Spared change: contributions vs. influence.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Citings - Brief article

A NOVEMBER study by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) noted with alarm that the chairmen and ranking members of congressional committees receive lots of campaign contributions from industries affected by those committees. Not only that, but the amount of contributions grows as congressmen's power and seniority grow.

The CREW study looked at 10 committees, tracking campaign contributions to current chairmen and ranking members from the 1998 election cycle through the 2010 cycle. It found that "industry contributions to those members have skyrocketed during that period, increasing by nearly 600 percent, far more than the 230 percent increase in overall contributions to those members during the same period." CREW noted that "many committee leaders voted in agreement with the industries they regulate a majority of the time."

Despite this pattern, there is little rigorous research to support CREW's assumption that money changes votes. "Analyses of large numbers of roll-call votes," Cato Institute policy analyst John Samples writes in his 2006...