The Role Of Lobbying In The United States

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.

Interest groups have a lot of influence over decision that the government makes and has made. These groups, when formed right, are highly organized and have a definite agenda they are trying to push that is important to them. Interest groups will lobby in congress as well as other levels of government to get new laws and regulations passed.

The controversy surrounding political lobbying does not question the act of influencing public officials, but rather the ethics relating to how these public officials are influenced. It is important to distinguish the fine line between bribery and lobbying. It is illegal to bribe a public official in the United States. This would mean that an individual could not provide compensation to a public official for them to behave, or vote, in a specific manner. Lobbyists may donate money to a specific candidate’s political campaign, but they may only do so when there is no expectation that the public official will behave in a favorable way toward the lobbyist or their clients (Mackinder). Lobbyists may bring public officials, their immediate families, and staff on trips or out to dinner. While it is illegal for a lobbyist representing a corporate client from directly bringing, it is not illegal for foreign governments to sponsor for these said trips (Goldmacher). What has begun to happen is lobbyists representing corporate clients may bring public officials on these trips, if the trip is sponsored by a foreign government. The Senate Office of Public Records reported that $3.23 billion was spent on lobbying in 2013, with 12,300 registered lobbyists. Professor James Thurber, who teaches at American University, has studied congressional lobbying for over 30 years, and does not believe these figures are accurate. He believes

The United States has experienced fundamental changes that are dramatically detrimental to democracy. Voters’ ability to define political discourse has been so diminished that even decisive election results like Barack Obama’s in 2012 have little impact. That’s because powerful interests — freed to, in effect, buy elections, unhindered by downsized and diffused media that must rely on revenue from campaign ads — now set the rules of engagement. Lobbying involves working to bring pressure to bear on policy makers to gain favorable policy outcomes. In order to accomplish their goals, interest groups develop a strategy or plan of action and execute it through specific tactics. The particular strategies developed and the specific tactics used, however, vary widely both among and within political

Both sides of the topic have gripping reasons why they feel the way they do. The supporters believe that lobbying is acceptable and contributes to a healthy democracy. In this light, lobbyists are simply seeking power within governmental and public affairs. In the United States our political system is based on power, authority, and legitimacy. One of our nation’s values is the fact that people can and should try to influence our political system; individuals have the power to bring attention to important issues, matters of public concern, and current problems. Supports argue that lobbying cannot contribute to the demise of American democracy. All these factors contribute to what is our political system and lobbyists are arguably doing their best to advocate for the people, even if huge sums of money are involved.

Interest groups are structured groups which try to influence government to adopt certain policies or measures. The responsibilities of an interest group can be never-ending. One of the main responsibilities of an interest group is giving the underrepresented a chance to speak out on issues they are passionate about. The Rainbow/Push Coalition is an interest group I believed I would be passionate about.

the first step in contacting an interest group. First, interest groups may be the target of efforts to enlist them as supporters of a particular policy position. A member of Congress or an agency head may feel that a policy he is pushing is not receiving the backing it should from the private sector. He may try to persuade representatives of interest groups to become more active on behalf of the cause. Second, interest groups are valuable sources of political intelligence. They can provide information concerning the lobbying activities of all other interest groups, pros and cons, on the issue at hand. They can also act as eyes and ears for their friends in government. Third, people in government may come to interest groups for the purpose of obtaining substantive data with regard to an issue. Congressional and agency staffs rarely have time to gather all the information they need on their own. Interest groups can be useful in

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

An interest group also known as a special interest group or a lobby is an organized group of individuals, organizations, or businesses who share a goal. The interest group forms an alliance in support of their cause to influence public policy and government officials in the group 's favor. The goal of the group could be focused on small group, such as the Japan Eraser Manufacturer 's Association; or the goal could be focused on a large public group, such as family and friends of public school-aged children in the United States. "The most important lobbying forces in any society are the various entities of government: national, regional, and local government agencies and institutions such as the military" (Thomas).???????????

But interest groups do not have a real place in congress. For them to affect motions in congress they need to utilise their powers of persuasion to influence the right people.

Due to this widely held opinion man researches have bygone to look for the correlation between lobbyist and the success of their political agendas. The organization who have more money to allocate towards promoting there agendas through lobbyist would most likely have a higher number of lobbyist and in experience a higher success rate. This entails that organizations or funded agendas will use a great number of lobbyist in their disposal in order to ensure their own self interest are met.

An interest group is an organized group of people that come together to attempt to influence policymakers in any level of government. They influence the different levels of government by giving money to a political candidate. They write letters, emails, and make phone calls to the policymakers. They attempt to get the policymakers to make legislation reflecting the objectives of the group (This Nation, 2008).

People are important for the success of democracy. After electing their representatives, some individuals wish to be more involved in legislative decisions that affect them, so they take to lobbying and joining interest groups. This often provides them with an atmosphere of individuals who think like they do, while also allowing them to play more of a role than just voting for a few people to represent them. Lobbying and interest groups also allow for issues to be brought to the attention of the legislature and provide a way for these groups to talk to the legislators, whether it is over dinner or at a concert. By voicing their opinions and placing pressures on the legislation, these groups have become successful in fighting for their passions and their views on important

My time spent this semester interning at Winning Strategies Washington (WSW), a Washington, DC based Lobbying firm, really opened my eyes to the many different types of activities done behind the scenes in order to; support, oppose or amend legislation, secure grant money for clients, and determine how new legislation and tax proposals could affect each of their clients. Lobbying is thought to be an industry that only exists for just the few wealthy large corporations that seek to undermine society, however, WSW lobbies all issues whether they be small, bipartisan, non-profit/for profit, etc. Over the course of the semester, it had occurred to me that lobbying is the epitome of a democracy at work, with

For many countries, subsidies and the lobbying power behind them can have great effects on governmental policies and direction. By far, though, the agricultural subsidies advocates in the United States and, to a slightly lesser extent, the European Union have profound sway in government policies. Being dubbed the “breadbasket of the world” gives farmers and their lobbyists in the US immense power to ensure that the government subsidies continue to favor agriculture producers. By and large, this practice has tipped the scales in both the US and the EU when it comes to ensuring that subsidies remain non-distortionary towards world markets. With policies in place that position national farmer interests ahead of global interests, higher production is encouraged, world prices are driven lower, and the incentive for developing countries to invest in agriculture is limited. While the US employs essentially the most distortionary practices, the EU does attempt to limit these distortionary effects. Still, both country’s policies display long-term negative side effects on an international scale.