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Cosponsoring and Cashing In: US House Members’ Support for Punitive Immigration Policy and Financial Payoffs from the Private Prison Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2021

Jason L. Morín Open the ORCID record for Jason L. Morín [Opens in a new window] ,
Rachel Torres  and
Loren Collingwood
Jason L. Morín*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, California State University, Northridge, CA91330-0001, USA
Rachel Torres
Affiliation:
James Madison University
Loren Collingwood
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
*
*Corresponding author: Jason Morin; Email: jason.morin@csun.edu
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Abstract

The private prison industry is a multi-million-dollar industry that has increasingly profited from the detention of undocumented immigrants. As a government contractor, therefore, the industry has a natural interest in government decision making, including legislation that can affect its expansion into immigrant detention. In this article, we examine the relationship between campaign donations made on behalf of the private prison industry and an untested form of position taking—bill cosponsorship—in the US House of Representatives. We hypothesize the private prison industry will reward House members for taking positions that benefit the industry. We also hypothesize the private prison industry will also reward House members who incur greater political risk by taking positions out of sync with the party. To test our hypotheses, we focus on punitive immigration legislation that has the potential to increase the supply of immigrant detainees over the course of eight years. We find support for our second hypothesis, that private prison companies are more likely to reward House Democrats who cosponsor punitive immigration policies even after accounting for possible endogeneity. The findings have important implications regarding the relationship between House members and private interests.

Keywords

position takingprivate prisonsimmigration policylegislative politics
Type
Research Article
Information
Business and Politics , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 492 - 509
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of V.K. Aggarwal

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