American Interest Groups Pros and Cons, Inside Game Lobbying, & Outside Game Public Pressure and Electoral Influence
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The Inside Game: Lobbying
Interest groups influence government using variants on one of two strategies, the inside game and the outside game. The inside game refers to attempts to persuade government officials through direct inside contact. Another term for the inside game is lobbying. Washington is filled with thousands of lobbyists, covering every imaginable issue and viewpoint. Lobbyists usually work for interest groups, corporations, or law firms that specialize in professional lobbying.
The Origin of Lobbying
The term lobbying comes from the way interest groups played the inside game in the nineteenth century. Many members of Congress and other government officials would gather and eat together at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. People seeking to influence the government waited for the members in the lobby of the hotel, talking to them as they came in and out.
Successful Lobbying
To lobby successfully, interest groups need a great deal of money. Washington, D.C., is one of the most expensive cities in America, so simply maintaining an office there can be very costly. Interest groups also pay for meals, trips, and other operational expenses, which can be significant. Money alone does not make an interest group influential, but a lack of money is usually crippling. Lobbyists also need to be reputable because a lobbyist who lies to a member of Congress, for instance, could be shunned or lose clients. Therefore, being honest is in the best interest of lobbyists.
Targets of Lobbying
Lobbyists try to influence officials working in all three branches and in the federal bureaucracy.
Lobbying the Legislative Branch
Interest groups spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to lobby members of Congress on a range of issues. These groups try to affect the legislation being generated in Congress. Sometimes lobbyist speak with congresspeople directly, but lobbyists also testify at congressional hearings. The Senate publishes ethics guidelines to explain the complex federal laws that govern the interaction among congresspeople and lobbyists. Many corporations and foreign countries donate money to interest groups and thus help sponsor lobbyists in Washington.
Lobbying the Executive Branch
Although some lobbyists have direct access to the president, most have access only to the lower levels of the executive branch. Interest groups particularly target regulatory agencies, which have the ability to set policy affecting commerce and trade throughout the country. Some scholars have claimed that lobbying of regulatory agencies has resulted in agency capture, effectively handing control of the agency over to the industries it was intended to regulate.
Lobbying the Judicial Branch
Interest groups work to influence the courts in a number of ways. Interest groups often file amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs, presenting an argument in favor of a particular issue. Sometimes interest groups file lawsuits against the government or other parties. For example, the NAACP worked for years to bring civil rights cases to the Supreme Court. The American Civil Liberties Union also makes extensive use of the courts.
The Outside Game: Public Pressure and Electoral Influence
Besides lobbying, interest groups also play the outside game by trying to convince ordinary citizens to apply pressure on their government representatives. Interest groups playing the outside game often rely on grassroots activism and electoral strategies to achieve their goals.
Grassroots Activism
Grassroots activism consists of mobilizing large numbers of people to achieve the interest group’s goal. By mobilizing thousands (or millions) of voters, an interest group can demonstrate to government officials that the public strongly supports its particular cause. Some grassroots efforts are general, trying to motivate as many people as possible, whereas others are more targeted. An interest group, for example, might target a member of Congress by holding rallies in his or her district and encouraging his or her constituents to write letters. A member of Congress who receives tens of thousands of letters endorsing health care reform, for example, is likely to pay attention to the group that sponsored the letter-writing campaign. In fact, most grassroots activists rely on a number of tactics to achieve their goals, such as the following:
- Rallies and marches: Bringing together thousands of people generates excitement and determination among supporters.
Example: In late spring 2006, a number of groups staged a rally for Darfur (a war-torn region of the Sudan) on the national mall in Washington, D.C. The groups demanded that the American government take a more active role in stopping the violence in Darfur.
- Letter-writing campaigns: Interest groups often encourage members to write to their senator or member of Congress, seeking to demonstrate their influence through the number of letters sent. Interest groups make it easy for their members by providing them with form letters that require only a signature.
- Petitions: A group can also write a petition advocating a certain position on an issue and collect signatures. The effect is similar to that of letter-writing campaigns.
