[EL] "Ready for a surprise? Money DOES equal access in Washington"

[Mark Schmitt]

  The most interesting thing about this study is that the differential in 
meetings actually had nothing to do with whether the people making the 
request were campaign donors. (I think they were all small donors, 
through CREDO.)  It had to do with whether they, or the person making 
the request, said they were donors.

So why shouldn't everyone just say they're a donor? That was one of the 
most intriguing parts of Ian Ayres' thought-experiment proposal for 
totally anonymized political contributions from the mid-2000s: There 
would be a kind of utility in lying about being a contributor, as it 
would promote a kind of levelling uncertainty. (It was just a thought 
experiment, though -- obviously when a group of welfare-rights activists 
shows up at Paul Ryan's office claiming to be donors, they're not 
fooling anyone.)

However, I think it's pretty unlikely that simply donor/non-donor is the 
critical line between getting a decent meeting and being ignored. 
Maxed-out donors, or donors who are perceived as brokers of other money 
are likely to get far more than a meeting with the chief of staff! Eric 
Lycan's suggestions of other tests that might get a little more notice 
than just "constituents" seem smart.


------ Original Message ------
From: john.k.tanner at gmail.com
To: "Eric Lycan" <Eric.Lycan at steptoe-johnson.com>; "Rick Hasen" 
<rhasen at law.uci.edu>; "Joe La Rue" <joseph.e.larue at gmail.com>; 
"law-election at uci.edu" <law-election at uci.edu>
Sent: 3/11/2014 3:02:05 PM
Subject: Re: [EL] "Ready for a surprise? Money DOES equal access in 
Washington"

>It would be useful to factor in whether the donors (and others) had 
>employed former staffers of the members contacted
>Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Eric Lycan <Eric.Lycan at steptoe-johnson.com>
>Sender: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.eduDate: Tue, 11 Mar 
>2014 18:58:26
>To: Rick Hasen<rhasen at law.uci.edu>; Joe La 
>Rue<joseph.e.larue at gmail.com>; 
>law-election at uci.edu<law-election at uci.edu>
>Subject: Re: [EL] "Ready for a surprise? Money DOES equal access
>  in Washington"
>
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