Why do so few lawmakers in Congress pay any attention to the ever more intense concentration of wealth at the top of America’s economic ladder? Here’s one eye-opening reason: Over two-thirds of the cash for House election campaigns is coming from the handful of zip codes where America’s super-rich congregate, spots like New York’s Upper East Side and Greenwich, Connecticut. A remarkable 70.2 percent of contributions in the typical 2004 House race, three University of Maryland researchers recently documented in the American Journal of Political Science, came from outside the district. In 1996, only 54.5 percent of campaign cash came from outside district boundaries. The new research describes out-of-district contributors as “disproportionately wealthy, urban, highly educated, and employed in elite occupations.”
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