Discuss the pros and cons of interest groups and campaign finance in American politics.

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE CLASS CONTENT AS WELL AS INFORMATION FROM THE LINK PROVIDED TO REFER BACK TO. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT YOU MENTION SOMETHING THAT IS MENTIONED IN THE READINGS!

Compose a written response to the given prompt containing a minimum of 150 words. After you have posted your discussion, respond thoughtfully to the Discussion Topic posts of at least two other classmates. Be sure to follow the Rubric attached at the bottom.

Discuss the pros and cons of interest groups and campaign finance in American politics. In addition to the class content, refer to the landmark Citizens United case for insight that may help with your response. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained

Requirements:

Political Parties, Voting, and ElectionsLearning ObjectivesAfter covering the topic of political parties, elections, and voting, students should understand:1. The evolution, organization, and functions of the two major political parties.2. The role of ‘‘third’’ or ‘‘minor’’ parties and the hurdles they face in our system.3. The history of suffrage in America and the rules governing registration, voting, and elections.4. The prominent role of money in contemporary elections.AbstractAs noted in chapters 1 and 2, our government is a democratic republic, and the centerpiece of all such governments are elections in which eligible voters select candidates to represent them. The organizing of voter preferences through political parties is central to the electoral concept. Not only did the framers not foresee this, but they were actually hostile1 to the concept. This lack of foresight may have been their biggest failure. A strong case may be made that our two-party system traces its roots to the nation’s founding. This system is sustained by our most common electoral rules: single-member district, plurality (or ‘‘SMDP’’) rules. Not only do these rules affect our party system, but there is strong evidence that they can affect the outcome of individual elections. Other rules affecting elections include campaign finance regulations.1 See especially Federalist # 10 (https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-1-10#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493273) and George Washington’s farewell address (https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=15&page=transcript).Carl D. Cavalli

– 118 –IntroductionPolitical parties seek to control government through elections. As such, their existence is closely tied to the electoral process.Political PartiesWhat is a political party? It is an organization that selects candidates for office to represent the party’s ideals, conducts election campaigns to get their candidates into office, and organizes government to facilitate achievement of its goals. Selection includes recruiting (searching for and encouraging) candidates to run, and then conducting a nominating process to formally select a nominee among all competing candidates. In election campaigns, parties provide services (i.e., advertising, polling) for their nominees, and will also encourage turnout to support them. Examples of organization include majority party leadership in Congress (see chapter 7) or state legislatures, and presidential or gubernatorial appointments to the executive and judicial branches (see chapter 8). All of this is toward the goal of implementing a broad policy agenda. In addition, political party labels serve as ‘‘cues,’’ or shortcuts to help us as voters decide whom to support in elections.Unlike other multi-party democracies, we have sustained a system of two major parties for most of our history. This fact is interesting because the framers did not anticipate their formation. Indeed, they were actively hostile to the idea. James Madison devotes Federalist #10 to a discussion of controlling the effects of factions. He defined a faction as ‘‘a number of citizens…united…by some common impulse of passion, or of interest…’’—a definition in which all modern interpreters include political parties (Madison, 1787). Additionally, in his farewell address as president, George Washington warned us ‘‘against the baneful effects of the spirit of party.’’However, the formation of political parties was in the air, and that air portended two political parties from the start. Every major issue surrounding the formation of the government provoked two opposing sides: national versus state power, commerce versus agriculture, North versus South, and when it came down to it, pro-Constitution versus anti-Constitution. Moreover, these were not random divisions. Those on one side of any issue tended to be consistently on the same side of each of the other issues. Two big factions.ElectionsWhy conduct elections? With elections, we can reward elected officials who appear to serve us well (by re-electing them to office), and punish elected

