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Closing Down and Cashing In: Extremism and Political Fundraising

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Stan Oklobdzija
Stan Oklobdzija*
Affiliation:
University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA
*
Stan Oklobdzija, University of California, San Diego. Department of Political Science. Social Sciences Building 301, 9500 Gilman Drive, #0521 La Jolla, CA 92093-0521, USA. Email: stano@ucsd.edu
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Abstract

Can politically polarizing events bear dividends for extremist lawmakers? Evidence from California legislative financial disclosures suggests they can. During the state's numerous budget shutdowns of the last 30 years, extremist legislators outside their party median could expect greater fund-raising hauls than their more centrist counterparts. The results suggest that polarizing events such as California's perennial budget impasses can make extremist positions more appealing to the polarized political elites who generally fund political campaigns. Regardless of the motivation, however, these results suggest a strong incentive to prolong political discord by extremists—a troubling outcome in cases where supermajority votes are required.

Keywords

interest groups and electionspolitical behaviorcampaign financeparties in legislaturesparties and interest groupslegislative behaviorlegislative politicsstate constitutions
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 201 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017

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