People have wondered what politics will be like after Citizens United, and in particular (1) whether large business corporations will start spending a lot of money speaking out in favor or against candidates for office and (2) how much corporate and union spending for or against candidates will increase relative to each other. As it happens, though, 26 states already allowed such speech even before Citizens United, so we have some data about what might happen.
In particular, the California Fair Political Practices Commission has published a report that is quite critical of independent expenditures, but which also reports a good deal of data about them. To be sure, California is doubtless different from other states in important ways, and federal elections may be different still. Nonetheless, I think the reports might be a helpful source of data (and I’d welcome pointers to other such reports from other states).
The report goes into particular detail on the top 10 funders of the top 25 independent spending committees (who account for $37M of the $88M independently spent to support or oppose candidates for office from 2001 through 2006). They were:
- Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, $6.2M.
- Angelo Tsakopoulos, $6M.
- Cal. Teachers Association/Association for better citizenship, $4.8M.
- Cal. State Council of Service Employees, $3.6M.
- Cal. Correctional Peace Officers Association, $3.5M.
- Morongo Band of Mission Indians Native American Rights PAC, $3.4M.
- Cal. State Council of Service Employees Small Contributor Committee, $3M.
- Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis, $2.5M.
- SEIU Local 1000 Candidate PAC, $2.3M.
- Consumer Attorneys Independent Campaign, $1.7M.
So there’s lots of union money ($17.2M), tribal money ($9.6M), individual money from two spenders who (see below) were a business partner of the candidate and the partner’s daughter ($8.5M), and money from consumer lawyers, which might have come from professional corporations (hard to tell) ($1.7M). But ordinary business corporations aren’t by themselves providing enough funding to register on the top 10.
I also looked at just the top 10 independent spending committees, and drawing inferences about the funding. This money broke down into
- Corporate: $6.85M
- Union: $16.6M
- Individual: $8M
- Indian tribe: $10.75M
Now many people might well be troubled by all this independent spending; I think it should be constitutionally protected, for reasons I’ve blogged about before, but that’s not what I’m getting at here. My point is simply that the California experience — idiosyncratic as it may be in certain ways — casts doubt on the ready assumption that the main beneficiaries of Citizens United will be the Exxons of the world. The biggest single corporate spender I could find, for instance, was ChevronTexaco, which spent a bit over $300K, much less than the biggest union spenders spent.
Here are more details on the top ten independent spenders:
(1) “Californians for a Better Government, A Coalition of Firefighters, Deputy Sheriffs, Teachers, Home Builders and Developers,” which spent nearly $10M on behalf of a candidate for treasurer, Phil Angelides. More than 80% of this apparently came from two individuals, the candidate’s former business partner and the former business partner’s daughter. “Other contributions came from the California Teachers Association and the Professional Firefighters.”
(2) “Alliance for a Better California, Educators, Firefighters, School Employees, Health Care Givers and Labor Organizations,” which spent $5.25M supporting Angelides and opposing Schwarzenegger; $4.75M of this came from the California Teachers Association, California State Council of Service Employees Committee, and SEIU Local 1000.
(3) “First Americans for a Better California Independent Expenditure Committee,” which spent $4.25M supporting Cruz Bustamante for Governor; all this money came from Indian tribes.
(4) “JOBS PAC – A Bi-partisan Coalition of California Employers,” which spent nearly $4M on various races, at about $200K per contest. This seemed to likely be corporate money; $675K, for instance, came from ChevronTexaco, PG&E, and Ameriquest Capital.
(5) “California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) Independent Expenditure Committee,” which spent $3.5M on various races, at about $115K per contest. This was union money.
(6) “Morongo Band of Mission Indians Native American Rights PAC,” which spent nearly $3.5M supporting four candidates in different races. This was apparently tribal money.
(7) “Strengthening Our Lives Through Education, Community Action & Civic Participation, A Coalition of Labor Organizations – Candidate PAC,” which spent $3.3M on nine different races. Union money.
(8) “Team 2006, Sponsored by California Sovereign Indian Nations,” which spent $3M on nine races. Tribal money.
(9) “California Alliance for Progress and Education, An Alliance of Professionals, Employers and Small Business,” which spent nearly $3M on 12 races. Probably corporate money.
(10) “Working Californians,” which spent over $2.5M on two races. Apparently union money.
M says:
Thank you for this.
February 4, 2010, 2:42 pmPer Son says:
This is interesting, but given the fact that federal law largely preempts state banking/investment law – We may see different numbers in federal elections. In other words, Wall Street has a much bigger stake in federal elections.
As far as energy law, I have no clue of preemption in this area and cannot comment.
February 4, 2010, 3:07 pmAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
That is no surprise. Union money is essentially free money in that it has no other use except to influence politics. It is certainly not going back to members if unspent.
February 4, 2010, 3:41 pmThales says:
There may be a relatively simple explanation for the disparity in single biggest corporation spending v. single biggest union spending: Unions often represent the workers of a broad field within an industry or across related industries (SEIU being an example), whereas a single corporation represents its own management and (ostensibly) shareholders, and is usually in competitition with other similar corporations. As for the overall category totals above, I would guess that overall, unions have more pull for their dollars in California than in, say, Texas. But that is speculation on my part.
