Ideology and interest groups

This paper analyzes the interaction between ideological shirking by legislators and interest group activities in a two stage game between a legislator, a challenger, and an interest group. Some comparative statics results are derived. In some circumstances, campaign contributions decrease as the legislator shirks more; they increase with committee power and seniority, other things equal. An empirical test provides some support for this model. The interpretation of those results is made difficult by the methodological problems of ideological shirking measures. It is problematic to interpret the standard residual as ideological shirking because it ignores the effect of campaign contributions on legislative voting.