Lobbying and Policymaking

The Public Pursuit of Private Interests

Godwin, Scott Ainsworth, Erik K. Godwin

• Publisher: CQ Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781452289342
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Built on interviews with over 100 lobbyists, Kenneth Godwin, Scott Ainsworth, and Erik Godwin show that much of the research on organized interests overlooks the lobbying of regulatory agencies even though it accounts for almost half of all lobbying—even though bureaucratic agencies have considerable leeway in the how they choose to implement law. This groundbreaking new book argues that lobbying activity is not mainly a struggle among competing interests over highly collective goods; rather, it's the public provision of private goods. Through a series of highly readable case studies, the authors employ both neopluralist and exchange perspectives to explore the lobbying activity that occurs in the later stages of the policymaking process which are typically less partisan, involve little conflict, and receive scant public attention. Lobbying and Policymaking: The Public Pursuit of Primvate Interests is an ideal way to expose students to cutting-edge research in an accessible, fascinating package.

chapter 1

Key Concepts and Ideas

One of the authors of this book invited a lobbyist for a major defense contractor to speak to his interest group class. After the lobbyist finished speaking, the instructor asked her, “What was the most important vote you influenced in the last Congress?” She¹ responded, “Do you mean, ‘What was the most important vote?’ or ‘What was the most important thing I did for my firm last year?’” The lobbyist went on to explain that her most significant achievement was obtaining a 25-percent price increase for the guided air-to-ground missile her firm produced for the Department of Defense (DoD). This increase boosted her firm’s profits by more than $50 million over a five-year period. No congressional vote ever took place on that specific price change. The 25-percent price increase occurred without any record of legislators’ yeas and nays. The price increase took place during a committee markup of an omnibus defense appropriations bill.

Omnibus bills typically are hundreds of pages long, address a wide range of programs, and frequently address budget issues. With such voluminous legislation, small changes often remain overlooked by all but the most attentive legislators. During a committee markup, committee members consider various proposed changes to a bill, but they never vote on the final bill in committee. Instead, the committee members vote on a motion to report the bill to the floor with the committee recommendations. The missile price increase was just a very small part of a much larger piece of legislation. There were no media campaigns or grassroots mobilization efforts. The lobbyist’s efforts were low-key, designed to raise little public or media scrutiny, and very effective.

The number of Americans who believe that money in politics presents a significant problem for democracy is growing. For fifty years, public opinion polls have asked the question, “Generally speaking, would you say that this country is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves or that it is run for the benefit of all the people?” In 1964, fewer than 30 percent of Americans believed that a few big interests ran the government.² By 2008, the figure rose to 80 percent.³ Books and newspaper articles with clever titles such as “The Best Congress Money Can Buy” and “Democracy on Drugs” claimed that special interest money undermines the American political process. Americans’ concerns about the influence of special interests reflect the rapid growth of lobbying. From 2000 to 2010, federal lobbying expenditures grew from only $1.56 billion to more than $3.5 billion.⁴ Certainly, the organizations spending these resources expected to achieve policy goals important to them. They did not believe they were wasting their money.

Many citizens and journalists believe that special interests have too much influence on public policy. Certainly prominent lobbying scandals such as those portrayed in Hollywood movie Casino Jack⁵ skew our sense of what normally occurs. Political scientists are not as certain that special interest monies buy policies. Highlighting the standard scapegoats—big business, special interests, unions, the Washington establishment—is relatively easy, but finding clear patterns of inappropriate behaviors is hard. In 2009, a comprehensive study by five eminent political scientists found that when opposing interests face each other on an issue, the side with greater political resources was no more likely to win than the side with fewer resources.⁶ Money did not translate into regular or repeated wins. The following paragraph summarizes their findings:

The results [of our study] are striking in that the usual types of resources that are often assumed to “buy” public policy outcomes—PAC donations, lobbying expenditures, membership size, and organizational budgets—have no observable effect on the outcomes. … Thus, at the issue level, there seems to be no relationship between the level of these types of resources that a side controls and whether it obtains its preferred outcomes. The wealthier side sometimes wins and sometimes loses.⁷

In other words, money and other lobbying resources appeared not to matter. These scholars do not suggest that nothing bad ever happens, that all policy outcomes are sound, or that money never influences policymaking. The study’s authors showed, however, that it is exceedingly difficult to tie policy wins and losses to money when one records, as they did, the efforts of hundreds of lobbyists on dozens of issues. Some scandals might occur and money might be used occasionally to achieve undue advantages, but when considering a large number of cases, it is difficult to demonstrate that special interest money leads to undue influence.⁸

Some research has found that organizations that are active politically benefit from lobbying efforts. For example, recent studies indicate that corporations that lobby and contribute to political campaigns pay lower taxes and experience fewer problems with regulatory agencies than firms that are not politically active.⁹ Nonetheless, several expansive reviews of research over the past thirty years have failed to uncover a consistent pattern of lobbying impact. In one review of forty-four published studies concerning the effects of lobbying and campaign contributions, the authors discovered that twenty-two studies showed a significant relationship between lobbying expenditures and legislators’ behavior. The other twenty-two studies found either no relationship or a very weak relationship between lobbying and behavior.¹⁰ In short, the only consistent finding about the relationship between lobbying and legislators’ behavior is that the relationship is not consistent.

The goals of this book are to identify when, where, and how special interests influence policymaking and to examine the implications of this influence for American democracy. To achieve these goals, we study numerous issues on their journeys through the policymaking process. Some of the issues received repeated attention; others never became law. One of the most important goals of any study of interest group influence is to explain why some efforts to change policy succeed while others fail. Our study focuses on four questions: (1) What goals do interest organizations seek? (2) Which strategies do they use? (3) When during the policy process are different types of interest organizations most successful? (4) What factors influence a group’s success or failure?

