How might interest groups use their money to influence policy outcomes in Congress? What effect does the timing and targeting of money have on their effectiveness? How exactly might we go about measuring such influence, in both contributions and results?
It is an open secret that private interest groups wield enormous influence over the Congress. Indeed, political lobbying and the Public Relations efforts that it entails is a multi-billion dollar industry. This state of affairs suggests that far from the principles enshrined in the Constitution, the Congress has now become a market place. Each law or amendment has a bunch of monetary transactions behind it. While a conventional market place sells commodities and services, the Congress sells legislative favors. It is a pitiable condition, but nevertheless true.
Numerous empirical studies have been conducted on understanding the nature of influence of interest groups. As far as studies on interest groups’ ability to influence legislative voting, the results are mixed. It is fairly clear that cultural issues such as gay rights, abortion, school prayer, etc have minimal interference from interest groups. The reason is obvious – they have no overt commercial bearing. For general socio-cultural topics
“legislative voting is driven by partisanship, ideology, religious beliefs, and constituency opinion, with interest group influence occurring at the margins. Interest group influence on culture war issues is conditional, but may be more visible simply because support has been relatively low.” (Haider-Markel, 1999)
Amid the generic fear over the influence of interest groups, a particular concern has risen over the notion that Political Action Committees (PACs) are buying the allegiance of politicians. The flow of money into PAC’s reveals a blatant misuse of campaign financing. For example, the PAC leadership has been found to allow special interests and big business to sway key decisions. One can garner this from an analysis of receipts and expenditure incurred by PACs in the last decade. The spirit behind limits to campaign donation is to pre-empt any undue pressure from large donors. But this regulation is easily circumvented “by giving to a member’s personal campaign fund and to his or her leadership PAC”. (Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, 2004) So, legal loopholes such as these have effectively made election campaigns sophisticated quid-pro-quo affairs. To cite an example, during the 1991-92 Congressional elections, the maximum personal campaign fund cap of $2000 was worked around by generations of up to $5000 toward leadership PACs and Effective Government Committees.
There are also other channels for contributing money into congressional contests. Famous political analyst W.P. Welsh’s seminal studies on the subject continue to serve as models for analysis. One of the insights offered by Welsh’s 1982 paper titled ‘Campaign contributions and legislative voting: Milk money and dairy price supports’ is especially instructive. He posits that
“It is even conceivable that some groups would contribute to a candidate with PAC money while indirectly contributing to his or her opponent through soft-money contributions or an “issue ad.” This possibility is much more complex than the exchange theory model. A more likely scenario, however, is a group or individual will seek even more credit with legislators by contributing to both a candidate and also channeling money into the same race through an issue ad, party soft-money contribution, or independent expenditure.” (Magleby, 2008)
Looking back at statistical evidence since the publication of Welsh’s article, it has proven to be prophetic. Although, it has to be qualified that Welch could not accurately anticipate how interest groups would act in an atmosphere where there are no contribution caps. Where Welsh got it wrong in predicting that close Congressional election races would discourage contributions as a result of uncertainty of outcome. But records show hedging-like patterns that interest groups would resort to in close races. Moreover, “the largest expenditures by interest groups and political parties in settings where they were unconstrained by contribution limits have typically gone to the closest races”. (Magleby, 2008)
The dominance of money over direct democracy has increased over the years. Today money is the only certain route to ballot access. Besides, the barriers of entry have also become exorbitant, with big financial players determining outcomes. Interest groups with expertise in the traditional arena will have an edge when it comes to direct lawmaking. This is so because such groups still exert influence in the legislature through “sophisticated direct mail techniques, money, connections with professional political consultants, etc.” (Garrett, 1999) Today it is plainly understood that whichever group crosses the signature hurdle is the one with substantial financial resources. There is little to no relevance as to the importance of the issue at stake and public opinion about it. Professional firms “do not structure their approach to voters so that public deliberation is fostered or even so that signers know what issue the petition proposes to place on the ballot. They want to earn their money quickly and move on.” (Garrett, 2009)
A review of scholarly research on the subject reveals that money is the single most important factor in the signature-gathering phase of direct democracy. Needless to say, it is the agenda of the financiers which dominate the larger public good. The problem of money buying ballot access could be manifest in many ways. One of the solutions to mitigate these phenomena is by banning the use of paid solicitors. But it gets caught in legal quagmires, as the Meyer v. Grant (1979) case illustrates. So, as it stands, removing the influence of money over body polity remains a Utopian dream.
Having recognized the dangers of money power over policy, certain reforms were initiated in the recent decade. But ironically, the fact that these reforms should also pass through the corridors of the Congress has made them ineffective. For example, those reforms that were designed to close down one avenue of corruption have simply proven to shift money to other pockets in the system. For example,
“if well-financed groups and wealthy individuals could not pay petition circulators, they would seek to drum up popular support and to inspire volunteers through expensive media campaigns and mailings. Financial resources would provide greater access to mechanisms that could be used to persuade people to work for a particular ballot question. In addition, reform that reduces the overall level of speech is more problematic than reform that seeks to improve access for all interests to play a role in the policymaking process.” (Garrett, 2009)
Even fledgling attempts to reform campaign financing has proved damp squib. For example, the McCain-Feingold law of 2002 is claimed by its proponents as an effective tool to curb flow of unregulated special-interest money into the election process. But as critics point out, the law has instead turned into a government censorship tool. The law would “permit government control over the kind of core political speech the First Amendment was written to protect”. (“Lobbying versus Electioneering”, 2006) The US Supreme Court review of the law in 2003 upheld nearly all the provisions in it. But there is no consensus as to the merit and effectiveness of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.
It is now well understood that those interest groups that cannot gain access to Congresspersons have other means of achieving their agenda. It comes in the form of propaganda and narrowing down political discourse. The media has proved to be a disappointment in this regard. Instead of serving as a fourth pillar of democracy and allowing a rich and varied political discourse, the nation suffers from hackneyed political debates that under-represent the views of all demographic groups. So a potent combination of money power and media collusion has undermined the key democratic process of law-making. It is a regrettable state of affairs and in urgent need of corrective course.
Works Cited
Garrett, Elizabeth. “Money, Agenda Setting, and Direct Democracy.” Texas Law Review 77.7 (2009): 1845+.
Haider-Markel, Donald P. “Redistributing Values in Congress: Interest Group Influence under Sub-Optimal Conditions.” Political Research Quarterly 52.1 (1999): 113+.
“Lobbying versus Electioneering ; A Key Campaign-Finance Law Is Back in the High Court Tuesday, as Interest Groups Challenge a Rule on Election-Season Ads.” The Christian Science Monitor 17 Jan. 2006.
Magleby, David B. “Commentary on Welch’s Early and Important Work Separating out the Effects of Constituency and Campaign Contributions on Congressional Roll-Call Votes.” Political Research Quarterly 61.1 (2008): 32+.
Nancy Watzman and Jason Hatch. Nancy Watzman Is Research Director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, A. National Consumer Group. Jason Hatch Worked as A. Researcher Citizen’s Congress Watch. “When Money and Leadership Don’t Mix Leadership PACs Have Let Members of Congress and Special Interest Groups Skirt Donation Limits and Campaign Finance Reform.” The Christian Science Monitor 6 May 2004.