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Interest Groups, Lobbying and Polarization in the United States

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Interest Groups, Lobbying and Polarization in the United States University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2016 Interest Groups, Lobbying And Polarization In The United States Alexander Russell Garlick University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Political Science Commons, and the Public Policy Commons Recommended Citation Garlick, Alexander Russell, "Interest Groups, Lobbying And Polarization In The United States" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2298. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2298 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2298 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Interest Groups, Lobbying And Polarization In The United States Abstract Most lobbying in the United States comes from business interests, but not all. Previous work has not paid sufficient attentiono t how non-business lobbying affects legislative behavior. Firms are more interested in particular goods than advocacy groups which pursue broad-based policy change. These citizen-based organizations often employ grassroots tactics and align with one of the major parties. Advocacy groups are also less likely to support maintaining the status quo. This dissertation argues that interest group lobbyists perform two functions. First, these groups set the agenda by engaging in positive promotion of legislation. Second, advocacy organizations push legislators to vote along party lines in roll-call voting. Using original data on lobbying registrations, bill introductions and roll-call records, I test this argument in Congress and the 50 state legislatures. Advocacy organization lobbying is increasingly prevalent, and the results help explain high levels of party polarization in Congress, and an uneven pattern of polarization in the American state legislatures. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Political Science First Advisor Marc N. Meredith Keywords agenda setting, interest groups, legislatures, lobbying, polarization, state politics Subject Categories Political Science | Public Policy This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2298 INTEREST GROUPS, LOBBYING AND POLARIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES Alex Garlick A DISSERTATION in Political Science Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Supervisor of Dissertation Marc Meredith, Associate Professor of Political Science Graduate Group Chairperson Matt Levendusky, Associate Professor of Political Science Dissertation Committee John Lapinski, Associate Professor of Political Science Matt Levendusky, Associate Professor of Political Science Marc Meredith, Associate Professor of Political Science INTEREST GROUPS, LOBBYING AND POLARIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES ⃝c COPYRIGHT 2016 Alexander Russell Garlick This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Dedicated to Elise iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I love reading dissertation acknowledgments. I believe they capture an important moment for scholars | the end of a solitary, uphill climb | and they show who was helpful along the trail. For me, that starts with my advisor Marc Meredith. Most of the good ideas in these pages were the result of knocking on his door with a half-baked regression table in hand. Matt Levendusky improved everything I wrote and John Lapinski ensured every committee meeting was a lively affair. It was a privilege to be an undergraduate in the Green Mountains at Middlebury College, and then to study American politics just up the road from Independence Hall as a graduate student. At Penn, Diana Mutz always cut to the heart of the matter with her first question. I was fortunate that Dan Hopkins and Michele Margolis joined the faculty when they did, as they provided a fresh perspective. I also enjoyed discussing my latest research with Dan Gillion, Guy Grossman, Mike Horowitz and Joe Simmons before early morning pickup basketball. I am grateful to so many of my graduate student colleagues. They provided me with good spirits, comments on my work and a deep run in the 2014 softball playoffs. I especially wish to acknowledge Osman Balkan, Guzman Castro, Josh Darr, Emmerich Davies, Ashley Gorham, Danielle Hanley, Evan Perkoski, Dave Rogoff, Sid Rothstein, Stephan Stohler, Emily Thorson, and Robinson Woodward-Burns. I also wish to recognize my coauthors and comrades in methods training: Doug Allen, Devon Brackbill, Binn Cho, Andrew Daniller, Laura Silver, and Ashley Tallevi. I would not be a political scientist without the profound influence of my parents. My mother, Denise, taught me that everything is politics, and