POLI 100E, Interest Group Politics: Topics 5 and 7

What the Starbucks Lobbying Example Tells us
about the "Pressure" Group System

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1. Organized well-heeled economic interests dominate the
   Washington D. C. "pressure" system.
   
   Schlozman (pp. 1028 - 1029): "The evidence indicates
   clearly that the pressure system is tilted heavily in
   favor of the well-off, especially business, at the expense
   of the representation of broad public interests of those
   with few political resources."
   
   
2. The behavior of these well-heeled economic interests
   and how politicians behave towards them is largely
   non-ideological. That is, simple notions such as
   
   class warfare
   
   rich vs. poor
   
   liberals vs. conservatives
   
   are not terribly useful as explanations for how the
   system actually works.
   
   
3. The line separating business and politics is very
   blurred.
   
   
   1. When members of Congress leave office they often
      go to work for lobbying firms or large law firms.
      
      
   2. Important executive branch officials are drawn
      from the business world and return there when the
      administration leaves office.
      
      
   3. Congressional and executive branch staffers also
      move back and forth between Government work and
      business/lobbying/legal firms.
      
      
      
      
4. The back and forth movement of the experts is
   driven by the complexity of the economy. This
   complexity is reflected in the complexity of the
   tax, regulatory, and trade policies of the Federal
   Government.
   
   
5. Even "new economy" companies like Starbucks and
   Google Inc. are drawn into the Washington D.C.
   "pressure" system because their size and economic
   success means that they must deal with the tax,
   regulatory, and trade policies set by the Federal
   Government.
   
   
6. The idea that organized economic interests can pressure
   members of Congress in order to get their preferred
   policies enacted into law is very threadbare.
   
   
   1. Money clearly buys access. Members of Congress
      are so time-constrained that time is their scarcest
      resource. Because political campaigns cost so much
      money, the terms of trade are time in exchange for
      political contributions.
      
      
   2. Countless econometric studies have investigated the
      relationship between roll call votes and campaign
      contributions:

      
      Roll Call
      Vote Decision = f($$$, Ideology, Party, Constituency, etc.)

      Sometimes the coefficient on $$$ is significant, sometimes
      it is not significant. In addition, it is difficult to
      disentangle campaign contributions, ideology, and party
      (not to mention the numerous unreported studies that
      found no effect).
      
      
7. Lewis Anthony Dexter in an influential paper in the early
   1970s turned the traditional "pressure" group argument on
   its head. He argued that the "pressure system" was from
   the members of Congress to economic interest groups --
   not the other way around. The traditional view of "pressure
   groups" had the causal arrow in the wrong direction. Unless
   they wanted to be left out in the cold, organized economic
   interests had to pay to play.
   
   
8. Finally, as the Starbucks roasting plants example shows,
   members of Congress do not have to be pressured to
   defend the economic/business interests of their States or
   districts!!! It is in their interest (given that they wish
   to be reelected) to defend these economic/business interests.