LOBBYING AS A MEANS OF ARTICULATION AND INFLUENCE
Each of these forms of public voice—opinion polls, public meetings, and talk radio—present officials with the views of the citizenry, but they have relatively little direct influence on the policymaking process. Politicians do read newsworthy polls, attend pivotal public meetings, and notice when talk radio has generated an uproar, but those forms of voice rarely receive more than recognition. There may be many reasons for this unresponsiveness, but the analyses of voting in chapters 3 and 4 suggest that the primary problem is that public voice is not tethered to a credible threat of collective rejection of unrepresentative incumbents. Individual citizens may threaten to vote for an opponent if their advice goes unheeded, but an elected official has no reason to believe that the average voter can organize a successful opposition campaign.
By contrast, effective lobbying can change actual votes on upcoming legislation, and it can prod officials to change what bills they introduce or what causes they champion. By "lobbyists," I mean the full universe of influential interest groups, which includes policy institutes and think tanks (e.g., the American Enterprise Institute, Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation) and, more commonly, special- and public-interest groups (e.g., the American Medical Association, American Association of Retired Persons, National Right to Life Committee, Mothers against Drunk Driving, People for the American Way, Conservative Caucus, National Federation of Industrial Businesses League, Sierra Club). Often, the actual individuals and firms representing these interests are professional lobbyists and public relations mercenaries (e.g., Hill & Knowlton), and it is increasingly common for lobbyists and their firms to represent multiple interests.[42] Before examining why these groups and their lobbyists have success influencing elected officials, it is useful to briefly relate the criteria for political voice to the practice of lobbying.
Influential though it may be, lobbying is far from the democratic ideal of voice. Lobbyists and advocacy groups generally present narrow or partisan viewpoints, earning them the name "special interests." Some public-interest groups do advocate policies supported by the general public, but even those rely upon their professional experts for guidance more than on random samples of the public or diverse grassroots memberships. More generally, lobbying is not a representative form of public voice because its influence depends largely upon the wealth that funds it.[43]"One dollar, one vote" is a closer approximation to lobbying's ethic of representation. Even the most influential individualdonor lobbyists are not evenly distributed across different social groups: a recent study of federal campaign contributions of $200 or more crossreferenced donor zip codes with census data and found that donations disproportionately came from predominantly wealthy, white zip codes.[44]
In addition, lobbying is not an inclusive, deliberative form of public voice. The most public-spirited interest groups sometimes promote public dialogue on an issue by convening public meetings or engaging in televised debates, but the purpose behind such activities is to increase the amount public support for a preset policy position. Persuasion through argument is an important part of the deliberative process, but orchestrated public discussions often become manipulative. For example, Murray Edelman argues that policy advocates attach themselves strategically and psychologically to a particular plan of action and then cast about for problems that justify their prefabricated solutions. Thus, an organization might promote public meetings to discuss a problem only to lead the public to support a particular solution.[45]
Most interest groups lack even internal deliberation. As Jane Mansbridge observes, "Few interest associations in the United States or Europe institutionalize any formal deliberative processes among their membership, let alone deliberative processes designed to promote identiflcation with the public good." Mansbridge's own research on the movement for an Equal Rights Amendment found that "even in this democratic and public-spirited movement, the elites never learned what the grass-roots activists would have formulated as good public policy if both elites and activists had taken part in a more extensive process of deliberation.[46]
Lobbying does not usually involve a representative and deliberative public voice, but it does present an articulate one. Lobbyists focus on concrete agendas and speciflc policies. If defeating a single amendment
Aside from the fact that it is clear and realistic, why does a lobbyist's request receive a response? The exit, voice, and loyalty model suggests that the lobbyist must be making a credible threat of collective rejection of an incumbent. Most policymakers are busy people, and although they might appreciate the technical assistance and professional experience of a lobbyist on an issue, in the long term, lobbyists would have little tangible influence if they did not give elected officials a more powerful reason to heed their voices. The reason that lobbyists give, often implicitly, is that they have the power to influence electoral outcomes in incumbents' own districts. Whether in the form of a public-interest nonproflt organization, a private special-interest association, or a partisan political organization, lobbyists can shape elections in three ways: through campaign contributions, independent expenditures, and voter organizing and mobilization.
Standing behind many lobbyists are political action committees (PACs), which can contribute up to $5,000 per election to a candidate for federal office. A group such as Handgun Control Inc. can give a candidate $5,000 in the primary and another $5,000 in the general election, to be spent at the candidate's discretion. Indirectly, Handgun Control can encourage unaffiliated individuals and other PACs to make similar contributions, so it may leverage a much larger total contribution. Many congressional candidates receive the maximum legal contribution from multiple members of a family whose commercial or ideological interests are represented by a single lobbyist or lobbying organization. At $1,000 per person, this can mean $10,000 or more per election from a single family. Even more indirectly, PACs and individuals
Indirect spending, however, can prove even more powerful. To aid its lobbying efforts, an organization can directly attack or praise candidates, and some incumbents respond to the promise or threat of such action. For an incumbent who has irked powerful interests, turning to competing interests can become the only way to fend off those attacks. The example of the Republican Congressman Philip English is instructive. English won a close race in 1994 for Pennsylvania's Twenty-First District seat, which is anchored in Erie. With only 49 percent of the vote in 1994, and a district that had given President Bush just 34 percent of the vote in 1992, English had to triple his campaign funds to win reelection in 1996, and he took all the direct contributions he could get. Favorable ads run by the American Hospital Association and the U.S. Chamber of Congress bolstered English's position, but those ads had to counter a strong series of attacks sponsored by the AFL-CIO. The Almanac of American Politics notes that "during one 20-hour stretch in November, more than 500 political ads aired on Erie television" and that noncandidate organizations "appear to have spent at least $1.4 million, and quite possibly more" on the race.[50] In the end, English won with 106,875 votes to 104,004 votes for his Democratic opponent. For local, state, and national public officials like English, the lesson is clear: lobbyists have the potential to spark an electoral defeat, and they often have the power to prevent one. Indirect expenditures are a clear manifestation of that power.
Other lobbying organizations have both money and members. Behind them stand not only a well-funded and media-savvy public relations arsenal but also a large membership and a skilled organizing staff. One of the most striking examples of this lobbying tool is the membership
Sometimes political groups go much farther than the AARP and other mainstream lobbying organizations. Civil disobedience and other forms of protest can prove effective mechanisms of expressing dissent if the actions are timely, well-attended, and articulate. Even protest, however, has the same problems of other forms of lobbying: the participants in protest politics are unrepresentative of the general public. Those who participate in protest politics, as well as other demanding forms of political expression, are disproportionately white and wealthy.[52]
Whether the voice of a lobbyist is backed by people or money, much of its influence derives from the ability to shape electoral outcomes. Other factors contribute to the influence of a given lobbyist: real policy expertise, reflned social skills, cordial or intimate relationships with officeholders, and even powerful moral persuasion can have an independent influence on policymakers. Nonetheless, it is the implied threat of retaliation (or promise of aid) that makes elected officials more responsive to lobbying than other forms of public voice.