Methods Used by Interest Groups to Influence Public Policy
Methods Used by Interest Groups to Influence Public Policy
Our government leaders primary responsibility is coming up with solutions to public problems . Those ideas are what are known as public policy. Interest groups not only work to influence our Congress and President in putting their ideas into legislative form, but they may also try to influence judges in the decisions they may make. Sometimes these groups have the opportunity to influence federal workers when they write federal regulations. More recently, interest groups have recognized that they should try to influence the American public regarding their positions on issues.
The following are Methods used by interest groups to influence our leaders:
- PERSUASION: (People ) – – interest groups “exploit the mass communications media” to influence the public to contact their representatives to support the group’s position on an issue or to vote for candidates who will support their positions once they are elected to public office (Magleby, Government by the People 2018 Elections, 26 edition, 121-122)
For example, the National Health Association of America ran television ads that attacked Clinton’s Healthcare plan in 1993-1994 and the AFL-CIO spent $35 million to run “Mediscare” ads on television against Republican candidates in order to “frighten” senior citizens to vote against “cuts” in Medicare.
Interest groups ran television ads trying to persuade the public to contact their U.S. Senators to support or oppose President G. W. Bush’s nominee, Samuel Alito, for Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Sometimes interest groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) or National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) who represent gun owners and small businessmen send out “mass mailings” to their membership to alert them that Congress is considering legislation of concern to their organization.
Prior to the 2011 November election, groups supporting or opposing Ohio’s SB 5 law, banning collective bargaining by public employees (public employees could continue to bargain about wages and workplace conditions, but not pensions or healthcare) put ads on television and also sent fliers to voters to influence them to support their position on this controversial issue.
The Internet has also helped enormously in informing members of these various organizations about what is going on in Washington, D.C. or their state capitals. They can at a moment’s notice send an e-mail or “action alerts” to their members!
Image: Courtesy of pxfuel under Public Domain
- LITIGATION: (Judges) – – interest groups try to influence judges’ decisions. How? They provide counsel and dollars ($$s) to plaintiffs so they can go to court to challenge state or federal laws that injured them (Magleby, Government by the People 2018 Elections, 26 edition, 122).
For example is Brown v Board of Education, the NAACP provided counsel and money to the Brown family to challenge state segregation in public schools.For more information on Brown v Topeka Board of Education, go to:
If the interest groups like NOW are not a party to a suit or assisting a plaintiff in a particular case, they may write an amicus curiae brief to try to influence the Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.
For example, the NOW organization tries to influence the Justices’ decision on an abortion case by submitting legal arguments supporting abortion rights. By writing this brief, NOW hopes to convince the Court to support its position on abortion rights.
The Family Research Council (FRC) has submitted an amicus brief in the Baxter v. Montana case on assisted suicide to the Montana State Supreme Court. To review the FRC amicus brief go to : To review the FRC amicus brief go to Family Research Council
Sometimes an interest groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) are parties to a suit. The NRA sued the City of Chicago stating its handgun ban violated the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to bear arms. It has appealed the lower court’s decision to uphold the ban to the U.S. Supreme Court and the Court held the ban violated the Constitution.To learn more review McDonald v. City of Chicago, 2010, holding.
Also, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) sued Secretary Sebelius challenging the health care reform law’s constitutionality. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate requiring individuals to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty based on Congress’ tax and spend for the general welfare. The Court held that Congress exceeded its authority under its commerce power when it wanted to reach an inactivity (non purchase of health insurance)–National Association of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012). To learn more about this case read the Court’s decision at Business v. Sebelius.
Image source: Thurgood Marshall 1957-09-17 by Thomas J. O’Halloran, U.S. News & World Report Magazine under Public Domain
RULEMAKING: (Federal Agencies) – – interest groups work to influence federal agencies when they write federal regulations . Congress gives the federal agencies, like the EPA, the ability to engage in the Rulemaking process. A rule is another word for regulation (Magleby 123).
