Interest Group Pressures in the United States

Congress: Influences on the Legislative Process Interest Group Pressures

About two-thirds of all Americans are members of one or more groups, such as churches, sports teams, school clubs, labor unions, and business associations. Not all these groups seek political influence, but each has the right to do so. The First Amendment to the Constitution protects not only free speech and the right of assembly but also people’s right to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” This First Amendment right allows interest groups to pressure Congress in many ways and on any issue. Throughout U.S. history, groups have pressed Congress to take action on issues such as slavery, import tariffs, women’s right to vote, taxes, gun control, and abortion.

Groups often send representatives to Capitol Hill to speak directly to lawmakers. This is called lobbying, because interest group representatives once crowded into the lobbies outside legislative chambers in the hopes of catching lawmakers as they came and went. Buying a lawmaker’s support – that is, bribery – was once common but is now illegal. Lobbyists are most persuasive when they can supply facts and arguments for lawmakers to use in defending their vote.

Two variants of lobbying include grassroots lobbying and coalition lobbying. In grassroots lobbying, an interest group uses a campaign of phone calls, telegrams, e-mail, and letters from citizens to persuade members of Congress to act in a certain way. Because grassroots campaigns can be especially persuasive, since the early 1990s business groups have orchestrated campaigns so that they appear to emanate from the public. Critics label the practice “AstroTurf lobbying,” because they see it as artificial as imitation grass. In 1995, for example, telecommunications companies sent nearly 500,000 telegrams to Congress favoring relaxed controls on their industry. But thousands of people listed as senders of the telegrams had not authorized the sending of telegrams in their names, and some of those listed as senders had died months earlier. In coalition lobbying, interest groups join forces with like-minded groups to increase their influence. For example, in 1997 medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers got together to press Congress to limit their legal liability when their products failed to work.

Interest groups also try to win congressional support by contributing money to the electoral campaigns of individual members. Because members of the House and Senate face limits on campaign donations, interest groups may also mount their own campaigns (termed issue advocacy) that are often indistinguishable from the candidate’s efforts. In addition to printing leaflets and running radio and TV ads, many interest groups hire organizers to work in the candidate’s state or district. About 100 groups create “report cards” on congressional members’ voting records, selecting issues and scoring members’ “right” or “wrong” votes.

Increasingly, congressional races are influenced by political action committees. These groups do not usually lobby Congress directly. Instead they try to influence the congressional agenda by raising money to support candidates sympathetic to their cause. Nearly two-thirds of political action committees represent business groups, such as chemical manufacturers and cigarette makers, but there are also groups devoted to the interests of labor unions, women candidates, and environmental protection. (1)

In this Section about the Legislative Process: Legislative Process, Proposing New Laws, Legislative Committee System, Congress Influences (including Political Parties, President Influences, Interest Group Pressures and the Legislative Process and Public Opinion) and Bills.

Courts Percepcion

Judges of the early nineteenth century viewed “the people” as a politically homogeneous and cohesive body possessing common political goals and aspirations, not as a congeries of factions and interest groups, each having its own set of goals and aspirations.

Of course, Americans in the early nineteenth century recognized that factions often existed in the real world of politics. But, on the whole, they viewed such factions as aberrations from the ideal polity. (2) (3) Nor did many Americans at the turn of the nineteenth century discuss judicial review as a mechanism for promoting or protecting the interests of one of several competing factions; indeed, it may be that no Americans perceived judicial review in such terms.

Although a number of twentieth-century scholars have argued that some of the Founding Fathers, notably Hamilton, regarded the judiciary as a check upon factions and a bulwark for the protection of minority rights, these scholars may be distorting history in light of twentieth-century constitutional practices. The accuracy of their views is, in any event, a subject beyond the scope of the current essay and one meriting full treatment on another occasion.

Resources

Notes and References

1. Encarta Online Encyclopedia
2. R. HOFSTADTER, THE IDEA OF A PARTY SYSTEM (1969).
3. GOODMAN, supra note 66, at 6-7, 66-67; Goodman, The First American Party System, in The American Party Systems.

See Also

Interest Groups
Lobbying

• A. PAUL, CONSERVATIVE CRISIS AND THE RULE OF LAW: ATTITUDES OF BAR AND
  BENCH, 1887-1895, at 231 (1960) ;
• F. RODELL, NINE MEN: A POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE SUPREmE COURT FROM 1790 TO 1955, at 41 (1955);
• Mason, The Federalist Split Personality, 57 Amr. HIST. REv. 625, 636-37 (1952).