The November 6, 2013, Lab seminar was led by Edmond J. Safra Lab fellow, Dr. Jennifer Heerwig. Heerwig is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University where she serves as a faculty advisor for the University's interdisciplinary computational social science initiative. During her fellowship, Heerwig plans to write a book on the evolution of donation strategies among elite individual campaign contributors using an original, longitudinal dataset. Titled, "Money and Power in American Politics," Heerwig's presentation centered on her Lab project, which explores how wealthy elites "vote with dollars" in American elections, and sheds light on the effects these elites have on political polarization.
Heerwig began her presentation with a brief introduction on the campaign finance system and past scholarship in sociology and political science on the role of money in politics. She explained that over the past forty years, the cost of American elections has grown exponentially, and that as this change has taken place, members of both houses of Congress have found themselves forced to wage permanent fundraising campaigns. At this point in the presentation, Heerwig presented a graph created by the Campaign Finance Institute to participants of the Lab seminar, which revealed in stark detail the inflation-adjusted rise in total expenditures in House and Senate races for the period of 1974 - 2010. As the presentation continued, Heerwig spoke in detail about the role of individual and PAC contributions to House and Senate races. Despite the fact that the bulk of hard money donations in these races come from individual donors, Heerwig explained that we still know very little about the strategies employed by elite donors. Instead, most research has centered on PACs rather than examining the influence of wealthy individual elites.
At this point in the discussion, Heerwig delved into the methodology she has employed to create her Longitudinal Elite Contributor Database (LECD) with the primary goal of exposing characteristics of elite donors and changes in elite donor strategies over time. Participants of the Lab were eager to recommend as well as question certain aspects of her research methodology. Participants in the seminar suggested that she explore linking the LECD with data on voter registration and on corporate elites.
In summary, Heerwig addressed the reasons for the dearth of campaign finance literature centered on individual contributors and then explained to participants of the Lab seminar how she hopes her project will shed light on the strategies of elite individual contributors. Participants of the Lab discussed the implications of an elite activist donor class emerging in a post-Citizens United era and advanced recommendations as to how Heerwig might utilize the data she has collected to understand the strategies and characteristics of these elties.
-Summary composed by Joseph Hollow