Following the money: uses and limitations of FEC campaign finance data
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Following the money: uses and limitations of FEC campaign finance data Christine B. Williams1 · Jeff Gulati1 · Mateusz Zeglen1,2
© Springer Nature Limited 2020
Abstract Disclosure requirements under US federal campaign finance laws and subsequent court rulings have created greater transparency into the financing of campaigns that allow election watchdog groups to monitor and track the flow of money to and by outside groups. These requirements also have generated an extensive new source of quantitative data for scholars to use. Because of the substantial increase in spend‑ ing by outside groups, it is both timely and important to examine the influence of independent expenditures on election outcomes, political behavior, and fairness in the democratic process. To evaluate and understand the impact of this spending, researchers must be aware of the scope and limitations of the campaign finance data collected by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). This article provides scholars who would like to use FEC data to answer some of these questions with an introduc‑ tion to the data source, a discussion of how other scholars have used the data, and a case study to generate guidance on the challenges and potential solutions associated with accessing and analyzing these data. Keywords Outside spending · Independent expenditures · Campaign finance · Federal Election Commission · Super PACs · 501(c) committees
* Christine B. Williams [email protected] Jeff Gulati [email protected] Mateusz Zeglen [email protected] 1
Global Studies Department, Bentley University, 175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA 02452‑4705, USA
2
New York, NY, USA
Vol.:(0123456789)
C. B. Williams et al.
Introduction The Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission [(2010) 558 US 310] decision widened the door for corporations, unions, and other noncandidate ‘outside’ organizations to legally spend unlimited amounts of inde‑ pendent expenditures in federal elections. Since the ruling, outside groups have increased substantially their level of spending in elections.1 In the 2008 elections, independent expenditures amounted to only $338M or 6.4% of the total spending for the presidential and congressional election (Issue One 2017). By 2016, outside groups invested $1.4B or 21.7% of the total in federal elections. In many of the most expensive races, outside spending was considerably more than that the candidates themselves spent (Johnson 2016; OpenSecrets.org 2018). The increase in independ‑ ent expenditures is especially notable in political advertising. In 2012 and 2014, out‑ side groups sponsored nearly 30% of all congressional primary and general elec‑ tion ads, while in 2016, they sponsored more than half of all the television ads in the Republican nomination contests (Wesleyan Media Project and The Center for Responsive Politics 2016). The scale of this substantial increase in spending by outside groups raises ques‑ tions regarding the influence of independent expenditures on election outcomes, political be
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