Money in Politics: Observing the Effects of Citizens United v. FEC on PAC Contributions in US Senate Elections

Abstract

Citizens United v. FEC was a monumental Supreme Court decision that had downstream effects on corporate behavior and began the rise of Super PACs in US elections. With corporations now able to engage in independent expenditures without limits, there have been increasing concerns about the power of these corporate bodies and what this precedent means for American elections in the future. While the literature and concern around Super PACs has grown immensely in the last decade, there has been little attention afforded to political action committees (PACs), which have existed long before the court’s ruling and essentially produced the entity of the Super PAC. Since Citizens United lifted all bans on independent expenditures in elections across the country, I conduct a difference-in-differences event study analysis to determine whether PAC behavior, outlined by the amount and quantity of contributions to US Senate candidates during their election cycles, shifted as a direct result of the Citizens United decision. While I cautiously find faintly positive but insignificant results for this relationship, I deploy this thesis to carve out a niche in the literature to further explore political elections of this type, as well as establish scholarly contributions for further campaign finance-oriented work in the future. I also begin to suggest that the political intricacies of candidacy in elections are a significant part of the changing landscape on which PACs operate today.