Interest Groups: Back to Basic Questions

Abstract

In the summer of 2010, interest groups were already very active in congressional election campaigns. Groups such as MoveOn.Org and Club for Growth had recruited candidates to run against incumbents in party primaries and caucuses, and local networks of Tea Party organizations had organized voters to help some Republican candidates defeat party favorites. Interest groups such as GOPAC and EMILY’s List were helping to train candidates and their supporters in skills needed for campaigning in the coming general election. Many interest groups such as the Human Rights Campaign and the National Rifle Association had contributed money to candidates through their political action committees (PACs) and/or encouraged their members to contribute. With the party nominees fixed in many states, groups were already running advertisements on TV, radio, and the Internet, and mailing persuasion pamphlets to potential voters. Other groups were working to develop voter mobilization lists, in some cases canvassing door to door, in other cases matching lists of registered voters with additional information provided by groups or vendors. With control of both the House and Senate potentially in play, many groups were planning expensive and extensive campaign efforts. Dave Levinthal of the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics predicted that the 2010 interest group efforts would not only break past records, but that “this could very well obliterate [the record] when all is said and done”(Miller 2010). The Chamber of Commerce was expected to spend some $75 million, and the AFL-CIO had plans to spend up to $100 million. EMILY’s List, a pro-choice group that supports Democratic women candidates, expected to spend $43 million. But most American interest groups were not planning all-out efforts in the 2010 campaigns. Many groups planned to contribute a small amount to a few select candidates, as they have done in past elections, and many organizations have never been involved in electoral politics. Some groups do not participate in elections because US tax law forbids electoral engagement, but other groups try to accomplish their policy goals through other means. We have been studying the role of interest groups in American elections for decades, and every year there are scores of new studies (Overacker andWest 1932; Sorauf 1988; Rozell, Wilcox, and Madland 2006; Magleby and Patterson 2007; Wilcox and Iida 2010). The studies have used a variety of methods, including formal models (Bailey 2004), statistical analyses of contributions (Ansolabehere, Figueiredo, and James M. Snyder 2003; Hojnacki and Kimball 2001), case studies of organizations (Biersack, Herrnson, and Wilcox 1999), qualitative studies of decision-making (Malbin et al. 2002), and qualitative studies of group activity in particular elections (Magleby and Tanner 2004). Yet there remains fundamental disagreement about the most basic questions-why groups become involved in elections, how they choose their strategies, what impact their activity has upon campaigns, and what impact their activity has on policy-making. Perhaps most importantly, there is a lack of consensus on how to theoretically understand the way in which interest groups are active, and the implications of the activity for electoral politics. There are many reasons for this continued disagreement. However, despite an accumulation of hundreds of studies, the most important comparisons remain problematic. It is difficult to compare organizations that choose to be involved in elections to those which do not, or to compare the strategies and tactics of organizations in a systematic way. Ideally we need to compare groups that are active with those that are not, compare the tactics of all groups within an election cycle, and/or compare the decisions by the same groups across election cycles. Some of these difficulties are rooted in the availability of data. We lack a comprehensive list of all interest groups that would allow us to compare those which are active in elections to those that are not. This is especially true when we consider organizations which are formed solely to influence electionsEMILY’s List did not decide to work in elections; it was formed by activists who wanted to influence elections. To fully understand which groups form to influence elections, we would need to compare them to a list of potential groups that did not organize. Comparing strategies and tactics of organizations within an election cycle is difficult because some group activity is transparent and other activity is not. We can trace with accuracy the contributions by the MoveOn.Org PAC, but it is far harder to measure the flurry of e-mails they send to their members encouraging them to give to candidates, and how much money is raised for the candidates in this way. It is difficult to get clear measures of spending by some types of groups, and so it is hard to see how much organizations spend on recruiting and training candidates, on mobilizing volunteers, and even on some kinds of advertising. Even when we know the extent of this activity, it is often difficult to find a metric with which to compare. What is the relative value of an endorsement by the NRA, a campaign contribution by a corporate PAC, an hour of phone bank work by a labor union, a handful of volunteers working door to door for a pro-life group, or a well-designed television ad during prime time? It isoften impossible to compare how much money or effort an organization spent on these activities, or what their market value might be. When two similar organizations engage in different types of activity, often all we can say effectively is that one mounted a get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaign and the other aired television advertisements. Comparing the activity of groups over time is complicated owing to changes in the regulations of group activity, and changes in technology. Congressional lawmaking, regulatory interpretation, and Supreme Court decisions have changed the way in which groups can raise and spend money for various activities. A corporation that wanted to influence elections had different options in 1980, 1994, and 2010. A given corporation might have given money through its PAC in 1980, and encouraged its executives and families to give to candidates. In 1994 the same company might have continued these activities but also have made large “soft money” contributions to political parties. In 2010 these soft money contributions were banned, but the company or its executives could give to the Chamber of Commerce’s electoral efforts, and to newly formed organizations by party activists such as American Crossroads, and it might also have communicated with shareholders and employees through its web page and other electronic communication. These very different tactics may reflect changing legal opportunities, not changing strategies. But an even more fundamental problem is that the concepts “interest group” and “electoral activity” are blurred and contested. To develop theories of interest group behavior in elections, we need to know what organizations and activities to compare. Some organizations active in elections are clearly interest groups, but others are more ambiguous. Some activities by groups clearly constitute electoral activity, but other activity is more difficult to classify. In this chapter, I will begin with a discussion of questions surrounding the definition of interest groups and of electoral activity, and discuss limitations in existing data. I will then evaluate the promise of different theoretical perspectives on interest groups in elections and suggest new paths for research.