[EL] Breaking News: Summary Reversal in Montana

[David Epstein]

This is, of course, the wrong question.  Elected officials may well
"act in a manner that benefits their campaign contributors (or those
who make IEs on their behalf) over other constituents," but perhaps
they would have done it anyway. Perhaps the causality is reversed --
people contributed to their campaigns because they knew (or suspected)
that, once elected to office the official would act in a manner that
benefits them. (The elderly contribute to those who support a strong
social security system, etc.)

What you want is the counterfactual: did the official act in a way so
as to benefit contributor X, whereas absent the contribution the
official would have acted otherwise. Like many counterfactuals,
however, it would be hard to prove this one way or the other in
practice, since we only get to run through history once.

David


>
> Do you believe it is acceptable for elected officials to act in a manner
> that benefits their campaign contributors (or those who make IEs on their
> behalf) over other constituents?
>
> On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 3:37 PM, <john.k.tanner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Judges, uniquely among elected officials, are supposed to be neutral
>> arbiters.  Other officials are elected to serve particular viewpoints
>> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Daniel Abramson <danielkabramson at gmail.com>
>> Sender: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
>> Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:57:31
>> To: <JBoppjr at aol.com>
>> Cc: <law-election at uci.edu>
>> Subject: Re: [EL] Breaking News: Summary Reversal in Montana
>>
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>
>
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-- 
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David Epstein
Professor of Political Science
Columbia University
New York, NY 10027
212-854-7566 (W)
646-391-7733 (C)
http://www.columbia.edu/~de11
http://www.reflectivepundit.com
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