– 119 –officials who fail to serve us well (by kicking them out). That is, we can hold them responsible for their actions. This ability also provides the public with a sense of influence (as debated in chapter 1). One might actually make the case that voting replaces violence as the main means of political participation (consider: if you cannot vote politicians you dislike out of office, then how do you get them out?).From the viewpoint discussed above, elections represent a bargain, both in the sense that they are (at least in theory) a good deal for us and in the sense that they represent an exchange between us and the government. What is the bargain from the government’s standpoint? They concede our right to participate—to influence their composition—in exchange for gaining stability and legitimacy2. What is the bargain from our standpoint? We concede other means of altering the government (for example, violence) in exchange for the sense of influence discussed above.Basics: PartiesFormationAs noted in the introduction, political parties were neither anticipated nor welcomed by the framers. However, the stage was set from the founding for a two-party system. The two big factions mentioned earlier developed, at first, into the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.The FederalistsThe better organized faction at our founding was the Federalists. The framers were largely Federalists. They felt the Articles of Confederation was a failure (see chapter 2) and so wrote an entirely new constitution. They favored national power over local power—in large part because they felt co-ordination at the national level was required to promote and develop the nation’s commerce and industry (i.e., see Wood, 1998). Most were northerners, probably because most of the nation’s commerce and industry was located in the north.The Anti-FederalistsAt least as numerous, but less organized were the Anti-Federalists. With many located in the agricultural South, they feared a powerful national government and the industrialization it might bring. They wanted to maintain the nation’s agrarian roots. Throughout the states, opposition to centralized national power was found 2 That is, we will respect and obey the laws they create, even if we disagree with them. Disagreement becomes a catalyst for voting (and other forms of participation), and not for violence.

– 120 –most often in areas ‘‘in which small, self-sufficient, and often debtor farmers were most numerous’’ (Main, 2006, p.112).From the Anti-Federalists to the DemocratsThe Anti-Federalists began to organize into a true political party in the mid-1790s. They recognized the value of coordinating their efforts to win elections throughout the nation and to help bridge our system of separation of powers. Under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, they called themselves Republicans3. By the election of 1800, their organizational efforts paid off and they began to win huge majorities in Congress (Senate Historical Office, 2010, Office of the Clerk, 2010) as well as an unparalleled seven consecutive presidential elections.Among intra-party divisions in the 1820s, Andrew Jackson came to lead the party and attempted to preserve its Jeffersonian roots. It was at this time they began to call themselves Democrats. Even though some left the party, perceiving Jackson’s leadership to be autocratic, they continued to win elections. Including their Jeffersonian Republican forebears, they won all but two presidential elections from 1800 through 1856 and maintained control of Congress for all but a few years during that time.After a period of dominance by the new Republican Party (see below) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Democratic Party regained its majority in the 1930s under the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt. They maintained this majority largely intact into the 1970s. It was a changed party, however.From its Anti-Federalist forebears, it came to be the party of the ‘‘common man.’’ While the party maintains a similar focus today as the party of workers, minorities, and women, its view of government has changed drastically. Franklin Roosevelt’s Democratic Party was quite different from Jefferson’s and Jackson’s. Gone were the Anti-Federalist fears of national government. Roosevelt’s ‘‘New Dealers’’ believed in using the power of the national government to fight economic distress and inequality (i.e., see: https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/).From the Federalists to the Whigs to the RepublicansThough our founding was dominated by Federalists, their dislike of political parties proved to be their downfall. They began organizing into what looked like a political party around the same time as the Anti-Federalists—the mid-1790s. 3 This is not the modern Republican Party (see next section). To distinguish this party from the modern one, the terms ‘‘Democratic-Republicans’‘ or ‘‘Jefferson’s Republicans’‘ are often used.

