Congressional Memberships As Political Advertising: Evidence from the U.S. Senate‪.‬

1. Introduction Recent political battles over the federal legislative budget for 2002 have highlighted the political power wielded by so-called moderate legislators in the U.S. Senate. The epigraph above actually denotes the title of a webpage editorial from The Wall Street Journal that details the leverage displayed by so-called moderate senators, such as Jeffords (I-VT) and Chafee (R-RI), in shaping federal spending programs over the next 10 years. Elected officials often benefit from the acquisition of moderate labels or from sending centrist signals to voters and other constituencies such as political action committees (PACs). Recent research indicates that such behavior is quite possibly a financial-support maximizing strategy (Dempster and Westley 2000). In seminal studies, economists have examined the economics of information and its links to advertising, search, and signaling (Stigler 1961; Nelson 1970, 1974; Spence 1973). The generalized role of advertising in market functioning is now well known. Advertising signals are "technological devices" that reduce the full cost of exchange (Ekelund, Mixon, and Ressler 1995). The present article analyzes signaling, by elected officials, of moderate or centrist legislative behavior from a benefits/costs perspective. To do so, we provide statistical evidence regarding the tendency of senators to join the U.S. Senate Centrist Coalition, a congressional membership organization of moderate legislators.