Congressional and Presidential Effects on the Demand for Lobbying

• Date: 01 March 2011
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912909343578
• Published date: 01 March 2011
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Research Quarterly

64(1) 3 –16

© 2011 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912909343578

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Congressional and Presidential

Effects on the Demand for Lobbying

Frank R. Baumgartner1, Heather A. Larsen-Price2,

Beth L. Leech3, and Paul Rutledge4

Abstract

The authors show that the number of lobbyists active in a given issue area is driven not only by social mobilizations

and economic trends but also by government activity. The effect of government spending is smaller than that of

congressional interest as reflected in the number of hearings. Much lobbying is in response to regulations, not budgets.

The authors augment their analysis by considering indicators of presidential activities. In areas where the president

is traditionally active, presidential activity is shown to divert lobbying away from Congress, reducing overall lobbying

levels. The authors find strong support for the congressional demand model of lobbying.

Keywords

interest groups, lobbying, Lobby Disclosure Act, congressional hearings

Social movements, the mobilization of professional com-

munities associated with economic growth and diversity,

and rent seeking by interest groups have long been seen

as important explanations for the growth of government.

Economic and social groups have mobilized in various

areas of political life, leading to the creation of new gov-

ernment programs, services, and protections. In a recent

article, Leech and several colleagues showed that the

reverse is also true (Leech et al. 2005; for extensions to

the state level, see Baumgartner, Gray, and Lowery, forth-

coming; Gray et al. 2005; Lowery et al. 2004). As govern-

ment has become involved in a wider range of activities

in diverse areas of the economy, interest group mobiliza-

tion has been stimulated. Groups respond to the mobiliza-

tion of government, just as government responds to the

mobilization of groups.

Government stimulates the growth and mobilization

of interest groups not only by direct subsidy and contracts,

as Walker (1983, 1991) demonstrated, but also and on a

much larger scale simply by expanding its range of activ-

ities. Campbell (2005), for example, showed that the Social

Security program transformed the patterns of political

mobilization of the entire elderly generation, significantly

increasing their interest and engagement in politics, espe-

cially among those most dependent on their Social Security

income. This mobilization followed, rather than preceded,

the change in government policy. The effects go far beyond

direct federal spending. Much more important are regula-

tory activities of all kinds. These encourage some groups

to mobilize to protect the government rules that help them,

while other groups are mobilized to fight the level of

government control in a given area. The more activity,

the more groups of all kinds have reason to get involved

in the policy process. Increased government activity in a

broader range of economic and social sectors therefore

has a stimulating, “demand” effect on the interest group

community as a whole. In this article, we update and expand

on the analysis conducted by Leech and colleagues (2005),

confirming their results with a longer time series relating

to the effects of congressional activities on group mobili-

zation and adding a new analysis of the effects of presi-

dential involvement in policy. The results strongly support

a demand-side theory of group mobilization.

Our results show important interbranch dynamics in

this process as presidential activities, measured alone, have

a strong mobilizing effect on groups. However, these

effects are heavily dependent on the issue domain. We

distinguish between those areas where presidents have tra-

ditionally played a more important policy role and those

1University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

2University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA

3Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

4University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Frank R. Baumgartner, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 358

Hamilton Hall, Campus Box 3265, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3265

E-mail: Frankb@unc.edu