– 121 –However, as the faction in power, their focus was on policy, not elections. By the time they realized the value of organizing for elections, it was too late. In the elections of 1800, they lost out to their better-organized opponents (see above) virtually everywhere. By the early 1800s, they were finished as an organized group.Their sympathizers did not disappear, however. A combination of former Federalists and Democrats (who feared what they saw as autocratic rule in the election of Democrat Andrew Jackson to the presidency) formed the Whig Party. They were quite successful in the 1830s and 1840s, electing several presidents and building congressional majorities (Senate Historical Office, 2010, Office of the Clerk, 2010). The thorny issue of slavery split and ultimately destroyed the party in the early 1850s.At that time, a new party arose from anti-slavery elements in both the Democratic and Whig parties. To emphasize their belief that they were truly fulfilling the framers’ vision, they called themselves Republicans. Under the leadership of John C. Fremont and Abraham Lincoln, they quickly rose to major party status. From the mid-1850s through today, they have competed with the Democrats as one of the two major political parties in America.Consistent with their Federalist roots, the Republicans have historically been the party of business and commerce. However, unlike their forebears who saw a strong national government as the key to commercial development, modern Republicans often take a dim view of federal power. More like the Anti-Federalists, modern Republicans generally place more trust in local government. The modern Republican Party supports free-market commerce (i.e., it opposes much government regulation of businesses and industries), small and localized government, and a socially conservative ideology (i.e., see: https://www.gop.com/our-party/).Three-Part StructureAs noted earlier, parties exist to select and elect candidates and to organize government. This idea suggests a three-part structure to parties as we know them. There is not only the party organization itself but also the party in government and the party in the electorate (voters) (i.e., see Key, 1964, Beck, 1997).It is the party organizations at all levels (national, state, and local) that help to select and elect candidates. They do this by first nominating candidates as their choices for the general election. The process of nominating usually consists of either a primary, where voters select a nominee, a caucus, where party members gather to agree upon a nominee, a convention, where party members gather in one location to formally choose a nominee, or some combination of these methods.

– 122 –Presidential NominationsWe can see all three of these methods in presidential party nominations. In the mid-to-late summer of presidential election years, the national party organizations (the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee) each hold a national convention to formally select their presidential nominees. At the convention, delegates representing all 50 states and many territories vote to select the nominees. Most delegates are bound by state and/or party rules to vote for particular candidates, so the outcome is rarely in doubt (leading some to talk more of coronations than conventions). So, how are the delegates chosen, and why are they bound to one candidate? This is where the other methods come into play.All states and territories hold either a primary or caucus4 to choose their delegates to the national conventions. A primary can be either open to all voters or closed to all but registered party members (there are some other variations as well). Voting takes place at polling places around the state, much like any election. A caucus involves only party members meeting around the state. They involve more effort as participants must gather in one spot (an auditorium or gymnasium) to openly debate the choices (i.e., see: https://www.c-span.org/video/?403824-1/iowa-democratic-caucus-meeting). Because of the effort involved, caucuses usually involve far less of the electorate than do primaries. The Democratic Party requires all of its primaries and caucuses to use proportional representation rules which allocate delegates favoring candidates in proportion to their support in the primary vote or the caucus. The Republican Party allows states to use winner-take-all rules, where the top finisher gets all the state’s delegates, if they so choose.To win elections, the party organizations help candidates appeal to the electorate. The focus of these ‘‘get-out-the-vote’’ (GOTV) efforts is two-fold. First, the organizations want to make sure their supporters—the party in the electorate (often called the ‘‘base’’) turn out to vote. Next, they want to reach out to independent and uncommitted voters to win their support. Particularly strong or popular candidates may even reach out to supporters of other parties. Today, these are high-tech efforts to target and appeal to the public using mailing and email lists, consumer and demographic data, and social networking media (i.e., YouTube, Twitter, Facebook) in addition to traditional speeches, fliers, rallies, and TV/radio advertisements.Candidates who win the general election will take their seats in office to become their party’s party in government. In legislating or administering policy, they will attempt to represent their party and to get its agenda enacted into law.4 Or in some cases, like Kansas and Maine, a combination of both.

