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Abstract
This dissertation examines the patterns of political action committee (PAC) contributions to nontraditional (women and minority) congressional candidates to assess their role in affecting the descriptive representation of Congress. I argue that the notion of PAC discrimination is an incomplete understanding of the dynamics of gender and race, and that a more nuanced understanding of these variables in analyses is needed. Specifically, the conditional effects of party, ideology, and candidate status need to be examined to accurately assess the complex influences of gender and race on PAC contributions. Examining PAC contributions to all general election U.S. House candidates during the primary and general election cycles for 2000, I find that women and minority candidates are advantaged in attracting primary PAC contributions. Candidate ideology plays an important role in mediating the effect of gender or race. Women and minorities that were most likely to attract large PAC contributions were moderate to conservative in their ideological leanings. The conditional effect of party can be beneficial to black Democratic candidates in attracting labor contributions, while the conditional effect of ideology works to the disadvantage of women candidates in attracting corporate contributions. Democratic candidates are favored over Republican candidates in attracting liberal ideological PAC money, and Republicans are favored over Democrats in attracting conservative ideological PAC money. Additionally, within parties, women are advantaged in terms of attracting contributions from ideological PACs. Additionally, I find that more ideological PAC money goes to quality challengers in the primary. Nontraditional candidates, if not quality candidates, are not necessarily advantaged in attracting these contributions. Notions of bias in the giving patterns of these groups may be too generalnot all women and all black candidates are disadvantaged in seeking contributions from these sources, and under certain circumstances, some women and black candidates are advantaged. If the electoral environment favors moderate to conservative candidates, then moderate to conservative nontraditional candidates are likely to be benefited. The price of representation may be that as the party and ideological diversity of these candidates increases, electing more women and black candidates to Congress may not necessarily result in more liberal policy.