Lobbying Behavior

1
Lobbying Behavior

• Session 29

2
Means of Influencing the Legislature

• What tools are available?
• Information
• Policy Information
• Political Information
• Two forums are especially important
• Testimony at committee hearings
• Direct contacts
• contract lobbying firms

3
Barbour, Griffith Rogers, Inc.

• Its Clients
• The following retained BGR in 2000 with the
  expenditures that year listed in parentheses
• Air Transport Assn. (320,000), Alliance for
  Quality Nursing Home Care (360,000), American
  Financial Services Assn. (0), American Maritime
  Congress (140,000), Amgen Inc. (120,000),
  Artists Coalition (20,000), Assn. of Oil Pipe
  Lines (60,000), Avioimpex (80,000), Bay Harbor
  Management (660,000), BellSouth Corporation
  (180,000), Better World Campaign (270,000),
  Broadcast Music, Inc. (260,000), Brown and
  Williamson Tobacco (120,000), Camp, Dresser
  McGee (70,000), Canadian National Railway
  (400,000), CBS Corporation (40,000), Citizens
  for Jobs and the Economy (40,000),
  DaimlerChrysler (200,000), Delta Airlines
  (60,000), FM Watch (560,000), Glaxo Wellcome,
  Inc. (120,000), Home Insurance Federation of
  America (100,000), Institute of Scrap Recycling
  Industries (110,000), International Telecoms
  Satellite Organzation (220,000) . . .

4
Means of Influencing the Legislature

• Direct Contacts (continued)
• What works?
• credibility
• expertise
• a principled stand
• Example The Value of Reputation and the Catholic
  Church

5
Means of Influencing the Legislature

• Votes! Voters!
• A district presence
• Examples the NRA and the AARP
• Outside lobbying
• Access

6
Means of Influencing the Legislature

• Money?
• Money is more likely to influence a legislators
  vote when
• The issue is technical in nature and narrow in
  scope
• When the benefits are narrowly targeted and the
  costs are broadly distributed across the
  electorate
• When an issue is non-partisan and non-ideological
  in nature
• When the public is disengaged or split on an issue

7
Means of Influencing the Legislature

• Money?
• Money also matters because it can be converted
  into other resources
• Staff
• Research
• Contract lobbyists

8
(No Transcript)
9
Strategic Choice Selecting the Right Tool

• This depends in part on the nature of the issue
• Particularistic Issues
• Conflictual Issues
• Unifying Issues

10
(No Transcript)