Buying their way in: Redistribution of campaign resources as a path to state legislative leadership for women

ABSTRACT

Women continue to be underrepresented in legislative leadership. This is concerning in U.S. legislatures, where leaders have substantial control over resources and policymaking. As an outgroup, women face additional barriers to power in politics, making it difficult to become a legislative leader. How can women gain influence within their political party? I argue one potential path for overcoming these barriers is the redistribution of campaign resources to other party actors, which helps facilitate connections in the party. These relationships help candidates gain influence, and they can draw on them for support in the legislature. Do women candidates redistribute funds to other actors? If they do, is it an effective path to leadership positions in their state parties? I address these questions using social network analysis and campaign contributions from the 2012 elections in six states. I find that by establishing connections to other party actors through the redistribution of their campaign resources, women candidates can increase their influence in the party and their likelihood of becoming a legislative leader. Moreover, traditional paths to power like seniority help men but not women obtain leadership positions. Even though constraints on power still exist for women in politics, this research highlights an alternative path to influence for women in state legislatures.

KEYWORDS:

• Women candidates
• State legislatures
• Legislative leadership
• Campaign contributions
• Party networks
• Social network analysis

Highlights

• Traditional paths to power help men but not women become legislative leaders.

• Candidates can make key connections by redistributing funds to other party actors.

• These connections increase candidates’ likelihood of becoming a legislative leader.

• Redistributing funds is an alternative path to power for women in state legislatures.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Keith E. Hamm, Lori Hausegger, Amanda Ashley, Kristin Kanthak, Gary Moncrief, Nathaniel Birkhead, Kathryn L. Pearson, Jennifer Stevens, Michael Touchton, Brian Wampler, and the Boise State School of Public Service Workshop participants for their feedback and helpful comments.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

¹ Although incumbents usually have more resources, any candidate can make donations to other candidates to gain connections and influence. There are examples of non-incumbent candidates contributing to other candidates, and even launching leadership PACs, before winning office. Therefore, throughout the paper, my expectations and analysis focus on candidates—not only incumbents—since this behavior is available to them.

² One limitation of this approach is the exclusion of independent expenditures. However, differences in reporting and data availability issues make it difficult to include independent spending. Additionally, independent expenditures are usually spent against a candidate, making it a different type of connection.

³ Categories for the percentage of state legislative seats held by women: 30–40% women (high), 16–29% women (moderate), and 0-15% women (low).

⁴ Categories for the percentage of races with two-party legislative competition (races in which the losing candidate received at least 40% of the vote): 33–56% of races (high), 24–32% of races (moderate), and 0–23% of races (low).

⁵ Categories represented: High competition and high percentage of women (Colorado), high competition with moderate percentage of women (Iowa), moderate competition and moderate percentage of women (North Carolina), moderate competition with low percentage of women (Oklahoma), low competition with high percentage of women (New Mexico), low competition and low percentage of women (Pennsylvania).

⁶ Unlike NIMP, the Colorado Secretary of State data includes donations to political action committees. While not relevant to this project, a previous study utilized this data. In this analysis, I impose restrictions on the Colorado data by removing donations to interest groups. This ensures the NIMP and Colorado Secretary of State data include the same relationships.

⁷ When examined by state, this finding holds in most state parties in the sample. However, men do have higher average out-degree in three of the twelve state parties: the Iowa Democratic Party, Pennsylvania Democratic Party, and the Oklahoma Republican Party networks.

⁸ When calculated in igraph, constraint scores are bound between zero and one. This makes some statistical models inappropriate because we need a model that can analyze proportions. The constraint scores can equal one, making a fractional logit a more appropriate model for this dependent variable (Baum, 2008; Papke & Wooldridge, 1996).

⁹ The model does not converge when the Republican Party model includes candidates’ total campaign receipts, so I can only include it in the Democratic Party model.

¹⁰ Legislative leadership positions vary across chambers and states. I included all formal chamber or committee leadership positions identified for each chamber in their state legislative records.

¹¹ Democratic men raised an average of $386 more than Democratic women candidates.

¹² Republican men raised an average of $35,853 more than Republican women candidates.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics and the Rice University Social Sciences Research Institute.