Congressional Parties, Institutional Ambition and the Financing of Majority Control

Eric S. Heberlig, Congressional Parties, Institutional Ambition and the Financing of Majority Control (The University of Michigan Press)

Eric Heberlig is a professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. His book won The LBJ Foundation’s 26th D.B. Hardeman Prize for 2014.

Close competition for majority party control of the U.S. House of Representatives has transformed congressional parties from legislative coalitions into partisan fundraising machines. With the need for ever-increasing sums of money to fuel the permanent campaign for majority control, both Republicans and Democrats have made large donations to the party and its candidates mandatory for members seeking advancement in Congress.

Heberlig and coauthor Bruce A. Larson address the consequences of selecting congressional leaders on the basis of their fundraising skills rather than their legislative capacity and the extent to which the battle for majority control leads Congress to prioritize short-term electoral gains over long-term governing and problem solving.

Heberlig earned his Ph.D. at The Ohio State University.

He is co-author of How Government Got in Your Backyard (Timber Press), Classics in Congressional Politics (Longman), American Labor Unions in the Electoral Arena (Rowman & Littlefield) and of journal articles on legislative, interest group and electoral politics.

His current research focuses on the consequences of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decisions for congressional elections and on the politics of recruiting and implementing national presidential nominating conventions for cities and political parties.

Heberlig served as a Congressional Fellow of the American Political Science Association in the office of then U.S. Rep. Thomas C. Sawyer of Ohio. He co-chaired UNC Charlotte’s 49er Democracy Experience that developed academic programming relating to the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.