my father, Russell, introduced me to the scientific method at a young age. I forged my rhetorical skills around the dining room table with my brother Andy, and sisters Beth and Monica. We also made an outstanding campaign team when tasked with electing our mother to state legislative office | as I said, everything is politics. Finally, throughout this long process, my wife Elise often believed in me more than I believed in myself. I dedicated this dissertation to her because it would not exist without her wisdom, energy and steadfast partnership. A.G. Burlington, Vermont September 20, 2016 iv ABSTRACT INTEREST GROUPS, LOBBYING AND POLARIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES Alex Garlick Marc Meredith Most lobbying in the United States comes from business interests, but not all. Previous work has not paid sufficient attention to how non-business lobbying affects legislative behavior. Firms are more interested in particular goods than advocacy groups which pursue broad- based policy change. These citizen-based organizations often employ grassroots tactics and align with one of the major parties. Advocacy groups are also less likely to support maintaining the status quo. This dissertation argues that interest group lobbyists perform two functions. First, these groups set the agenda by engaging in positive promotion of legislation. Second, advocacy organizations push legislators to vote along party lines in roll-call voting. Using original data on lobbying registrations, bill introductions and roll-call records, I test this argument in Congress and the 50 state legislatures. Advocacy organization lobbying is increasingly prevalent, and the results help explain high levels of party polarization in Congress, and an uneven pattern of polarization in the Amer- ican state legislatures. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT . iv ABSTRACT . v LIST OF TABLES . x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . xii CHAPTER 1 : Introduction . 1 1.1 Plan for the dissertation . 2 CHAPTER 2 : Theory: Where is the party? . 6 2.1 Literature review: What is polarization? . 6 2.2 Literature review: What is lobbying? . 10 2.3 Theoretical argument . 12 CHAPTER 3 : Do groups set the agenda? . 19 3.1 How groups set the agenda . 21 3.2 Groups align with the agenda . 28 3.3 Which comes first: the agenda or the groups? . 32 3.4 Discussion and implications . 36 CHAPTER 4 : When does lobbying polarize roll-call votes? . 39 4.1 Two types of lobbying . 41 4.2 Measuring the influence of lobbyists on roll-call votes . 45 4.3 Advocacy organization lobbying leads to polarization . 51 4.4 Discussion and implications . 59 CHAPTER 5 : Do national policies drive state politics? . 61 vi 5.1 Washington's long shadow . 63 5.2 Measuring national issues & polarization . 67 5.3 Are states with national agendas more polarized? . 77 5.4 Discussion and implications . 81 CHAPTER 6 : Conclusion . 84 6.1 Place in the literature . 85 6.2 Implications of group influence . 86 6.3 Is the system rigged? . 87 APPENDIX . 89 CHAPTER A : Supporting materials for Chapter 3 . 90 A.1 Collecting an annual census of interest groups . 91 A.2 Estimating the subject matter of bills introduced in the states . 99 A.3 Estimating and validating policy sectors of lobbying groups . 101 CHAPTER B : Supporting materials for Chapter 4 . 130 B.1 Collecting bill-level lobbying and roll call data . 130 B.2 Data exploration . 136 CHAPTER C : Supporting materials for Chapter 5 . 141 C.1 Measuring National Policies . 141 C.2 Validating the use of Party Difference . 152 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 155 vii LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1 : Predictions: Will lobbying polarize by party? . 17 TABLE 2 : Lobbying organizations are associated with bills introduced in the states: 2007-14 . 31 TABLE 3 : Levin, Lin, and Chu (2002): Unit Root Test . 33 TABLE 4 : Do bills cause groups or do groups cause bills? . 35 TABLE 5 : Where do groups set the agenda? 2007-2014 . 35 TABLE 6 : Predicted Polarization by Group Type . 44 TABLE 7 : Advocacy organization lobbying polarizes roll-call votes by party: 105th-112th U.S. Congresses (1998-2012) . 53 TABLE 8 : Advocacy organization lobbying polarizes roll-call votes by party in Colorado (2011-2014) and Ohio (129th-130th Sessions) . 56 TABLE 9 : Placebo test: Only lobbying in actual state is associated with party difference . 58 TABLE 10 : National Policy Scores: 2011-2014 . 71 TABLE 11 : Party difference on floor votes across 25 states (2011-2014) . 73 TABLE 12 : More Party Difference on National Policies: 2011-2014 . 75 TABLE 13 : More difference between parties in states with national agendas: 2011-2014 . 80 TABLE 14 : Data sources for lobbying group registrations . 92 TABLE 15 : Group
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