Interest Groups in American Politics

Pressure and Power

Anthony J. Nownes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136658068
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique

Americans rail against so-called special interests but at the same time many members of society are themselves represented in one form or another by organized groups trying to affect the policymaking progress. This concise but thorough text demonstrates that interest groups are involved in the political system at all levels of government – federal, state, and local – and in all aspects of political activity, from election campaigns to agenda setting to lawmaking to policy implementation. Rather than an anomaly or distortion of the political system, it is a normal and healthy function of a pluralist society and democratic governance. Nonetheless, Nownes warns of the dangers of unwatched interest group activity, especially in the realms of the electoral process and issue advocacy.

Interest Groups in American Politics, Second Edition, is grounded by the role of information in interest group activity, a theme that runs through the entire book. This much anticipated revision of Nownes's text retains a student friendly tone and thoroughly updates the references to interest group research, as well as adds a new chapter on the connections between interest groups and political parties. Numerous figures and tables throughout the book help students visualize important trends and information.

1
Interest Groups in the United States

On April 20, 2010, The Deepwater Horizon, an offshore oil drilling rig, blew up. The rig, which was located approximately 400 miles off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico, was drilling what is called an “exploratory well” almost one mile below the ocean’s surface. Just before 10 a.m. on the 20th, highly pressurized methane gas burst out of the drill column and then caught fire. Most of the people who were working on the rig were rescued. But eleven people were never found. They are presumed dead. The fire raged for a day and a half, until on the morning of April 22nd, the crippled rig sank. On April 23rd, the company that leased the well, BP (formerly known as British Petroleum), reported that there was no oil leaking from either the sunken rig or the well. By the 24th, however, it was clear that BP was mistaken. No one knows for certain how many gallons of oil leaked from the wellhead before it was finally capped on July 15, 2010. But experts agree that the spill was the largest in U.S. history, far surpassing the Exxon Valdez spill that dominated headlines for a time in 1989. In all, hundreds of millions of gallons of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico. In the weeks and months after the explosion, the effects of the spill became obvious. Thousands of square miles of ocean were soiled with oil, endangering fish and other wildlife. In June, oil reached the Louisiana coast. By early July, oil had reached Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.

The oil spill was disastrous for many people. It was most disastrous, of course, for the eleven workers who lost their lives. It was also disastrous for many of the people who live and work near the coastal areas of the Gulf states. But for some people the oil spill was a boon. Who? The answer is lobbyists. In the wake of the oil spill, BP, many environmental interest groups, and interest groups representing oil companies substantially ramped up their lobbying activities. Environmental groups hoped to use the spill as a justification for policies they had long championed—policies that would tighten regulations on oil drilling. Transocean Ltd., the company that owned the rig and leased it to BP, retained the services of a lobbying firm called Capitol Hill Consulting Group to help it stave off stricter federal regulations and to rehabilitate its image with the public and government decision-makers.¹ For its part, BP hired a slew of well-connected lobbyists in an effort to preempt punitive policies proposed by various Washington decision-makers intent on punishing the company for the spill.² The American Petroleum Institute, which represents energy producers including BP, stepped up its lobbying operations to make sure the federal government did not adopt new and onerous regulations that would add to the cost of doing business. Other organizations stepped up their lobbying efforts as well, including shallow water oil drilling companies that used the spill as an opportunity to tout their method of drilling as a safer and preferable alternative to the deep water drilling that led to the disaster.³ In short, what was a disaster for many people was a boon to lobbyists.

The Paradox of Interest Groups

Oil spills do not happen every day. And a gigantic oil spill is a once-in-a-generation phenomenon. Thus, it is certainly not the case that the events that took place during the summer of 2010 represented “business as usual” in the nation’s capital. Yet in one way the lobbying that took place did embody “business as usual”; for Washington, DC is a place where frenzied lobbying activity takes place almost all the time. For better or worse, in Washington as well as in cities, counties, towns, and states across America, interest groups and their lobbyists are everywhere government decisions are made.

The ubiquity of interest groups and their lobbyists worries many Americans. Lobbyists—the people who represent interest groups in front of government decision-makers—are not popular. Public opinion polls show that most Americans hold them in lower esteem even than auto mechanics, lawyers, and members of Congress. Americans believe that lobbyists are about as ethical and honest as car salespeople.⁴ Interest groups themselves are similarly despised by the public. While the military, the police, and small businesses generally are well respected by most Americans, interest groups are scorned.⁵

Ordinary Americans are not the only ones who disdain interest groups. Politicians scorn them as well. Hardly a day passes without some high-ranking public official decrying the impact of “special interests” on government decisions. Presidents have proven especially contemptuous of interest groups. Every president since George Washington has taken time out from his busy schedule to castigate lobbyists and the organizations they represent. Even before the Constitution was adopted, for example, future president James Madison warned that interest groups posed a great danger to the republic because they worked to gain advantage for themselves at the expense of others.⁶ Similarly, upon retiring from office, President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the pernicious influence of powerful organizations that were part of “the military-industrial complex.” More recently, throughout the 1990s, President Clinton regularly denounced conservative groups that dredged up allegations of philandering. And President Barack Obama, frustrated by slow action on some of his signature initiatives, has repeatedly taken special interest groups to task.

Why all the fuss? What’s wrong with interest groups attempting to influence government decisions? After all, most of us support some sort of interest group—be it conservative, liberal, moderate, or “none of the above.” In fact, many of us actually belong to interest groups, and few of us can deny that there are at least some interest groups working to further our political goals. In the aftermath of the BP oil spill, for example, almost all possible viewpoints were represented by interest groups. As the vignette that opened this chapter attests, some interest groups lobbied for strict punishment of the people and companies responsible for the spill. And some groups lobbied for more regulations on oil drilling, while others lobbied for a more measured approach to punishment and less onerous regulations. This is the case in many political battles— there are groups on all sides of the issue.