Why should you care about how, when, and where special interests influence policymaking? Because the answers to these questions indicate the health of democracy in America. The answers also provide you with insights concerning how you can influence the policy process as an individual citizen or as a member of an interest group. Should you become a corporate leader or the head of an interest organization, the answers suggest how you can further your organization’s goals through political action. Most important, the answers may provide insights concerning how citizens and political leaders can improve the American political system.

WHAT DO LOBBYISTS DO?

Lobbying is an effort used to influence public policy. But what do lobbyists actually do? One popular image of lobbyists calls to mind expensively dressed people meeting with slightly frumpish legislators. The clever lobbyist convinces the legislators of the righteousness of the lobbyist’s cause. Mark Twain envisioned lobbyists as scurrilous connivers, with devil’s tails twitching excitedly under their pants. Other images portray lobbyists and policymakers cutting deals that help special interests and the legislator’s reelection, even as they harm the public. Perhaps the most popular image is that of a person passing a bag full of campaign contributions to an elected official, hoping to “buy” favorable policies.

Some scholars use “vote buying” as an analogy to simplify their models of strategic interactions between lobbyists and legislators.¹¹ For these scholars, “vote buying” is a shorthand term that describes a wide array of such lobbying activities as supplying policymakers information, generating letter-writing campaigns, paying for television ads that support or oppose a policy, testifying before Congress, and meeting with public officials. Maybe unmarked hundred-dollar bills are exchanged, but it is more likely that lobbyists provide policymakers with background information, policy research, and legal campaign contributions that are fully recorded by the Federal Election Commission. To understand how individuals exert influence, it is best to consider how those attempting to exert influence use their resources.

Regardless of whether a lobbyist is attempting to influence a legislator, a bureaucrat, or the president of the United States, three activities take up most of a lobbyist’s time. The first is monitoring what policymakers are doing. Governments in the United States are active, and the federal government is the most active of all. Unlike state legislatures, with their sessions often limited to just a few months each year, the U.S. Congress is generally in session every month of the year. Congress often passes as many as 1,000 new statutes during each congressional session. Because congressional committees and subcommittees maintain their own agendas and often make critical policy decisions, lobbyists must monitor the activities of committees important to their clients. If congressional leaders choose to use special task forces or bypass committees, lobbyists must monitor these additional venues.¹² Recall the discussion at the beginning of this chapter concerning the missile price increase during a committee markup session. Markup sessions are part of the regular legislative process, but they are not widely advertised, so lobbyists must remain at the ready.

The U.S. Congress is not a lobbyist’s only area of concern. Every year, the federal bureaucracy generates thousands of new rules and interpretations of past statutes. These rule and interpretations have the status of laws. Indeed, some legal scholars are decidedly concerned about the extensiveness of bureaucratic lawmaking.¹³ In addition to bureaucratic rules, the president can issue executive orders that also have the status of laws. The White House also prepares the preliminary national budget that sets the nation’s spending priorities. Keeping up with all of these activities requires enormous effort for any lobbyist.

Consider General Electric (GE), a corporation that manufactures products in numerous industries from lightbulbs to jet engines. The corporation provides various services including business and consumer finance, aircraft maintenance, health care, and entertainment. GE generates electric power using oil, gas, wind, and nuclear energy. In 2010, to keep up with new statutes, regulations, and executive orders, GE employed thirty in-house lobbyists and hired lobbyists from twenty-nine contract lobbying firms. The company reported lobbying expenditures of almost $40 million.¹⁴ GE spent a large percentage of those funds simply monitoring the government activities that affect its multitudinous economic activities.¹⁵ As Box 1.1 indicates, lobbyists believe that effective monitoring is critical to policy success.

BOX 1.1 “Oh, S——t” Moments: The Importance of Monitoring

Using colorful language, a lobbyist for a Fortune 1000 company explained why monitoring is so important. “There almost always are ‘Oh, S——t’ moments in policymaking. For several months, nothing may happen. Then, suddenly, a deal will be made or a compromise struck in committee. You have to know when this happens and be ready to defend your client’s interest. If you weren’t watching, if you were not ready when the deal happened, you lose and your client loses.” Monitoring is equally important for lobbying the bureaucracy. Lobbyists routinely contact agency personnel to discover the new initiatives that an agency plans. Forewarned is forearmed.

The second major task of lobbyists is to supply information to policymakers. Legislators are often generalists.¹⁶ Legislators who develop expertise in one or two issue areas remain concerned with many different issues, and they need information about all of them. Members of Congress and their staff members are among the world’s busiest people, often working seventy to eighty hours per week when Congress is in session. In contrast to members of Congress, lobbyists typically are issue specialists. They know a great deal about one issue area such as pesticides, wind energy, or farm subsidies. Lobbyists’ expertise is often finely nuanced. For instance, the safety of pesticides is related to their decomposition—that is, the poison is not meant to last forever. A lobbyist’s expertise related to pesticides likely includes information on their biological composition, chemical composition, and photodecomposition. Few, if any, legislators would know the half-life of various chemical compounds, but lobbyists ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Tables, Figures, and Boxes
• Preface
• About the Authors
• 1. Key Concepts and Ideas
• 2. Models of Influence
• 3. The Policy Process
• 4. Policymaking by Regulatory Agencies
• 5. Interest-Group Participation, Strategies, and Success in the Regulatory Process
• 6. Lobbying Alone or Cooperatively
• 7. The Case for Neopluralism
• 8. Evidence for the Exchange Model
• 9. Building a Model of Lobbying
• 10. Conclusions and Implications
• Appendix: So You Want to Become a Lobbyist?
• Glossary of Terms
• Bibliography
• Index