- Hill visits: Sometimes an interest group will arrange for its members to visit Capitol Hill to meet with members of Congress. Although this is a form of lobbying, it is also a grassroots effort because it puts members of Congress in contact with their constituents.
- Institutional advertising: Although not strictly a form of grassroots activity, institutional advertising, which aims at advancing the image of an organization, can influence public opinion, thereby affecting policy and lawmakers.
The Importance of Rallies
Staging a mass rally in Washington is often taken as a sign that a group wields important influence. Such rallies act as bonding experiences for those attending and can be landmark events in the nation’s history. The March on Washington in 1963, for example, was a watershed in the civil rights movement. Nearly every American has heard Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered during the march.
Electoral Strategies
Most elected officials want to be reelected, so they listen to people who can help or hinder that reelection. Interest groups take advantage of this situation by rallying voters to their cause and contributing money to reelection campaigns.
Rallying Voters
Most interest groups cannot legally encourage their members to vote for or against a particular candidate, but they can achieve the same effect by informing their members of candidates’ stances on issues. For example, for years the Christian Coalition has issued “voter guides,” which describe the candidates’ positions on issues that are particularly important to group members, such as abortion. Other groups (including the American Conservative Union and the Americans for Democratic Action) play the ratings game by publishing the positions of all members of Congress on key issues with the hope of swaying voters.
PACs and Campaign Contributions
Politicians also listen to people and groups who can donate lots of money. Interest groups are not allowed to donate money to campaigns directly, but they can contribute money through their political action committee (PAC). Theoretically independent of interest groups, PACs can solicit donations from group members and then give that money to candidates they support. A PAC can only give $10,000 ($5,000 in the primary campaign, $5,000 in the general election campaign) to each candidate during an election, but they can give money to as many candidates as they wish.
Most money that PACs donate goes to support particular candidates, but PACs sometimes fund opposing candidates to punish the politicians they normally support who have not been paying attention to the PAC’s interest group. The vast majority of incumbents win reelection, but in a close race, a PAC’s money can be very important.
Soft Money
From the 1970s until 2002, interest groups could both give and use soft money, which is unregulated money. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, however, banned the use of soft money. Interest groups are still looking for loopholes in the new regulations, and it is not clear yet what the long-term impact of the law will be.
The Pros and Cons of Interest Groups
Interest groups generate a great deal of controversy. Some critics even blame interest groups for many of the problems in America. Other people, however, see interest groups as a vital component of the American democratic system.
Pluralism
Pluralism is the idea that democratic politics consists of various interest groups working against each other, balancing one another out so that the common good is achieved. President James Madison first put forth this idea in an essay called Federalist Paper No. 10 (1787), which urged New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution. According to Madison, competing interest groups are necessary to good government because they not only give people a means of contributing to the democratic process but also prevent any one minority from imposing its will on the majority. Interest groups therefore are a vital party of a healthy democracy.
Flaws in Pluralism
Critics of pluralism contend that there is no such thing as the common good because there are so many conflicting interests in society: What is good for one person is often bad for others. They argue that the interest groups interfere with democracy because they seek benefits for a minority of people rather than the greater good of the majority. The National Rifle Association, for example, has repeatedly blocked new gun control legislation despite the fact that a majority of Americans actually want stricter gun laws. Other critics argue that the interest group system is really effective only to economic interest groups, which have greater financial resources at their disposal. Nearly two-thirds of lobbyists in Washington represent economic groups. Critics also argue that interest groups tend to ignore the interests of the poor in favor of middle- and upper-class Americans, who have more time and money to contribute.
Hyperpluralism
Other scholars have argued that interest groups have been too successful and use the term hyperpluralism to describe political systems that cater to interest groups and not the people. These critics argue that too many interest groups lead to demosclerosis, the inability of government to accomplish anything substantial. These critics contend that the U.S. government cannot make serious changes, even if those changes are needed, because competing interest groups stymie the government from governing the country effectively.
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