– 123 –Modern Regional BasesThe Democratic and Republican parties have competed head-to-head as our only major parties for over 150 years. Currently, the Democratic Party’s regional bases are in the Northeast, the Great Lakes region, and the West. The Republican Party’s regional bases are in the South, the Upper Midwest, and in the Great Plains. This distribution is evident in the 2020 presidential Electoral College results (i.e., see https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/). While this distribution is accurate, it is also misleading.Both parties are competitive in many areas. However, while some suggest that a mixed “purple America” is a more accurate portrayal of recent party competition than is red (Republican) versus blue (Democrat) (i.e., see Ansolabehere, Rodden, and Snyder, 2006), others see increasingly stark partisan division in the future (i.e., see Wasserman, 2017)5.RealignmentThe current alignment of political parties has not always been the case. We have seen many different partisan alignments. At any given time, there is a set of parties competing over the issues of the day. This set of parties competing over these issues comprises a party system. New events and new generations with new issues will alter the composition of—and competition between—the parties, leading to a new party system. This change is often referred to as realignment (Burnham, 1970). Through much of our history, realignments occur with surprising regularity—approximately every 30 years. Perhaps it is a result of generational change.In any case, most electoral scholars identify five or six realignments in our history (i.e., see Sundquist, 1983), usually resulting in a dominant party. They are identified here by approximate year:• 1800: In a sense, 1800 saw an alignment rather than a realignment since this was the point at which political parties were developing. Indeed, the very development of parties was the issue. Recall the differing views on organizing between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. The Federalists disliked factions, believing them detrimental to the public good, while the Anti-Federalists saw organizing as the key to success. The Anti-Federalists’ organization into Jefferson’s Republicans paid off as they became the dominant party in American politics for many years (and, indeed, the only party for a few years).5 For a graphic representation of this notion, see https://vanderbei.princeton.edu/JAVA/election2020/

– 124 –• 1828: A new generation of Americans saw the rapid disappearance of property requirements for voting. This change meant voting and politics were no longer limited to the wealthy elite. In a more practical sense, it made public campaigning a viable option for election. Andrew Jackson was the first person to run for president by openly campaigning for votes among the public. It was the new issue of the political age—political participation, and Andrew Jackson’s Democrats capitalized on the expansion of the vote to ordinary (white, male) citizens to become the dominant party for the next 30 years.• 1860: An old issue, slavery, became the issue of the age as the nation debated its expansion into the west. The industrial North—less dependent upon slavery—was the locus of a growing movement to abolish the practice, while the agricultural South was still dependent upon it. The issue fractured both the Whigs and Democrats, destroying the former, and leaving the Democrats as a largely Southern, pro-slavery party. In 1854, the abolitionists united to form a new party, the Republicans. The growing anti-slavery movement rapidly catapulted the party to majority status (aided by the secession of largely Democratic Southern states from the union in the 1860s). They would remain the majority party nationally until well into the 20th century.• 1896: The late 19th century saw the United States emerge as a major industrial, economic power in what we might today call the first age of globalization. The major issue was how far to pursue industrialization and globalization. The Democrats, still located largely in the more agricultural South, resisted the trend while the Republicans embraced it. The nation sided with the Republicans, re-energizing their majority at the dawn of the 20th century.• 1932: Perhaps the most iconic realignment occurred in the 1930s as a result of the Great Depression—the greatest period of economic distress the country has experienced. The issue for the age was the extent to which the federal government should actively combat it. While both parties embraced at least some activism (it may be argued that Herbert Hoover, the Republican president at the time the Depression hit in 1929, made greater use of the federal government to address the nation’s troubles than any previous president6), it was the Democratic Party under Franklin Delano Roosevelt that eventually advocated extensive use of the federal government to actively combat the effects of the Depression 6 See for example the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, created in 1929 https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/234.html).

