Politics
Dollars versus Voters?
Businesses and Advocacy Groups Hire Different Lobbyists
The word “lobbyist” has negative connotations for most Americans. Upon hearing the word, people tend to think of political insiders who make campaign contributions, give gifts, and entertain lawmakers to gain influence. “Lobbyists” have a seedy reputation as people willing to buy politicians on behalf of moneyed, private interests, and who have little regard for the public or collective interest.
While numerous such lobbyists are active in American legislatures, many other people who engage in lobbying share few of the traditional characteristics of “lobbyists” and even eschew the label. These individuals are often considered instead to be “advocates” or “representatives.” As opposed to traditional lobbyists, these agents often are paid little but represent causes they personally cherish. Instead of relying on insider connections and campaign contributions, they command influence via public support and grassroots activism.
In new research published at Interest Groups & Advocacy, I provide insight into a characteristic that separates the different kinds of lobbyists. Whereas most lobbyists each represent multiple clients during legislative sessions, a minority of them each have one client. I argue that this distinction in clientele size is generally based on the kinds of causes or interests lobbyists represent. In general, businesses and other private interests hire multi-client lobbyists while advocacy groups hire single-client lobbyists.
Individual business firms and other private interests tend to hire lobbyists with multiple clients. These representatives are the usual suspects many people think of when they think of “lobbyists.” Although there are exceptions (particularly within large firms), business firms often mobilize on a temporary basis and hire lobbyists on retainer. The lobbyists work for each client on a part-time basis but, due to working for multiple clients, are full-time lobbyists. The firms often have specific interests that lack public support or comprehension, so they turn to traditional insiders to achieve influence.
In contrast, advocacy groups are organizations that advocate for collective causes such as environmental protections, civil liberties, governmental reforms, or identity-based laws.
Prominent examples include the Sierra Club, American Civil Liberties Union, Common Cause, or League of Women Voters. These groups tend to hire single-client lobbyists. Given that collective goods or causes are typically provided by governments that are subject to special-interest influence (due to most politically active interests being private entities seeking special benefits), advocacy groups maintain a constant political presence and therefore (to use dollars most efficiently) hire in-house, single-client advocates.
Advocacy groups often command public support for their causes and organize grassroots campaigns. Such support effects lobbyist hiring in two ways. Public support in the form of dues-paying members encourages groups to internalize lobby efforts so that they can more credibly claim credit for policy victories, thereby solidifying member support. Internalizing a single-client lobbyist also helps to preserve the group’s political identity in the eyes of members and donors, and might reduce the possibility of lobbyists shirking (as in the case of infamous lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who secretly lobbied against a client’s interests so as to extract compensation for more lobbying).
The second effect of having public support is that support allows groups to engage in outside lobbying techniques (such as protests or letter-writing campaigns) that abrogate the need for political insiders who operate out of public view.
In my research, I do not determine which factor (economic efficiency or public support) most strongly motivates groups to hire multi- versus single-client lobbyists, but I find support for my expectations. In both 1989 and 2011, among all the groups with registered lobbyists across the U.S. states, business firms and other private entities hired multi-client lobbyists significantly more often than did advocacy groups. I also find that labor unions, like advocacy groups, relied on single-client lobbyists.
In additional analyses of lobbyist income statistics provided by five states in 2018, I find that differences in lobbyists between groups were statistically discernible even when one controls for pay levels and non-profit status. In other words, it is not the case that advocacy groups hire single-client lobbyists only because they cannot afford multi-client contractors or face legal restrictions on lobbying tied to non-profit status.
Instead, business firms and advocacy groups engaged in genuinely different kinds of lobbying. Businesses hired multi-client lobbyists more often, paid lobbyists more handsomely, and hired former legislators more often than advocacy groups.
Should these trends give Americans cause for concern over political representation?
My answer: a conditional yes. Over the past thirty years in the states, the single-client lobbyists of advocacy groups have become increasingly outnumbered by business lobbyists. Multi-client lobbyists represent well-paying private interests, but they have more opportunities to shirk than single-client lobbyists, particularly by conflating client interests or charging clients redundantly for single hours of labor.
At the same time, advocacy groups have been shown to command influence via congressional testimony, grassroots campaigns, and press mentions. Legislators see those lobbyists as sincere representatives of popular causes, and often listen to them.
Ultimately, the employment of multi- versus single-client lobbyists may reflect a trade-off between two sources of group influence: dollars and voters.