February 4, 2010, 4:23 pmPeteP says:
It boggles the mind to see liberals complaining about ‘money is going to corrupt the electoral process’, considerin ghte following record of Barack Obama in his last election
$ 760,180,444 in total. That’s one campaign, one candidate’s expenditures alone, not counting PAC’s or other spenders of any kind.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/expend.php?cycle=2008&cid=n00009638
Sector Description Total Expenditures
February 4, 2010, 4:24 pmAdministrative Travel $60,789,709
Salaries & Benefits $58,831,126
Miscellaneous Administrative $21,127,418
Postage/Shipping $16,841,166
Rent/Utilities $10,620,173
Supplies, Equipment & Furniture $4,790,414
Administrative Consultants $1,432,820
Food/Meetings $437,144
Campaign Expenses Campaign Events $32,023,973
Polling/Surveys/Research $28,048,988
Materials $7,759,859
Political Consultants $3,543,259
GOTV $899,546
Miscellaneous Campaign $550,929
Campaign Direct Mail $110,000
Contributions Parties (Fed & Non-federal) $40,255,727
Contrib Refunds $5,661,816
Committees (Fed & Non-Federal) $9,115
Candidates (Fed & Non-federal) $5,033
Fundraising Fundr Direct Mail/Telemarketing $28,590,559
Miscellaneous Fundraising $1,357,740
Fundraising Events $162,930
Fundraising Consultants $28,100
Media Broadcast Media $244,600,266
Miscellaneous Media $133,212,024
Internet Media $26,555,479
Print Media $20,462,672
Media Consultants $2,739,204
Other Charitable Donations $130,055
Transfers Miscellaneous Transfer $7,500,000
Federal Transfer $7,002
Uncoded not yet coded $477,995
Unknown Insufficient Info $618,203
yankee says:
Good point. Even where they have similar interests, the individual businesses in an industry will be beset by collective action problems, whereas a union that controls all the unionized enterprises in an industry won’t have the same collective action problems.
February 4, 2010, 5:01 pmWilliam H. Stoddard says:
The Open Secrets Web site at http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?order=A has a list of the top 100 donors over a span of years. Of the top 20, 12 are unions, and two more are the professional associations of doctors and trial lawyers.
February 4, 2010, 5:15 pmB.D. says:
I think this is interesting and all, but it feeds into the misguided results-based discourse favored by the opponents of Citizens United, including the President.
I understand why you’re doing this. It makes sense in some way to stamp out results-based disagreement with the decision to undermine the populist outrage on the left. Perhaps it will help us avoid further constitutionally-impermissible legislation to “right the wrong”, or worse, a constitutional amendment.
Still, it’d be nice if there was broader acknowledgment that the Supreme Court is supposed to honestly and faithfully interpret the law, even if the results conflict with their own policy preferences. When someone wholly bases their criticism of the decision on its results, I immediately stop giving a crap about what they think.
February 4, 2010, 7:24 pmFedya says:
I’d like to stop giving a crap about what such people think, too. Unfortunately, a lot of them have political power.
February 4, 2010, 10:05 pmPenny says:
How much does it cost to run CBS or ABC? Is it less than other corporations spend? And less effective, electorally?
February 4, 2010, 10:23 pmPJens says:
It is important to remember that most companies spend far more money on advertising their products than they do trying to influence elections. Actually selling beer is far more important to Budweiser, for example, than trying to get a politician elected.
February 4, 2010, 10:47 pmpublic_defender says:
As a Democrat, my concern is that this will only increase the power of unions in the party. I agree with the unions most of the time, but it’s bad for the party to be an appendage of the unions instead of just allied with the unions.
February 5, 2010, 5:38 amjpe says:
And, on top of the standard opportunity cost is a tax cost, since product advertising is deductible while political advertising is not.
February 5, 2010, 4:14 pmJudicial rulings are worse than Wikipedia « Entitled to an Opinion says:
[...] about all this legal constitutional mumbo-jumbo but are a results-oriented legal consequentialist, Eugene Volokh has some data. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Another Judicial Ruling that Bush Is Not Above [...]
February 6, 2010, 1:07 amThe Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » The Chief Beneficiaries of Citizens United? says:
[...] of the 26 states where independent expenditures for and against candidates have long been legal, a recent Fair Political Practices Commission report suggests that unions probably outspent corporations by roughly 2 to 1 (click on the link for more [...]
March 15, 2010, 7:46 pmCalifornia’s $500 Billion Pension Fund Mess: Blame Jerry Brown | UNCOVERAGE.net says:
[...] unions have become a muscular, dominating force in California politics. State employee unions spent a whopping $31.7 million on state races just from 2001-2006, according to the California Fair [...]
April 7, 2010, 11:28 pmCalifornia’s Half Trillion Dollar Pension Fund Mess: Blame Jerry Brown on American Thinker | UNCOVERAGE.net says:
[...] unions have become a muscular, dominating force in California politics. State employee unions spent a whopping $31.7 million on state races just from 2001-2006, according to the California Fair [...]
April 10, 2010, 12:22 amThe Latest Casualty of Liberalism: California’s Pension Funds « Palmetto Conservative says:
[...] unions have become a muscular, dominating force in California politics. State employee unions spent a whopping $31.7 million on state races just from 2001-2006, according to the California Fair [...]
April 10, 2010, 7:39 am“Unions Outspending Corporations on Campaign Ads” | theConstitutional.org says:
[...] opposed to the primaries). But they are consistent with the data I reported in February about the California experience (even before Citizens United, California didn’t limit independent spending by corporations and [...]
July 8, 2010, 7:14 am