The theme of this book is that there is something paradoxical about the way Americans view interest groups. On the one hand, all of us are sympathetic to some interest groups. On the other hand, most of us say we hate lobbyists and the interest groups they represent. Why the contradiction? What explains this paradox—a paradox I call “the paradox of interest groups”? The answer lies in the complicated nature of interest group politics in the United States. To explain this paradox, it is necessary to understand precisely what interest groups are, where they come from, how they operate, and the extent to which they influence government decisions.

My goal in writing this book is to provide readers with the information they need to explain the paradox of interest groups. In the remainder of this chapter I will provide the raw material necessary to deal with the information that appears in the chapters that follow. I begin, as they say, at the beginning—with the very meaning of the term “interest group.” From here, I will define some other terms that will come in handy. Finally, I conclude with a brief tour of the universe of interest groups in America.

What is an Interest Group?

When most people think of an interest group, they think of an organization such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Christian Coalition, or the National Rifle Association (NRA)—that is, a politically active, mass membership organization. This narrow view of interest groups, however, overlooks the bulk of organizational activity that occurs in Washington and in states and localities across the country. Most important, it fails to acknowledge the vast numbers of non-membership organizations active in American politics. It excludes, for example, business firms, some of which are very active politically. In addition, this narrow view implies that politically active organizations consist of individuals. This is problematic because many political organizations in America do not consist of individuals. The members of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, for example, a Washington, DC lobbying behemoth, are mostly small businesses.⁷ Finally, this narrow view implies that a political group’s members (if it has members) share goals. This, it turns out, is not always true. Research on why people join interest groups has found that in many organizations members do not share the goals of their fellow members or the group’s leaders. Many people who join the AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons), for example, join not because they share the goals of other members or the group’s leaders, but because they value the hotel, insurance, and rental car discounts that come with membership.

So just what is an interest group? Here, the term “interest group” is defined as any non-party organization that engages in political activity. There are three components to this definition: non-party, organization, and political activity. To say an organization is a non-party organization is to say that it is not a formal part of a political party. I will say more about this below (and in Chapter 8). But for now, it shall suffice to say that to be an interest group an organization cannot be formally affiliated with a political party. To say a group is organized means that it has a budget, employees, and an office (if it can afford one). Groups that are not organized are not considered interest groups. Women as a group, for example, though they share several traits and may even share some ideas about government policies, do not constitute an interest group because not all women belong to the same organized group that engages in political activity. The National Organization for Women (NOW), in contrast, is an interest group. The crucial difference here is that while all women as a group are not organized, NOW is. The final component of my definition is political activity. This component is important because the main difference between interest groups and other types of organizations is that the former engage in political activity. What is political activity? The short answer is lobbying, which is defined as attempting to influence government decisions. As Chapters 5–7 will show, interest groups engage in a large variety of activities to influence government decisions. In this book, I consider all such activities lobbying. Unfortunately, determining if a group is politically active is sometimes not easy. Organizations such as the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross, for example, dedicate most of their time and energy to helping people, but nonetheless spend some of their time trying to influence government decisions. Are these organizations considered interest groups? My answer to this question is an emphatic yes. Again, an interest group is any organization that attempts to influence government decisions. And just because an organization’s primary purpose is not political in nature, it does not mean it is not an interest group.

To help illustrate the differences between interest groups and other types of groups, I have created Table 1.1, which contains a sampling of groups that are not interest groups. The table contains both groups that are not organized and organized groups that do not engage in political activity. One particularly noteworthy entry in the table is “college students.” Though you often hear people talk about college students as if they comprise an interest group, the reality is far different. Obviously, college students as a group are not organized—in other words, not all college students belong to one organized group. While some specific groups of college students are organized, the mass of college students throughout the United States is not.

Table 1.1 Selected Groups that are Not Interest Groups

Group	Reason that group is not an interest group	What is it then?
1. Association of Coffee Mill Enthusiasts	Does not engage in political activity	Hobby club
2. Beach Boys Fan Club	Does not engage in political activity	Fan club
3. The Chi Psi Fraternity	Does not engage in political activity	Fraternity
4. College Students	Is not organized	Unorganized group
5. Environmentalists	Is not organized	Unorganized group
6. Farmers	Is not organized	Unorganized group

Sources: Organizational websites at http://www.antiquecoffeegrinders.net/; http://www.beachboysfanclub.com/; http://www.chipsi.org/. All sites accessed on February 16, 2011.

The term “interest group” is the most important one in this book. Before going any further, however, I need to define a few other important terms. First, there is “political party.” At first glance, political parties seem to fit the broad definition of interest group pretty well. After all, political parties are organized, and they engage in political activity. Yet it is important to recognize that political parties are not interest groups and interest groups are not political parties. What is it about political parties that make them different from interest groups? The answer is: political parties nominate candidates for election to public office. This is not to say that inte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Interest Groups in the United States
• 2 The Evolution of Interest Groups in the United States
• 3 The Formation and Maintenance of Interest Groups
• 4 The Non-Lobbying Activities of Interest Groups
• 5 Direct Lobbying
• 6 Electoral Lobbying
• 7 Indirect Lobbying
• 8 Interest Groups and Political Parties
• 9 The Influence of Interest Groups
• 10 Conclusion: The Role of Interest Groups in American Politics
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index