– 125 –(the New Deal). An increasingly distressed public flocked to Roosevelt and the Democrats, who won unprecedented majorities in the 1930s.• 1960s? If the 30-year cycle held, we would expect to see another realignment in the 1960s. However, there is scant evidence of any traditional realignment. The Democratic Party maintained a relatively strong majority through the 1970s and weaker majority into the early 1990s. While there were new issues—most notably the civil rights movement, and more recently the rise of economic and social issues—they led to neither a new majority nor radically reformed parties. To this day, while Democratic support has weakened notably, there is little corresponding increase in support for Republicans. Instead, beginning in the 1970s, people began to leave both parties and identify as independents (i.e., see Gallup Poll data on party identification: https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx). This change leaves us with a more competitive two-party system, but not with a ‘‘50-50’’ division of Democrats and Republicans. More accurately we now have a ‘‘30-40-30’ division that includes independents—leading some to say there has not been a realignment, but rather a dealignment, or a movement away from political parties (Nie, Verba, & Petrocik, 1976, Rosenof, 2003).In the mid-1990s, many proclaimed a Republican realignment. There were similar claims of a Democratic realignment after the 2006 and 2008 elections, and again by Republicans after the 2010, 2014, and 2016 elections. All are wrong. The key to realignments is their establishment of a stable, long-term party system, which means you can never proclaim one after only one or two elections. They may only be designated in retrospect after a decade or more.Minor PartiesThat only two major parties have dominated our politics for over 150 years does not mean no other parties exist. There are dozens and possibly even hundreds of smaller parties7, which raises a few questions.Why are there only two major parties?There are several contributing reasons. First, as noted earlier, we divided into two major factions very early on, leading almost inevitably to our two major parties. Second, though, is that our divisions have never been so vast as to sustain 7 The site Politics1.com lists 47 others at the time of this printing (see: https://politics1.com/parties.htm)

– 126 –many major parties. We share several universal values (see chapter 4) that do not leave much support for additional parties. Third is our self-fulfilling skepticism of third parties. Most all of us are not so issue driven that we will back parties with little chance of winning, even if we agree with their issue positions. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary—we often adjust our own issue positions to conform to the party we support (Campbell, et al, 1960, Fiorina, 1981, Green, et al, 2002, Karol, 2009). We like to back winners, essentially because the rather reasonable logic is that parties do us no good unless they can actually win elections. Of course, if we do not support them, they will not win. It is a vicious cycle for third parties.Last, and least appreciated, are rules. Rules matter. While we like to think that elections are simply “The candidate with the most votes wins,” it is more complicated. Different rules may lead to different outcomes even with the same set of votes. All American elections are state-run; it is a delegated power (see chapter 3). There are federal regulations and constitutional requirements imposed on the states, but the bottom line is that they actually run the contests. This in itself is a ‘‘rule’’ that matters! It means 50 states may have 50 sets of differing electoral rules. Since all contemporary state legislatures and governors, who write the rules, are under the control of one major party or the other, those rules are generally favorable to the major parties. The first hurdle third parties must clear is negotiating 50 sets of rules—none of which were written by (or for!) them.There are two sets of rules that have the greatest effect: voting rules and ballot access rules.• Voting Rules: The most common American voting rules are Single-Member District, Plurality rules—known as SMDP. Not all U.S. elections are SMDP, but most are. ▷As the name implies, Single-Member Districts have only one representative. It is how we elect representatives to Congress and state legislatures. For example, the state of Georgia is currently apportioned 14 U.S. representatives based on its population (see chapter 2). The state does not, however, simply elect 14 people state-wide. Federal law requires states to create one electoral district per representative—so Georgia must elect one representative each in 14 separate districts. It is this winner-take-all nature (often referred to as ‘‘first-past-the-post’’) that advantages major parties. You must have enough support to finish first. As such, it may be better to think of single-winner elections. Contrast this with Multi-Member District systems (or multi-winner elections), where each

– 127 –district elects several representatives. If states were allowed to use multi-member systems for Congress, Georgia might hold a single, state-wide election where the top 14 finishers won office. Another possibility might be a handful of districts electing several representatives each. In either case, candidates can finish second, third, or lower and still win office. This procedure gives minor parties a much better chance. ▷In Plurality elections, the threshold for victory is simply getting more votes than anyone else. Contrast this to Majority elections where the threshold is higher: more than half of the votes cast (or alternatively, more votes than everyone else combined). The advantage of plurality rules to major parties may seem counter-intuitive at first. Since winning requires a lower threshold, it is tempting to think minor parties have a better chance at meeting the lower standard—and they do. However, major parties do, too—and they get, by definition, more votes than minor parties (the very meaning of plurality, right?). In addition, they do so without needing help from anyone else. This situation leaves little hope for smaller parties. In contrast, even major parties will not always meet the higher standard of a majority election without help (see the case studies at the end of this chapter). That help may come in the form of coalitions with smaller parties to build the necessary majority—giving those smaller parties at least some influence (and a reason to stick around!).• State Ballot Rules: As noted above, states control elections, and each sets its own rules. This power includes deciding which parties get access to limited ballot space. All states award space to parties who won a significant portion of the vote in previous elections—usually 20-25%. Major parties easily meet that standard, so their candidates appear on virtually all ballots. However, minor parties rarely do that well, so they generally do not get automatic access. They must seek it each time. To get access, states have all manner of requirements: fees (ranging from a few to thousands of dollars), petition signatures (again, ranging from a handful to thousands), paperwork, and legal action. Minor parties have to spend precious resources meeting these requirements, while the major parties are already out campaigning. This structure means the major parties can devote all of their time and money to campaigning while minor parties have to devote a significant portion just to get on ballots.