Federal agencies write regulations that fill in the details that Congress cannot provide in its legislation. Congress can not anticipate every situation so it leaves to the federal agencies the responsibility to fill in the specific details. When the federal employees develop and later enforce these regulations, they help the President of the United States to carry out the laws passed by Congress. Methods Used by Interest Groups to Influence Public Policy
Congress requires federal agencies to provide interested parties notice of a proposed regulation and the opportunity to submit comments concerning the impact of those regulations. The proposed rules or regulations are published in the Federal Register.
Who is a Lobbyist and What Does He Do to Influence Our Leaders?
- LOBBYING: (Congress & President) – – interest groups send individuals known as lobbyists to Washington to influence Congress and the Executive Branch. Lobbyists, unlike constituents, influence for profit.
Lobbyists are paid to advocate the concerns of their membership to public officials who actually write the laws; thus, putting their ideas to solve public problems in legislative form. Interest groups sometimes hire in-house lobbyists or independent lobbying firms to advocate on their group s behalf.
Lobbyists spend time researching issues important to their organization. They also spend a great deal of time in directly lobbying Members of Congress, Congressional staff, and the Administration. This type of lobbying is crucial because a lobbyist has the opportunity to state his case to the public official and get his immediate response. The lobbyist can take the time to clarify issues, provide political intelligence, and constituent viewpoints on an issue(s).
A good lobbyist can be a truly invaluable asset to public officials and their staff because they meet with so many people on a daily basis — other Congressmen, Senators, party leaders, Administration staff, and representatives from other groups. They have a wealth of information to share!
Types of Lobbying:
- Direct lobbying (as discussed above): Lobbyists present their organization s case directly (face-to-face) to members of Congress, Congressional staff, and the Executive Branch. This approach involves personal discussions in their offices or over the telephone.
It also can include monitoring hearings or testifying before a Congressional committee; writing speeches or floor statements; and drafting legislation (I often tell my students the lobbyist can go half way — provide the representative with a legislative proposal and a floor statement to go with it. The personal staff of Congressmen are often too busy to draft legislation and lobbyists can be very helpful.
Social lobbying: A lobbyist gains access to member of Congress in a social setting — breakfasts, dinners, and receptions sponsored by interest groups. It is a much more informal environment used to gain trust and understanding of issues.
After the Republicans took “control” of Congress in 1995, they passed rules banning gifts to members of Congress and staff. A lobbyist could only give a single gift of up to $50 to a Congressman or his staff and not more than $100 in a given year, e.g. two $50 dinners (U.S. House Committee on Ethics). As a result of this ban on gifts, legislators had fewer paid lunches and dinners (receptions were not included in the ban). There were no more charitable golfing events and paid vacations to the Bahamas either. Ironically, over a decade later, Americans voted out the Republicans because of, in part, the corruption scandals. The number one issue interestingly enough was not the Iraq War, but corruption in the 2006 midterm election.
Lobbyists often treat Senators and their staff for lunch at “The Monocle Restaurant,” a quiet, secluded location for serious confidential conversations.
On September 14, 2007, President Bush signed into law S.1, Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. It had been a top priority of the Democratic Congress in the 1st session, 110th Congress. You may remember that the Republicans had failed to pass the ethics/lobbying reform bill at the end of 2006 because, in part, the Democrats did not want to limit 527s ability to raise soft money.
President Bush had some objections to the legislation urging the need for more transparency for earmarks and eliminating the differences on air travel rules, etc. for both the President and U.S. Senate and the U.S. House. He asked Congress to make improvements on the new law in the near future to address his Administration s concerns.
Under the new law Congressmen are required to do the following:
• Must disclose the identity of lobbyist(s) who raise $15,000 in political contributions within a six month period (lobbyists collect individual contributions from their organizations members and bundle them together to give to candidates.).
• Disclose earmarks sometimes known as pork projects in advance (currently, the names of the sponsors are noted in the committee reports; this new law still does not require sponsors names to be noted in the bill).
