This paper explores the relationship between House committee membership and campaign contributions from political action committees (PACs) representing specific sectors of the health industry over the 1998-2002 period. Although there have been a few papers dealing with PAC contributions from the American Medical Association and voting on particular pieces of legislation affecting the health industry (Wilkerson and Carrell, 1999; Gutermuth, 1999; and Sharfstein and Sharfstein, 1994) or PAC contributions from sectors of the health industry and voting on medical liability legislation (Wolaver and Magee, 2006), the role of committee membership and PAC contributions has not been examined with respect to the health industry. Gutermuth considers membership on three Senate committees that may affect PAC contributions from the American Medical Association PAC, and Wolaver and Magee consider membership on two committees that may affect PAC contributions from different sectors of the health industry.  However, there is no paper that explicitly examines the importance of committee membership and PAC contributions from the different sectors of the health industry.  Economic theory suggests that individual committees have more power than the entire Congress over their areas of jurisdiction. Individual legislators, recognizing the power of committees, seek legislative assignments that benefit their constituent’s interest and the congressperson’s own change of reelection. Bennett and Loucks (1994, 1996, and 2008) provide evidence that committee membership is one of the most important determinants of PAC contributions from different sectors of the financial services industry to members of the House of Representatives.  In this paper, we extend that analyses to the health industry. In particular, we examine the relationship between PAC contributions to individual legislators over the 1998-2002 election cycles and membership on the House committees using a sample selection model. We expect to find that membership on committees that have significant oversight responsibilities for the health industry, the Appropriations Committee, the Committee on Education and Labor, the Committee on Energy and the Commerce and the Committee on Ways and Means, is positively and significantly related to contributions from PACs representing different sectors of the health industry. We expect to find that committee membership matters to health industry PACs, so that health industry PACs are more likely to contribute to members of the House of Representatives who sit on committees that have legislative jurisdiction over matters important to the health industry.

Classification Numbers: D70, D72, I

Keywords: Political action committee contributions, health industry