Campaign Contributions and Legislative Voting in the California Assembly

Abstract

In this article the authors test for the influence of campaign contributions from economic interest groups on legislative voting in the California Assembly. California does not restrict the size of contributions that special interests may provide to candidates for state office. Consequently, if the purpose of campaign contributions is to secure favorable voting on legislation, this should be evident in an unregulated setting. However, for both business and labor interests, neither the number nor the monetary amount of campaign contributions to incumbents are found to have a major influence on legislative roll call voting.