Political parties can enhance their clout in Congress by adding to the seats under their control, or by increasing party loyalty. Interestingly, the latter option seems to play a very small role in the two elections studied. The Democratic Party altered their funding decisions based on loyalty...

Labor PACs are used to explore the potential congressional influence of campaign contributions from special interest groups. PACs of organized labor are particularly useful for two reasons. First, a set of labor issues are defined each year by the AFL-CIO and so ad-hoc decisions about pertinent...