[EL] Citizens United at the state level

[Doug Spencer]

Yesterday, Rick linked to a report by the Campaign Finance Institute (see
below) about the effects of *Citizens United* on state elections. This is a
topic that has drawn a lot of attention recently. As Abby Wood and I
explain in this
paper<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2046878>from
earlier in the year, one of the great payoffs from looking at
state-level elections is that variation in state law creates comparison
groups against which to measure changes in states affected by *Citizens
United*. This is missing for all of the commentary about federal spending;
there is no control group. With that in mind, what have we learned?



In our paper, Abby and I find that independent expenditures increased twice
as fast in states where corporate/union IE bans were invalidated by *Citizens
United* relative to states where corporate/union spending has always been
permitted. This observed increase is driven almost exclusively by
non-profit organizations and political committees, and by expenditures
between $1,000 and $40,000 (i.e. not huge million dollar expenditures).
Current disclosure laws prevent us from knowing the degree to which
corporations or unions are funding these organizations. The CFI working
paper<http://www.cfinst.org/pdf/state/State-Indep-Spdg_2006-10_Working-Paper-as-Released-22October2012.pdf>Rick
cites to makes some headway on this issue by combing through IRS
reports to identify the source of funding for two of the largest spenders
in state races – the Republican Governors Association and the Democratic
Governors Association. They report (among other things) that corporate
contributions to the RGA and DGA increased in absolute dollars between 2006
and 2010, but that the relative share of corporate dollars decreased for
the RGA (see Table 1). Ciara Torres-Spelliscy explores the link between
corporate dollars and the RGA/DGA in more detail
here<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1988603>
.



In terms of public policy outcomes, the emerging research suggests
that *Citizens
United* has had modest, if any effects on policies we think might favor
corporations or unions: Werner and
Coleman<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2108171>find
no/minimal effects on state minimum wages (relative to the federal
minimum wage) or the degree of pre-transfer income inequality. La Raja and
Schaffner <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2017056> find
no/weak correlations between bans on corporate/union IEs and partisan
control of government, incumbent reelection rates, and corporate tax
burdens.



It is important to note that the benefit of looking at states (a more
systematic way to make causal inferences) comes at the cost of
generalizability: state elections are just fundamentally different than
federal elections (Elmendorf and
Schleicher<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2010115>
are
perhaps the most eloquent on this point). In addition, the only statewide
races for which IE data are available happened a mere 10 months after *Citizens
United* was announced, which means it is not clear whether observed changes
reflect the behavior of careful, strategic actors or a knee-jerk response
to a change in the law. Nevertheless, all of these state-level findings
caution against giving *Citizens United* more credit than it's due and have
identified new avenues for research going forward as data (state and
federal) become more available.

###

“The Biggest Increase in Independent Spending Was among Party-Related
Groups; Direct Citizens United Impact Not
Demonstrated”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42167>

>  Posted on October 22, 2012 7:40 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42167>
> by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> Campaign Finance Institute<http://www.cfinst.org/Press/PReleases/12-10-22/Working_Paper_on_Independent_Spending_in_the_States_2006-2010.aspx>
> :
>
> The Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) today released a draft working paper
> called “The Impact of Citizens United in the States: Independent Spending
> in State Elections, 2006-2010.”<http://www.cfinst.org/pdf/state/State-Indep-Spdg_2006-10_Working-Paper-as-Released-22October2012.pdf>The paper found a substantial increase in independent spending whose timing
> straddles *Citizens United* but questions whether that decision *explains*the increase. After dividing the states into two groups, it found no
> difference between states that had regulated business or labor independent
> spending before the Court’s decision and those that had not. It also found
> no systematic increase in independent spending across states by
> corporations, labor unions, umbrella business organizations or ideological
> groups.
>
> I look forward to reading what is sure to be an important paper from CFI.
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>   Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10> | Comments
> Off
>
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