 900%.

1

The campaign f‌inancing literature shows that the bulk

of money donated to congressional campaigns comes

from “non-resident”donors who live outside of the district

(e.g., Gimpel, Lee, and Pearson-Merkowitz 2008;

Grenzke 1988;Sievert and Mathiasen 2023). The indi-

viduals engaged in this type of giving constitute a small,

but highly active, elite subset of the donor population,

geographically concentrated in a handful of wealthy

neighborhoods (Bramlett, Gimpel, and Lee 2011;Gimpel,

Lee, and Kaminski 2006). Members of both major parties

rely on this small network of wealthy people to f‌inance

their campaigns (Cho and Gimpel 2007;Gimpel, Lee, and

Kaminski 2006). In the context of increasing electoral

competition (Lee 2009,2016), non-resident donors

“spread their dollars widely”(Rhodes, Schaffner, and La

Raja 2018: 514) to “make a difference for party control of

seats”(Gimpel, Lee, and Pearson-Merkowitz 2008).

What exactly do non-resident donors receive legisla-

tively in exchange for their gifts? In principle, giving to a

political campaign affords donors—who tend to be older,

richer, and whiter than the rest of the public (Francia et al.

2003)—special access that few citizens enjoy (Kalla and

Broockman 2016). Through their gifts to out-of-state

legislators, donors receive a form of “surrogate repre-

sentation”in which legislators “act for”their interests

(Mansbridge 2003; see also Baker 2020;Gimpel, Lee, and

Pearson-Merkowitz 2008). Yet little is known about the

legislative mechanisms that link donor preferences with

public policy outcomes.

Although there is scant evidence for a quid pro quo

relationship between donors and elected off‌icials

(Ansolabehere, Figueiredo, and Snyder 2003), the

1

Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Alex Keena, Department of Political Science, Virginia Commonwealth

University, 827 West Franklin Street, Box 842542, Richmond, VA

23284-2512, USA.

Email: keenaja@vcu.edu