CONNECTICUT CANDIDATE EMERGENCE STUDY

Running for the state legislature is not a viable choice for most Americans, even for those interested in serving. The pay is typically low and the time commitments even in part-time legislatures often compel citizens to leave their current employment. Campaigning for office may be the biggest obstacle of all. The increasing cost and effort to raise money for political campaigns potentially may deter all but the financially well-connected and wealthy from running. Given these costs, it is not surprising that many seats for state legislature go uncontested. In the 2004 elections, 36% of all lower house seats in American legislatures had no challenger.[i] In many more races, the contest was lopsided because serious candidates did not emerge and others were simply under-funded.[ii]

Those citizens that do run tend to be wealthier, more educated and older than the rest of the population. In a study of state legislative challengers conducted during the 1998 elections, more than one-quarter reported incomes greater than $90,000, and well over half claimed incomes greater than $50,000. Additionally, more than 75% have attended college and 50% hold at least a bachelor’s degree. Gender and race may also relevant determinants of who runs for office. Only 22% of the major party candidates were women, less than 5% African-American, and just 1% Hispanic.[iii]

Running for office is a demanding form of political participation, but the health of American democracy depends on the willingness of some citizens to declare their candidacy. Indeed, the dearth of candidates and lack of diversity have significant implications for electoral competition, political representation and political accountability. Given that electoral competition is an essential mechanism for selecting political leaders and ensuring accountability, these trends do not bode well for the health of American democracy. Electoral competition not only spurs accountability, it enhances voter interest and turnout.[iv] Moreover, diversity of candidates matters too. When minority candidates run for office they tend to attract additional voters from minority communities. For all these reasons, it is critical to explore factors that influence candidate emergence.

Previous research has focused on how candidates emerge in congressional elections, demonstrating that many come from the ranks of state legislatures.[v] But there has been little research on how candidates emerge in state legislatures.[vi] Since state legislatures appear to be the training ground for future national leadership, it is critical to understand the obstacles that deter potential leaders from running for the statehouse. If individuals lack the opportunity to run at the grassroots level – the proverbial “farm system” – they may never seek higher elective office. While previous research has analyzed how and why non-incumbents choose to run for state legislature, it has not considered potential candidates who chose not to run. This project seeks to understand why some citizens who are potentially good candidates ultimately refrain from running. In particular, this project focuses on the extent to which the necessity of raising money deters potential candidates. Research on congressional elections demonstrates that, by far, the most oft cited factor in potential candidates’ thinking about running for the US House is having to raise large amounts of money to fund their campaign.

The passage of the Connecticut’s Clean Election Law Public Act 05-5 provides an ideal opportunity to assess the effect of public funding of campaigns on candidate emergence. By providing public funds to qualifying candidates the law seeks to encourage potential candidates and increase the diversity of the candidate pool. At the same time, Clean Elections promises to reduce the role of money in politics, especially that which goes to incumbent officeholders.

This project is an effort to understand the extent to which Clean Elections influences candidate emergence. It takes advantage of a unique situation in Connecticut in which a candidate may choose to participate in the Clean Elections program starting in the 2008 elections. To assess the effects of the new reform it is imperative to understand how potential candidates behave in the 2006 elections, prior to the implementation of Clean Elections. Toward that end, this project proposes the following goal:

To analyze patterns of candidate emergence in the pre-reform period (2006 elections) through two separate surveys of political informants and potential candidates to identify the pool of potential candidates and the reasons they choose to run or not.

The purpose of this endeavor is to understand how candidate are recruited, who runs, and why potential candidates decide to run or not. These surveys will constitute the “baseline” data for understanding whether the implementation of Clean Elections makes a difference in candidate emergence. Ideally, the project should incorporate a second set of surveys in the post-reform 2008 elections to compare with results in the 2006 elections. Even without the 2008 data, however, the data collected from the 2006 cycle will help determine (a) what deters potentially good candidates from running, and (b) the extent to which raising money is perceived as a barrier to running for office. In conjunction with the study envisioned for 2008, this project will give a clear assessment of the impact of the Clean Election Act, using Connecticut as a laboratory to predict how policy change in this direction would affect politics in other states.

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National Council of State Legislatures, http://www.ncsl.org/programs/press/2004/unopposed_2004.htm

[ii] See www.fairvote.org for statistics on election outcomes.

[iii] See Gary F. Moncrief, Peverill Squire and Malcolm E. Jewell, Who Runs for the Legislature? (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001), p. 35. The size and professionalism of the state legislature are important variables for predicting the numbers of women and minorities in state office. There is generally less disparity, in terms of gender and minority-status, between members of a state legislature and the general population in low-paid, amateur legislatures.

[iv] On electoral competition, see Gary W. Cox and Michael C. Munger, “Closeness, Expenditures, and Turnout in the 1982 U.S. House Elections,” American Political Science Review 83, No.1 (1989): 217-231; on voter interest, see Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady, Voice and Equality: civic voluntarism in American politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).

[v] L. Sandy Maisel, Walter J. Stone, and Cherie D. Maestas, “Quality Challengers to Congressional Incumbents: Can Better Candidates Be Found?” In Playing hardball: campaigning for the U.S. Congress, edited by P. S. Herrnson. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001), pp. 12-40.

[vi] See Robert E. Hogan, “Campaign War Chests and Candidate Emergence in State Legislative Elections,” Political Research Quarterly 54, No. 4 (Dec. 2001), pp.815-830; Emily Van Dunk, “Challenger Quality in State Legislative Elections,” Political Research Quarterly 50 No. 4 (Dec. 1997), pp. 793-807; Peverill Squire, “Uncontested Seats in State Legislative Elections,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 25, No.1 (Feb. 2000), pp.131-146; Kira Sanbonmatsu, “Political Parties and the Recruitment of Women to State Legislatures,” Journal of Politics 64 (August 2002): 791 – 809. None of these studies observes potential candidates who ultimately chose not to run.

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