Interest Group Activity in the States

Abstract

This paper utilizes a survey of 595 state lobbyists and 301 state organizations to address four questions about interest group activity in the states: (1) What techniques do groups in the states use? (2) How much do groups in the states do? (3) How do techniques differ across group types? (4) What types of groups are most active in the states? The data suggest that techniques do not differ much across group types; that, contrary to the subgovernment model, very few groups and lobbyists exhibit specialization between or within branches of state government; and that most groups take an interest in a large number of policy proposals However, it appears that groups, though they monitor a large number of policy proposals, are inactive advocates on the vast majority of bills before the state legislature Ironically, we believe that one result of all this group activity may be a tilting of the locus of power in state politics toward elected and appointed officials and away from interest groups.