Lobbying by the Insiders: Parallels of State Agencies and Interest Groups

Abstract

The study of legislative lobbying has focused on interest groups rather than on state agencies. However, the pursuit by agencies of policy and self interests is well documented. I A high percentage of the bills considered by legislative bodies originate in executive departments. Furthermore, agencies join with groups and legislative committees to form iron triangles to pursue common interests in the legislative arena.2 In this article, parallels are drawn between such lobbying and that of private sector groups. In many respects, lobbying by state agencies is similar to that of interest groups. Indeed, their lobbying is often coordinated. Even so, the role and techniques of the two do differ. Besides the literature on lobbying, the database for this article consists of a series of in-depth interviews conducted by the author in 1987 with officials of 13 major state agencies and with others involved in the legislative process in Georgia.3 Quotations from these in-depth interviews are used in the text and are presented in a fashion to protect the identity of the interviewees. Also, responses from a mail survey of legislators are used to confirm information gained from the interviews. Altogether, 92 (39 percent) of Georgia's 236 legislators responded to closed-ended statements asking them to compare the lobbying of private sector groups with that of public agencies.4