Presidential Donors' First Reactions to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA): The 2004 Election Cycle

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

This research exploits a unique opportunity to build on a project two of the investigators recently completed, a survey of presidential donors who gave in the 2000 cycle. The passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) significantly altered federal campaign finance regulations. The researchers will compare presidential giving in 2004 to that in 2000 to examine how presidential donors respond to the new rules. This comparison involves both a panel study of respondents to the 2000 project and a replication of the 2000 project using a separate, representative sample of donors in the 2004 presidential election. The panel element of this study entails re-surveying 2,905 respondents who gave to one of 10 presidential candidates in 2000 - the 9 candidates who raised over $5 million and Ralph Nader. These respondents, from whom a sizeable data set has already been collected, comprise a random sample of the 2000 donors, stratified by candidate and contribution size. The panel format is essential; it is the only way to assess who contributes repeatedly and who does not, and to measure the motives underlying the decision (not) to contribute. The replication, which entails surveying a random sample of 6,000 members of the 2004 donor pool, is equally important. A new cross-sectional survey is the only way to examine how the BCRA changes the donor pool in 2004. The panel study measures changes in behavior of individual donors in response to the BCRA; the cross-sectional replication measures aggregate change. The investigators will merge the data they collect with data - available from the Federal Election Commission - that describe the contributions that each respondent made, its amount, the date it was made, and the donor's occupation. The results will be compared to the analogous data set already collected from the 2000 donor pool. Knowledge of the BCRA's provisions and data collected from the 2000 donor pool make possible examination of this law's effects. The project examines three major questions: o How does the BCRA affect the transparency of giving? The BCRA will likely make giving more transparent, as it increases hard-money limits and reduces the avenues open to soft money. o How does the BCRA affect giving? Will donors give larger amounts to fewer candidates (and organizations), or will they simply increase the total amounts they give? o How does the BCRA affect the behaviors of different subsets of the donors pool (e.g. do Republican donors take greater advantage of the raised limits than do Democrats? Do those who do not give larger amounts become more active in other ways such as working for campaigns?)? Broader Impact The project benefits both the scholarly and the policy-making communities. It provides valuable data at a critical juncture in the history of campaign finance regulation. It also helps to train the next generation of researchers; its location, focus, scope, and substance make it particularly suitable for involving both graduate and a large number of undergraduate students in research.