DUG IN: FOSSIL FUEL INTEREST GROUPS DONATING TO STATE LEGISLATORS
Open Access
Author:
Devery, Richard T
Area of Honors:
Political Science
Degree:
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
David Lynn Lowery, Thesis Supervisor Dr. Gretchen G Casper, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
Political Science Campaign Finance Reform Political Donations Interest Groups
Abstract:
Campaign contributions to political candidates are a contentious center of debate in the media, public discourse, academia, and even within politics themselves. The research trying to determine just how campaign contributions affect legislator behavior is similarly contentious and mixed. While nearly any scholar believes that contributions exert some influence, it has proven very difficult to create tests that definitively show conclusive influence. This paper seeks to understand the influence fossil fuel interest groups have on the voting behavior of state legislators. More specifically, it examines how contributions from oil, natural gas, and mining interest groups to the campaigns of legislators from Pennsylvania and Ohio affect the probability that they will vote against an environmental bill. The results of the probit regression suggest that there is no definitive influence on the voting behavior, given the statistical insignificance of the results. Moreover, it is the case that legislators vote almost entirely along party lines. This paper underscores both the importance and difficulty of carefully constructed tests that can effectively capture influence, as well as the nature of American party politics at the state level.