• Bans Members and Congressional staff from accepting gifts from lobbyists or their clients.
• Senators and staff must now wait two years instead of one year before they lobby their colleagues; the House keeps the one year limit. This addresses the revolving door problem.
• Senators and President s campaigns must now pay the fair market value for private air travel; the House is banned from flying on private planes.
• Bans Members of Congress from attending lobbyist funded parties at Presidential Conventions.
• Strips pension benefits from a Congressman if he is convicted of bribery, perjury, or defrauds the government or if he is indicted or if there is an outstanding charges against him.To learn more about current House rules on gifts/private travel, go to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics Committee). Click the link below:
To learn more about current Senate rules on gifts/private travel, go to Senate Select Committee on Ethics and click on “Overview of the Senate Code of Conduct.”
- Coalition or Cooperative lobbying: power in numbers — Interest groups work together and lobby Members of Congress and the Executive Branch. The lobbyists jointly visit Members of Congress, host receptions, and write letters hoping to convince the legislator(s) to support their positions on the issue/legislation.
- Grassroots lobbying: Lobbyists do not focus on Washington, but the American public, the grassroots. They hope to mobilize the public to contact their representatives in support of the interest group s position on an issue, rather like the method of persuasion; they use petition drives, hold rallies, use radio and T. V. ads, etc.
Interest Groups’ Contributions
How much can interest groups contribute to candidates or political parties?
- FEDERAL ELECTIONS ACTIVITIES : (Elect candidates ) – Interest groups try to influence elections by:
- Obtaining information and money (PAC $) to candidates;
- Sampling or purposefully targeting a potential office holder to demonstrate to voters where the candidate stands on certain issues or on the political spectrum;
Students are often interested in how much interest groups, corporations, and labor unions can contribute to political candidates during an election. As you are aware, money in politics is of great concern to the American public because of its potential to corrupt our leaders once they are elected into office. There is always the fear that our representatives will vote the “way their contributors want them to.”
It is very expensive to run a Congressional race and even more to run for the presidency. Strong competition raises the cost of campaigning, so candidates often rely on interest groups’ political contributions, as well as, individual givers. Candidates use their own funds, mortgage their homes, and seek financial contributions from their friends, neighbors, and colleagues to finance their run for public office.
I often ask, “how much can a corporation or an individual contribute to a presidential campaign or a Congressional campaign? Generally, one student will say $100,000! It is much less than that amount because of post-Watergate laws that limit individual and interest group contributions in federal elections.
Today individuals can only contribute up to $2000 per election (this amount will increase with inflation). Originally, individuals could only contribute $1000, but Congress raised the individual contribution level with the passage of the McCain-Feingold bill now known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act 2002. Methods Used by Interest Groups to Influence Public Policy
Corporate, labor union, and other interest group PAC’s can only contribute up to $5000 per election under the 1974 Amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act. The McCain-Feingold bill did not change the amount for interest group PAC’s.
On April 3, 2014, in McCutcheon v. FCC, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the individual contribution limits to candidates running for federal office but struck down the total amount that individuals could give overall to candidates and political parties (and other political committees) in an election cycle.
As a result, you can give to as many candidates as you like as long as you keep within the $2,000 plus inflation limit for each candidate in any federal election. Individual political contributions to the RNC or DNC are not changed either, up to $32,400 per calendar year. Go to the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) website to learn more about this decision at:
Ongoing Litigation – McCutcheon, et al. v. FEC
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Individuals
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$2000 primary election $2000 general election ————————- $4000 “max” in an election cycle |
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PAC’s |
$5000 primary election $5000 general election ————————- $10,000 “max” in an election cycle |
What is a Political Action Committee (PAC)?
But I am getting ahead of myself. Before I go any further, I want to explain why we have PAC’s. Early in the 20th century, Congress passed a federal law that prohibited corporations and labor unions from directly contributing money to a Congressional and presidential campaign.
