[ Report Home | Previous Page | Next Page ] Mortgaged House F. Well Funded Minority: GOP Has Top Non-Leadership Fundraisers

Reflecting the House’s majority, Democrats have chaired a majority of House committees— including those that are most lucrative to chair, as seen in the “Endowed Chairs” section. This partisan fundraising advantage reverses, however, when the House leadership steps out of the picture.

A look at the best-funded rank-and-file House members reveals that most of them are from the minority party. Republicans account for 10 of the top 15 non-leadership war chests, including four of the top five. Moreover, the Republicans on this list tend to receive a much larger share of their money in PAC/business contributions and in huge, lump-sum contributions than their Democratic colleagues on the list. Note that the average Democrat on the list derived one-third of his or her war chest from contributions of $1,000 or more, while the comparable figure for Republicans on the list was one-half. Chart-busting freshman Rep. Ron Clark raised 81 percent of his huge $327,920 war chest from whopper checks of $1,000 or more; PACs and businesses accounted for 91 percent of Rep. Clark’s money.

Among Rank-and-File Members, GOP Has the Big Bucks