CHAPTER thirteen
Interest Groups

Exercises

Scoring on the issues

Mixing two of their roles as interest groups, some groups educate the public about whom they are lobbying. In other words, they rank lawmakers on how much the lawmakers remain loyal to the group's issue positions. As a result, constituents can gauge how much representatives or senators champion particular issues. Go to Project Vote Smart's Issue and Interest Group Ratings web site. How would James Madison feel about interest groups grading elected officials?

1. Scroll through the issues listed in the "Pick a national issue" section, choose one, and click on "Go" to see which interest groups Project Vote Smart uses to rank lawmakers on that issue. How many interest groups are active on that issue?
   
2. Click on some of the organization names. What is their position on the issue? To see if your state has a local chapter of a particular interest groups, select your state under the "Or pick a state" section and click on "Go".
   
3. If the "Key Votes" link appears after you've selected an issue, click on it. How many votes in Congress have involved this issue in recent years?
   
4. To see how leaders in your state rank on these interest group ratings, go to Project Vote Smart's state-by-state interest group ratings. Click on your state, and see how current officials (president, Congress, governor, and state offices) are rated by various interest groups. If you do not know your representative or senators, you can type in your nine-digit ZIP code, and the web site will bring up the names of your elected officials.

• Are your elected representatives similar in their ratings by interest groups, even if they are members of opposing parties? What does this mean? Or do elected officials break out by party?
• Do your elected representatives fit with your views on issues? Have you found some interest groups that you would like to join?
  

Think tanks

The role of think tanks has changed in recent decades. Increasingly, research presentations have become less academic and in-depth and more ideological and briefer. As mentioned, influential liberals are trying to catch up to the advantage many Washington , D.C. , observers say conservative think tanks have in setting the agenda and driving policy debates. What do different think tanks say about particular issues? What does their research say?

1. For one conservative perspective on public policy, go to the Heritage Foundation web site. The Heritage Foundation is one of the most influential and powerful think tanks in American politics. What types of positions does its web site promote? Go to the research sections of the web site and choose an issue of interest (the economy is typically an easy issue to compare across think tanks). Pay attention to the "Talking Points" and "Facts and Figures".
   
2. Go to the web site of another well-respected conservative think tank, The American Enterprise Institute. Click on the "Short Publications" link and see whether their positions and research are similar to those of the Heritage Foundation.
3. On the other side of these issues, what does the liberal-leaning and recently formed Center for American Progress, which was set up to mirror the Heritage Foundation, have to say on these same issues? Click on "The Issues" to select a specific area (again, economic issues are easy to compare) and the "Talking Points" link to see directly how the center's positions compare to those of the more conservative think tanks.
   
4. Another liberal think tank that concentrates specifically on economic issues is the Economic Policy Institute. How does the research available from the links provided here compare with that available through the Center for American Progress? How does their style and content differ from the conservative think tanks?
   

Lobbying

As argued in the text, a key role interest groups play is direct lobbying of government officials. This is most often associated with lobbying Congress. So who is doing the lobbying? How much are they spending lobbying? The Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 requires lobbyists to file with the Senate's Office of Public Records, which makes all of these filings available. Different searches are available.

1. To search for a business, union, interest group, or someone else, click on "Client Name" and then click on "Go". You may want to choose "Filing Year" as well to limit your results to the most recent year(s). Type into the search line the name of a large corporation, a union, or an interest group.
2. Some companies, unions, and interest groups have multiple lobbyists working for them. How many lobbying firms do some companies or interest groups employ? Why do you think this is the case?
   
3. If you click on the link to a report, a copy of it will open. Under the Income and Expenses portion of the form, how much was spent lobbying? Remember, this is not campaign contributions but expenses paid to lobby Congress.
   
4. Another way to produce a report is to put in a dollar amount that was spent on lobbying. By choosing "Amount reported" and "Filing report," you could type in a dollar amount and even choose the "greater than" symbol (>) as part of your search. So how many groups, corporations, or interests spent more than $1,000,000 lobbying? $2,000,000?
   

Campaign finance

Another key role of interest groups is electioneering, or financing electoral campaigns. How much do different interests in America spend on campaigns? To whom do they give? The Center for Responsive Politics Opensecrets.org web site provides an Industry Profiles searchable function to see how much has been given in campaign contributions across particular economic and interest group industries, as well as which interest groups have given how much, and to whom.

1. Scroll down to a particular industry by economic sector, or an industry that's been "front-page news." How much has been given by this economic sector in recent election cycles?
   
2. On the left side of the web page, under "Data for this Industry," click on "Top Contributors." Make sure you choose the election cycle you're interested in—are the records for the 2006 elections, 2004 elections, 2002 elections, etc.
3. How much did this sector raise in campaign funds?
   
4. Which party was the biggest recipient of contributions?
   
5. What particular interest groups ranked highest among the different interest groups within this sector? Which party did they tend to support?
   
6. Was the funding mostly from political action committees (PACs)?
   
7. Also on the left side of the web page is the "Top Recipients" link. Who in Congress received the most in contributions from this sector? Remember to choose the election cycle you are interested in.