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Money and Influence in the Chicago City Council

  • Cari Lynn Hennessy

    Cari Lynn Hennessy is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. Her current book project examines representation in Chicago. She is thankful to Daniel Galvin, Benjamin Page, Reuel Rogers, Jason Seawright, and Wesley Skogan for advice on this project. She also thanks David Morrison and the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform for assistance with campaign contribution records.
Published/Copyright: October 18, 2013
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The Forum
From the journal The Forum Volume 11 Issue 3

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of campaign spending on the 2006 vote of the Chicago City Council on a proposed living-wage ordinance for big-box retailers. It finds that some aldermen supported the ordinance, despite the strong opposition of Mayor Richard M. Daley and their own private reservations, because labor unions were preparing to spend huge sums of money to unseat aldermen who voted against the proposal. Further analysis of campaign contributions in the 2007 election indicates that spending by labor unions was indeed instrumental in defeating aldermen who opposed the ordinance. The results demonstrate that campaign spending can influence policy decisions at the local level, particularly when an interest group is capable of spending enough money to make a difference in the upcoming election.

Corresponding author: Cari Lynn Hennessy, Northwestern University

About the author

Cari Lynn Hennessy

Cari Lynn Hennessy is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. Her current book project examines representation in Chicago. She is thankful to Daniel Galvin, Benjamin Page, Reuel Rogers, Jason Seawright, and Wesley Skogan for advice on this project. She also thanks David Morrison and the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform for assistance with campaign contribution records.

  1. 1

    Research on campaign contributions and policy decisions at the national level has yielded mixed results, with some finding little evidence of an effect (e.g., Bronars and Lott 1997; Ansolabehere, de Figueiredo, and Snyder 2003) while others find evidence of influence (e.g., Stratmann 2002; Stratmann 2005).

  2. 2

    Chicago is divided into 50 wards, and turnout in aldermanic elections is typically low. In 2011, the average number of voters per ward was only 11,303, meaning that candidates are now spending a great deal of money to reach a small number of voters.

  3. 3

    The Chicago Federation of Labor is an AFL-CIO-affiliated organization that represents over 300 local unions in the Chicago area.

  4. 4

    The City Council approved legislation that would allow a Wal-Mart on the South Side in 2004.

  5. 5

    Wal-Mart worked with African American aldermen who opposed the proposal to position itself as an ally of the African American community, fighting against labor unions that had a history of excluding people of color (Parks and Warren 2011).

  6. 6

    One alderman, Helen Shiller, abstained from voting.

  7. 7

    One alderman, Manuel Flores, was absent.

  8. 8

    I regressed the results on the precincts’ racial composition, the vote for the Democratic candidate for governor, and support for a county-wide referendum on raising the minimum wage in Illinois (which was strongly correlated with support for the big box living wage proposal). I used bootstrapping to calculate a point prediction and standard error for each ward. Further details are available upon request.

  9. 9

    Itemized contributions include all contributions >$150, including in-kind contributions. These data were downloaded from the Illinois State Board of Elections website. I am also thankful to the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform for sharing their campaign contribution records with me.

  10. 10

    While aldermen received other contributions from the business community, many business owners were supportive of the ordinance or neutral because their interests differed from those of big box retailers.

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Published Online: 2013-10-18
Published in Print: 2013-10-01

©2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Masthead
  2. Masthead
  3. Editorial
  4. Introduction
  6. Richer Parties, Better Politics? Party-Centered Campaign Finance Laws and American Democracy
  7. The Influence of Campaign Contributions on Legislative Policy
  8. Following Powell’s Lead and Expanding the Agenda
  9. Public Election Funding: An Assessment of What We Would Like to Know
  10. Small Donors: Incentives, Economies of Scale, and Effects
  11. The Internet and American Political Campaigns
  12. Messages, Micro-targeting, and New Media Technologies
  13. Campaign Spending and Electoral Competition: Towards More Policy Relevant Research1
  14. An Agenda for Future Research on Money in Politics in the United States
  15. Money and Influence in the Chicago City Council
  16. Making the Affordable Care Act Work: High-Risk Pools and Health Insurance Marketplaces
  17. Book reviews
  18. The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election
  19. The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America
  20. Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America
https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2013-0055

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Masthead
  2. Masthead
  3. Editorial
  4. Introduction
  6. Richer Parties, Better Politics? Party-Centered Campaign Finance Laws and American Democracy
  7. The Influence of Campaign Contributions on Legislative Policy
  8. Following Powell’s Lead and Expanding the Agenda
  9. Public Election Funding: An Assessment of What We Would Like to Know
  10. Small Donors: Incentives, Economies of Scale, and Effects
  11. The Internet and American Political Campaigns
  12. Messages, Micro-targeting, and New Media Technologies
  13. Campaign Spending and Electoral Competition: Towards More Policy Relevant Research1
  14. An Agenda for Future Research on Money in Politics in the United States
  15. Money and Influence in the Chicago City Council
  16. Making the Affordable Care Act Work: High-Risk Pools and Health Insurance Marketplaces
  17. Book reviews
  18. The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election
  19. The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America
  20. Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America
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