Research
Job Market Paper
Whose Champion? Investigating Legislators’ Priorities in Committee Hearings
Abstract
Whose interests do legislators advocate for in lawmaking? The literature has extensively explored the incentives shaping legislators' behavior, with particular focus on the roles of donors and constituents. This study specifically examines the influence of early donors ("seed interests") on legislators' actions during committee hearings. By analyzing transcripts from committee hearings in the 107th to 117th sessions of the House of Representatives using supervised and semi-supervised topic models, and cross-validating the results with an AI assistant, I investigate whether legislators prioritize their seed interests over those of their constituents or largest donors, especially in relation to the electoral conditions under which these relationships were formed. The findings reveal that legislators are more likely to advocate for seed donors when they secured their seat through open-seat primaries followed by non-competitive general elections. In contrast, legislators show less consistent support for seed donors when elected through more competitive routes, where they are incentivized to appeal to the broader electorate. These results highlight a new type of interest group-legislator relationship that may help explain legislators' lawmaking behavior.Papers Under Review
Bundled Power: How Donors Value Procedural Powers in U.S. State Legislatures
Revise & Resubmit, Legislative Studies Quarterly
Abstract
I examine the extent to which interest groups attend to institutional rules and procedures of lawmaking by assessing how they reward legislators with different types of procedural authority. I begin by unpacking a widely used measure of influence --- ``committee assignment power'' --- and show that its apparent effect on campaign contributions is composition-sensitive, driven by a few states and legislators. When compared across models, the explanatory weight of assignment power shifts towards leadership offices such as the Speaker and Senate President, suggesting that donors are not valuing assignment authority in isolation. Linking this analysis to Anzia and Jackman’s (2013) coding of procedural powers, I demonstrate that what looks like donor responsiveness to assignment power is in fact most strongly tied to agenda-setting and gatekeeping tools. Contributions flow primarily to a bundled package of leadership powers that structure lawmaking, rather than to a single procedural lever.First to Come, Last to Leave: An Analysis on Seed Donors and Politicians
Under Review
Abstract
When do enduring relationships between organized interests and politicians form, and does the timing of initial investment relative to electoral viability shape how durable those relationships become? This paper argues that pre-primary donors, or “seed interests,” who commit resources before viability is established behave as long-term investors, whereas “bandwagon interests,” who enter after a primary victory, are motivated by access to a likely officeholder. Drawing on PAC contributions to open-seat primary winners in freshman cohorts from the 102nd to the 115th Houses, I examine three dimensions of relationship durability: how long support is sustained, the likelihood of stopping contributions, and the likelihood of resuming support after a lapse. Seed interests support legislators for more election cycles, are 13% less likely to stop giving, and are more likely to resume contributions after lapses, with the strongest effects in open-seat races. These findings show that even under uncertainty, early giving reflects selective, investment-driven behavior rather than access-seeking.Tracing the Impact of Early Money on Committee Assignments
Under Review
Abstract
I look at whether legislators try to sit in committees whose jurisdictions are related to their seed donors’ interests. I define committee jurisdiction in two ways: (1) by examining donations to committee members in the past election cycle and (2) by identifying where bills on specific policy interests were assigned from the floor. To test whether legislators join committees aligned with their seed donors’ interests, I analyze the match rates between MCs’ seed donor interests and committee affiliations over their careers. I also run a survival model, treating placement on a seed interest-related committee as an event, and compare the time it takes for MCs to join a seed donor interest committee versus a bandwagon interest committee. I find that most legislators secure a position on a seed donor-related committee by their fourth cycle, with Republicans doing so earlier and at a higher rate than Democrats.Working Papers
Resentment Capital: Affective Motivations and the Nationalization of Small-Dollar Congressional Giving
Abstract
Why do individual donors give money to congressional candidates outside their own state or district? The dominant rationalist account holds that campaign contributions are investments in legislative access or policy outcomes, implying donors should prefer candidates who can plausibly deliver returns. Yet the dramatic growth of out-of-state small-dollar giving to congressional races defies this logic: geographically distant donors cannot extract access, and their collective policy demands are often incoherent. Drawing on the Cooperative Election Study (CES) from 2006 to 2024, I argue that the nationalization of congressional small-dollar giving is affectively driven. Using validated donation data linked to racial resentment and gender hostility batteries fielded consistently across CES waves, I show that out-of-state congressional donors are distinguished not by ideological extremity or strong policy preferences but by elevated affective grievance. I further leverage variation across election cycles to identify political shocks---including the 2010 Tea Party mobilization, the 2016 Trump candidacy, the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, and the 2022 Dobbs decision---as events that selectively recruit affectively motivated donors into the nationalized giving pool. My findings challenge access-seeking models of campaign finance and suggest that legislators reliant on nationalized small-dollar fundraising are beholden to a constituency defined less by policy demands than by emotional grievance, with implications for legislative behavior, representation, and the internal organization of Congress.Picking Winners or Making Them? Donor Composition in Open Seat House Primaries
Abstract
Are donors responding to candidate viability signals, or are they generating them? Using open seat House primaries from 2000 to 2022, I classify donors as access-oriented, ideological, or local/civic based on prior FEC giving history, and examine whether the composition of early money---contributions made before polling or major endorsements exist---predicts primary outcomes above and beyond total dollars raised. Within-race comparisons with race fixed effects isolate variation in donor composition across candidates competing in the same primary. I find that candidates receiving a higher share of ideological early money win primaries at higher rates conditional on total fundraising, suggesting that donor type confers legitimacy and momentum independent of resource levels. These results challenge purely access-seeking models of donor behavior and point toward an emergent role for affectively and ideologically motivated small-dollar donors in shaping who enters and succeeds in congressional politics.Seed Donor Networks and Bipartisan Coalition Formation in Congress
Abstract
Why do some legislators form durable bipartisan coalitions while others remain locked in partisan silos? This paper argues that the answer lies, in part, in the structure of legislators' pre-primary donor networks. I introduce the concept of seed donors, defined as organized interests that commit resources before a candidate's electoral viability is established, and construct a Donor Compatibility Index (DCI) measuring pairwise overlap in seed-donor portfolios for all House legislator dyads in the 115th and 116th Congresses (2017--2021). Because seed donors are investment-driven and selective, their overlap between two legislators constitutes a stronger signal of shared policy alignment than generic donor overlap does. I test whether DCI predicts bipartisan cosponsorship tie formation. Results show that DCI is positively associated with bipartisan cosponsorship across all specifications, surviving the inclusion of legislator fixed effects, ideological distance controls, and a horse-race comparison against total donor overlap. The association is stronger for cross-party dyads than for same-party dyads, and is most pronounced in organized-interest-intensive domains such as agriculture and energy, with no detectable effect in social policy. The findings suggest that the pre-primary financial environment leaves a durable imprint on the architecture of legislative cooperation, and that the investment-access distinction in campaign finance research has empirical consequences as well as theoretical ones.Thermostatic Donors? Revisiting the Thermostatic Model of Congressional Elections
with Logan Strother (Purdue)
Money and SCOTUS Nominations
with Logan Strother (Purdue)
Congressional Staffer Policy Portfolios
with Jesse Crosson (Purdue), Alexander Furnas (Northwestern), and Tim LaPira (James Madison)
Publications
You can also find my publications on my Google Scholar profile.