Lobbying Pros And Cons

In a pluralist democracy like in the United States, interest groups have played a major role throughout the history through highly organized factions and are aimed at different levels of government. Lobbying is one of the tactics of the interest groups to aid their agenda through implementing new laws and regulations. "If you want to have your face in the light, you should have your back in the dark". Similarly, the influences of the interests groups and lobbyists have good and bad effects on the people and the society.

Dating back many decades, it appears that lobbying and politics have always gone hand and hand on any political stage. Lobbying has always had a strong presence in the legislation system. Lobbying is the process of offering campaign contributions, bribes, or information to policymakers for the purpose of achieving favorable policy outcomes. Conventional wisdom suggests that lobbying is the preferred mean for exerting political influence in rich countries and corruption in poor countries. The legislation is meant to benefit society and ensure that citizens are having their voices heard, instead of hindering them in favour of the multi-national corporations. Lobbying has a negative influence on legislations in both developed and developing

Since the creation of the United States government, political lobbying has played a large role in influencing the creation and modification of laws. The act of lobbying is to solicit or try to influence the votes of members of a legislative body (Dictionary.com). There has always been controversy surrounding the political lobbying system, due to the potential of corruption through bribery. Two important pieces of legislation became laws as a result of this controversy. The Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act of 1946 and the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 were created to prevent potential abuse within the political lobbying system.

Moreover, the Schoolhouse Rock presentation identified the major committees that play a vast role within legislation, but furthermore failed to acknowledge the significant influence of interest groups, lobbyist, and campaign contributors. Interest groups are pertinent to the legislation process because of their vast influence. While interest groups strive to “influence public policy” to benefit its members, it accomplishes this task by using inside strategies that “pursue a narrow policy of change and directly influence legislation” and through its relationship within the iron triangle that works to “seal off” external influencers that are irrelevant to the groups view towards public policy; thus leaving a “closed

Many controversial topics have surfaced recently, but one that tends to fly under the radar is lobbying. Lobbying is defined as a group of persons who work or conduct a campaign to influence members of a legislature to vote according to a group’s special interests (“Lobby”). Although average citizens are not fully aware of the issue, it is quite contentious in politics. For those who are against it, they believe that restrictions should be placed on lobbying because it distorts democracy. Lobbyists use money and cost-effective strategies to sway the opinions of lawmakers. Others see lobbyists as effective, political tour guides who help pass legislation. An analysis of the lobbying process reveals the outcomes are often

Legislators often utilise the agenda-building function of pressure groups to obtain information on specific legislative issues because pressure groups, particularly insider groups, are “recognised by government as legitimate spokespersons for particular interests or causes” (Grant, 2004, p. 408). This assumption can often be taken advantage of by insider pressure groups, as they are often able to “hire the most skilful and eloquent lobbyists, some of whom obviously gave a higher priority to pleasing their clients.” (Garnett and Lynch, 2012, p.

On the other hand, going to the public and using electoral politics is used by outsider strategies. However, several groups apply a mix of insider and outsider strategies. These groups employ lobbyist members participate in making government decisions in favor of their group. In the textbook is says, "Lobbying is a strategy by which organized interests seek to influence the passage of legislation by exerting direct pressure on members of the legislature" (Champagne 445). People believe that people who influence the government has a direct contact with them. Nonetheless, lobbyists not only engage with all sorts of governments, on the other hand they also deal with the public too. Several of the people, lobbyist’s influences are Congress, the President, and the Executive Branch. Lobbying helps an interest group by somebody speaking of an interest, and the lobbyists aim to influence policy makers in a variety of ways. Lobbyists also try to influence the public with their cause. They will advertise to people such as animal protectionist will raise awareness that we should laws of protecting endangered animals living in the world. Several groups will go to the public when they do not have the resources, the contacts, or the experience to use other

What is lobbying, and how is it regulated on the federal level? A lobbyist is someone who attempts to influence decisions made by bureaucrats in the government. Politicians and members of governing agencies are the main target of lobbyist. There are two common types of lobbying. Direct lobbying involves a lobbyist expressing their views to someone directly involved with legislation; whereas, grassroots lobbying conveys a view concerning a detailed lawmaking proposal to the community and encourages citizens to communicate this view to their legislators. Lobbying is a heavily regulated profession in the United States. The regulations obligate lobbyists to register with the House of Representatives and the Senate, report names and addresses

Wayne, Lasser, Miller and others tend to agree that lobbyists and PACs have a great amount of influence over congress members because they may have direct connections and give campaign contributions. Recently, the airlines industry convinced congress to pass a $15 billion aid package it needs in order to survive. “The airlines had plenty of resources to draw on: 27 in-houses lobbyists, augmented by lobbyists from 42 Washington firms, including former White House aides and transportation secretaries, as well as the airlines own chief executives and corporate board members, whom all are well known in the halls of congress”(Wayne, NYT, 10/01/01. Lasser, American Politics, 1999. Miller, The American Prospect, 10/23/00. Geiger, Washington Post, 11/4-10/91.)

Every day, legislators and decision-makers meet with a variety of stakeholders, all of whom are convening to raise awareness of their issues, sharing their opinions and ideas on the government’s agenda, and driving change in public policy. This may seem like a low priority for some organizations, particularly given limited resources and time constraints. However, more regulation is needed before the drone industry can truly thrive here in North Dakota and across our nation.

Political parties and pressure groups are dependent upon one another. Interest groups find the parties an important method of gaining access to those in public authority, and the parties need the support of groups to elect and maintain themselves in power. The loose party structure and the nature of the federal system foster a chain of continuous relationships between the two. Interest groups participate in both nonpartisan and partisan primaries and general elections through candidate endorsement, providing campaign funds, and general campaign activity. Interest groups are particularly interested in programs and seek to influence party platforms and may provide speech materials for candidates. There is some attempt on the part of both to infiltrate each other though rarely has an interest group been able to capture complete control of a party organization. The overlapping memberships help to educate the parties about the interests of the private groups and vice versa, and provide some cross-fertilization of ideas as well as manpower assistance. Political parties have a prime function of accommodating the demands of the private interests into the larger public interests (Bone. A, 1958).

In October of last year, the Scottish Government introduced the Lobbying (Scotland) Bill in the Scottish Parliament - two years after the proposal for a national lobbying register and lobbying code of conduct was initially lodged. As the Scottish Parliament prepares to enter the final stage of debate on the Bill in the coming weeks, there continues to be some debate surrounding potential loopholes and other perceived issues.

The government has set up regulations relating to lobbying, but these regulations are not restricting lobbying, it is making it even more legal. Teeple outlined that,

Inherent within democracy are expansionary pressures. Olson (1965) argued in ‘The Logic of Collective Action’ that small groups with concentrated interests will prevail over large groups with diffuse interests, who tend to suffer from free-rider problems. Special interest groups will tend to successfully lobby for subsidies and other favourable government actions (and they have the incentive to do so), while the tax-paying public will not have the incentive to block these changes as the costs of collective action outweigh the individuals benefits. US Senator Tom Coburn produces the ‘Wastebook’ every year, showing some of the more ridiculous examples of such special interest lobbying activity in America and the logic of collective action

     We elect politicians on the basis on the issues by which they stand, and these issues are either held up or weakened by the numerous interest groups that exist today. Interest groups target both major and minor issues, using all of their resources to sponsor or overpower the groups’ concern. Interest groups are composed of a limited range of the body of voters who have a great stake in the issues their group support. They make evident the issues their group supports. Their resources are used in an attempt to make their issue public policy. Interest groups are persistent; they do not give up until they succeed. They lobby congress, take legal action,