Who gets the goods? Moderate voting records, diminishing returns, and PAC contributions

Abstract

Assuming that a legislator representing a moderate constituency (with respect to a variety of interests) may be expected to vote moderately in general, the authors suggest a measure of the "moderateness" of a legislator's voting behavior and use it to determine whether a relationship exists between PAC contributions and the degree of moderateness. The results suggest that PACs exhibit a tendency to give more, at the margin, to legislators with moderate voting records.