THE IMPACT OF LEGISLATOR ATTRIBUTES ON UNION PAC CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS

Unions are shown to have a sophisticated understanding of the political process, and to allocate their political resources based on this understanding. Two different tests of this hypothesis are presented. First, using a chi-square test, we show union contributions go disproportionately to members of committees with legislative and regulatory jurisdiction over their activities. Second, using logistic regression analysis, we demonstrate that this result is robust with respect to the inclusion of other institutional variables such as seniority, voting record, party, and electoral competitiveness.