Interest Group Politics in America by Ronald J. Hrebenar

Author:Ronald J. Hrebenar [Hrebenar, Ronald J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Democracy, Political Science, General, Political Ideologies
ISBN: 9781563247033
Google: bW6mBgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 4426874
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1990-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Numbers of PACs by Type, 1974–95

Source: Federal Election Commission, Media Advisory, August 2,1995.

Note: PAC totals for the years 1974 to 1994 are end-of-the-year totals reported by the Federal Election Commission. Totals for 1995 are as of July 1, 1995.

Although 3,982 PACs were registered with the FEC on July 1, 1995, many of these were essentially paper organizations that did not participate by giving money to federal-level candidates in the 1994 elections. In fact, 40 percent of all PACs spent less than $5,000 each. The “Big Dog” PACs really dominated the congressional money game in 1994 (see Table 7.2 for a list of million-dollar PACs). Fewer than 2 percent of all the PACs spent more than $1 million each and totaled almost 39 percent of all PAC spending. During the 1985–86 election campaign, only sixteen PACs gave more than $1 million to congressional candidates. In 1986, for the first time, PAC money to candidates contesting open seats exceeded money given to challengers by a total of $4 million. Since about 98 percent of incumbent House members seeking reelection were successful in the 1988 election, the PACs decided to invest a larger part of their resources in the most competitive types of elections, namely, open seats. Table 7.5 clearly indicates that the trend toward investing in open seats continued in the 1994 congressional elections.

PACs like to invest their money increasingly on “sure bets,” and in Congress the surest bet has been, until 1994, an incumbent. In the 1988 elections, for example, over 98 percent of House members who were incumbents won reelection. While some PACs are willing to bet money on challengers, more and more PACs are refusing to give “important” amounts of money to challengers. Even in the 1993–94 election cycle, only 10 percent of PAC money was invested in challengers to incumbents, while 17 percent went to open-seat candidates and 73 percent went to incumbents. Over the last five congressional elections (1986–94), an average of 74 percent of PAC contributions went to incumbents.

Table 7.2

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