In defense of the lowly scorecard: What legislator ratings can tell us about interest groups

Abstract

Oh, the lowly interest group scorecard. Although it has fallen from favor with political scientists in recent decades, we contend scorecards still offer considerable potential for those engaged in interest group research. By aggregating scores across sectors of interests, we can determine under what conditions different types of groups are satisfied with Congress. In our analysis, we aggregate 105 893 ratings of US senators issued by 249 different organizations from the 106th through the 111th Congresses. By ‘flipping’ congressional scorecards on their heads, we find that public interest organizations show the lowest levels of satisfaction, regardless of which party controls the Senate. Business and professional trade associations tend to show higher levels of satisfaction with senators, except during the robust Democratic majority of the 111th Congress. And labor unions produce higher evaluations during Democratic majorities. The typical layperson may assume that groups with popular missions (those representing large populations) and lots of money or those who spend considerable amounts on political activities (for example, campaigning and lobbying) may be more satisfied with Congress. However, this study finds no relationship between group satisfaction and those factors.