Corporations and labor unions were taking corporate profits and labor union dues without asking their stockholders, employees or members and contributing those dollars to political candidates and political parties. The AFL-CIO wanted to continue to provide financial contributions to candidates so it came up with the idea of creating an independent organization known as a “political action committee” (PAC).
The PAC was named the Committee on Political Education (COPE) and it asked the AFL-CIO labor union members to “voluntarily” contribute money to it. The executive director of COPE then contributed those dollars to a political candidate or political party.
It worked! The Congress said it was alright to set up these”political arms of organized interest groups” as we have roughly 4600 PAC’s today (FEC Archive, 2009).
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NOTE the PAC image was added to each cited image.
Has a corporate, labor union, or other interest group PAC asked you to make a political contribution?
Independent Expenditure or Issue Advocacy?
Individuals can spend an unlimited amount of money on behalf of a candidate. For example, Ms. Smith is running for Congress. She has a wealthy friend who is very supportive of her candidacy. Mr. Jones wants to be helpful so he spends $1 million on campaign advertisements that say “Vote for Ms. Smith. She is a friend of the environment!”
The only problem is that Mr. Jones cannot “coordinate “ this activity with candidate Smith, e.g. ask her to edit the ads and he must disclose his expenditure to the FEC so the public knows who is trying to influence the election. This is known as an independent expenditure.
The U.S. Supreme Court has said “in dicta” (as an aside), that it is an independent expenditure if the television ad has language that says”vote for or against.” The Court considers this type of advertisement an “election ad.”
If a person just puts ads on television that focus on a particular issue like the environment or education, it is an issue advocacy ad! Since it does not have the “vote for or against” language, it is not an independent expenditure. It is not considered “election ad,” you do not have to disclose this expenditure/sponsor of the ad to the FEC. In recent years, people and groups had avoided using the “vote for or against” language, but were putting a picture of the candidate or his name in the advertisement.
As a result, in 2002, Congress wrote in the McCain-Feingold bill, (now known as BCRA) that there can’t be any reference to candidate (picture or language) or to an election; otherwise, it is an “ electioneering ad ” and it is an independent expenditure and must be disclosed to the FEC.
Just like individuals, interest groups, can spend on behalf of a candidate or try to defeat a candidate they oppose. However, the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act prohibited corporations and labor unions from spending their profits or dues on these types of ads (for or against a candidate); they could spend these monies only on issue ads. Interestingly, corporate and union PACs could continue to spend their PAC dollars to benefit or defeat candidates!
More recently, the McCain-Feingold Bill also prohibited corporations from spending profits and dues on electioneering ads just prior to a primary and general election (Ballotpedia, 2020 ). They could put on issue ads during this time Methods Used by Interest Groups to Influence Public Policy.
In January 2010, the U.S. Supreme in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission struck down this provision of the Mc-Cain-Feingold Bill and said that corporations and labor unions should be able to spend their monies on political (electioneering) ads and this ban violated their political speech rights under the First Amendment. The Court also struck down the section in the Taft-Hartley Act that prohibited corporations and unions from making independent expenditures favoring or opposing certain candidates. To learn more about this case, go to C-Span’s Washington Journal interview.
Who Benefits from Interest Group Money?
In the 1980’s, Congress talked about banning PAC money. Congress did not ban interest group money because it benefits incumbents over challengers, the majority party over the minority party, and women and minority candidates. Also, some Congressmen raised concerns that an outright ban of PAC contributions violated the U.S. Constitution (FEC, n.d.)
In 1990’s, the focus of campaign finance reform shifted to the growth of “soft money” raised by political parties for “party-building” activities like registering voters and getting to the polls on election day. In our next lesson, I will discuss the ban on soft money (McCain-Feingold bill), its impact on political parties, and the growth of “527’s” what I refer to as “political shadow groups” and SuperPACs Methods Used by Interest Groups to Influence Public Policy
