Exploring Interest Group Influence on Banking Votes and Legislative Coalitions

1. Quiz • Nader vs. Political Science • “ On five key votes, the top five recipients of banking money received over $190,000 in contributions and voted against banking interests only 24% of the time…the five lawmakers who received the least banking PAC money received on average $34,000 and voted against banking interests 76% of the time.” (Paraphrase, Sorauf) • Mobilization of bias—interest group efforts, campaign contributions increase EFFORT by those who already agree with them • Free votes—interest groups more likely to be influential when constituents don’t care about a vote.

2. Interest Group Coalitions

3. If you were the leader of an interest group, would you work with other groups? • With whom? • Under what circumstances? • Why? • Would your coalitional strategy differ when you are trying to get a bill passed vs. when you are trying to get sympathetic officials elected? Why or why not?

4. Interest Group Coalitions • Broadly defined advocacy coalitions—those that work together across institutional contexts • Active coalitions—high costs; those that require affirmative action of each group that is a member of the coalition • Passive coalitions—low costs; those that only require groups to be on the same side of an issue

5. Research on issue coalitions • Groups will work in coalitions if • it improves their reputation • It is low cost • Coalitions can impose diverse workload burdens on members • Just contribute name • Form close associations of interlocking boards • Core members supply bulk of lobbying and coordination efforts • Generally in any given policy area, a “hollow core”

6. Electoral networks • Primary endorsements come from groups that: • Choose to be involved in elections • Take sides between the parties • Want to gain influence over partisan elected officials

7. Distribution of Endorsements

8. Electoral networks • Primary endorsements • Republican issue groups: ideological and abortion groups • Democratic issue groups: environmentalists, women’s groups

9. Network analysis • How often does each group endorse the same candidate as each other group? • How often are they on the same team?

10. Interest Groups in Elections 2002 Pre-Primary Endorsements 2002 Competitive Seat Contributions

11. Core of Electoral Network

12. Campaign Endorsements

13. Electoral Networks: general election PAC contributions • How often do different groups contribute to the same candidates? • How often are they on the same team?

14. PAC network

15. Core of PAC Contribution Network Width=# of ties, Size=betweenness centrality, Layout=spring embedding; Dichotomous links established with 85 shared ties or more

16. Legislative network • Members get up to announce thank yous to groups that have helped to work on a piece of legislation. • How often are groups mentioned as being part of the same legislative effort? • How often are they on the same team?

17. Legislative Data • 319 legislative coalitions of national interest groups announced in the Congressional Record, 1999-2002 • From initial list of organizations that endorse legislation; snowball sample for organizational names • Affiliation networks, with ties based on number of shared legislative coalitions

18. Coalitions & Bill Success

19. Legislative Coalitions by Topic

20. Groups in Legislative Debate Legislative Coalitions Announced in Congress: 1999-2002

21. Core of Legislative Network

22. Legislative coalitions

23. Combined networks

24. Electoral & Legislative Network Green Ties = Legislative Ties, Blue Ties = Electoral Ties, Blue Nodes = Democratic, Red Nodes = Republican

25. Conclusions • The Extended Party Organization: • Different in Elections and Legislative Debate • Party Differences - No Match to Stereotypes • Signaling in Interest Group Coalitions: • Many Large Coalitions; Some Bipartisan • Legislative Polarization: • Interest Groups - Not Polarized • Most central actors are partisan—what does that mean?