Money, politics, and medicine: The American medical PAC's strategy of giving in US house races

We examine contributions by the American Medical Association's political ac tion committee (AMPAC) to candidates for seats in the U.S. House of Represe ntatives during two electoral cycles (1989-1990 and 1991-1992). In contrast to earlier studies, we do not find any systematic evidence to support the conventional wisdom that AMPAC contributes to influence legislators' positi ons on roll call votes or that AMPAC's contribution decisions are influence d by legislators' voting positions. We do find that AMPAC contributes to pr omote access to decision makers and to help elect (or reelect) legislators who would be expected to be more generally sympathetic to the economic and practice concerns of AMA physicians. As points of comparison, we also exami ne contributions from the top five tobacco PACs and the National Rifle Asso ciation's (NRA) PAC and find that legislators' roll call voting positions a re strongly related to contributions received from these organizations.