A foot in the door: An experimental study of PAC and constituency effects on access

A between-groups experimental design tests the hypothesis that PACs have an advantage over constituents in gaining access to members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Sixty-nine congressional staffers participated in an e xercise designed to simulate the process by which scheduling decisions are made. The study was conducted in Washington, DC, in the fall of 1996. Analy sis of variance reveals a significant constituency main effect, but no sign ificant PAC main effect. That is, requests associated with a PAC are not si gnificantly more likely to be granted access than those not associated with a PAC, whereas requests from constituents do have a significant advantage in gaining access.