Warning: this may be painfully obvious. Just in case you, for some reason I can’t fathom, had doubts that money buys influence in Washington our friends in the ivory tower decided to perform a scientific experiment to prove it.

Joshua Kalla at Yale University and David Broockman at the University of California, Berkeley wanted to demonstrate that campaign donors were more highly valued to members of Congress than regular constituents (I warned you). So in partnership with CREDO Action they performed a field experiment to show that the wheels of government turn faster for those that promise to lubricate the gears with cash.

The experiment was performed by CREDO fellows sending emails to congressional offices with one of two different letters advocating the member of Congress co-sponsor a bill:

The first e-mail had the subject line: ‘Meeting with local campaign donors about cosponsoring bill.” The body of the e-mail said that about a dozen CREDO members ‘who are active political donors” were interested in meeting with the member of Congress in his or her home district to discuss the legislation.

The second e-mail stripped out the donor references and instead said ‘local constituents” were looking to […]