How much is majority status in the US Congress worth?

A key premise of partisan theories of congressional organization is that majority status confers substantial procedural advantages. in this article, Me take advantage of changes in party control of the House and Senate, such as that following the Republicans' historic victory in the midterm elections of 1994, to assess the value of majority status in terms of contributions from access-seeking political action committees (PACs). We estimate that majority status in the House was worth about $36,000 per member iii receipts from corporate and trade PACs circa 1994-even controlling for the usual factors cited in the literature as affecting members' ability to raise money (such as committee assigments and voting record). The value of majority status bt the Senate is even larger in absolute terms, although smaller in proportion to the total amount of money raised. Ou results show that majority status is a valuable asset, one worth considerable collective effort to attain.