– 128 –So why do they bother?Minor parties bother because they have a message. That message usually involves individuals, issues, or just a better way (or any combination of those things).Some minor parties are vehicles for a single candidate. The Reform Party of the 1990s was the classic example of a single-person, or cult-of-personality party (see: https://reformparty.org/). Its life blood was two-time presidential candidate Ross Perot, a billionaire who practically bankrolled the entire party from his own pocket. While he was a candidate in 1992 (when the entity was the more loosely-organized ‘‘United We Stand America’’), and 1996, the Reform Party was born and rose to become the most formidable third party in decades. In 1992, Perot captured almost 20 million votes—the best showing for a third-party presidential candidate in 80 years. In 1996, he ran for the Reform Party’s nomination at a convention that he paid for. In the general election, he captured over 8 million votes—a significant drop, but still one of the best third-party showings in years. After that, Perot began to withdraw from active participation in the party, and in 2000, he declined another bid for president. The effect on the party was dramatic. Public support dropped, and the party fractured among internal fighting. The official party nominated conservative columnist Patrick Buchanan for president, and a splinter group nominated Dr. John Hagelin. Combined, they managed to win fewer than 600,000 votes. The Reform Party (though it still exists today) was effectively dead.Some minor parties are, in a sense, super-interest groups. Much like a traditional interest group, they will focus on a single issue (or a small range of related issues). However, they will go beyond merely trying to influence government; they will actively run candidates for office. Perhaps the best known national single-issue party is the Green Party (technically, a collection of parties with international roots). While generally a liberal party, their focus is on environmental issues (see: https://www.gp.org). Green Parties originated in Germany in the 1980s, and came to the United States in the 1990s. They gained prominence in 2000 when their presidential candidate, long time consumer activist Ralph Nader received over 2 million votes for president. In 2016, their presidential candidate, Jill Stein, received almost 1.5 million votes. The party continues to function nationally, with over 160 elected officials nationwide as of June 2021 (see: https://www.gp.org/officeholders).Still other minor parties are organized and function just like the major parties with a range of issue positions and fielding candidates throughout the country. They are simply smaller. One of the more prominent better-way parties is the Libertarian Party (https://www.lp.org). The Libertarians ran hundreds

– 129 –of candidates nation-wide in 2020, including their presidential candidate, Jo Jorgensen, who received over 1.8 million votes. While Libertarian philosophy supports minimal government, the party neither focuses on a narrow range of issues (like a single-issue party) nor does it revolve around a single person. In a very real sense, the Libertarian Party functions just like the Democratic and Republican parties; it is just a smaller version.Minor parties are most successful when their message has two components: (1) it resonates with the general public, and (2) it has been ignored by the major parties. The rise of Ross Perot and the Reform Party in the 1990s best exemplifies these components. His 1992 candidacy revolved around concern about growing annual national budget deficits (and their cumulative impact on the national debt). In the 1970s and 1980s, both major parties had campaigned on balancing the federal budget, yet the publicly-held portion of the national debt more than tripled between 1976 and 1985 (Office of Management and Budget, 2010). This lack of action by both parties over many years (in spite of their rhetoric) led many people to listen closely to Perot when he chided the major parties and focused on reducing the deficit. The Reform Party’s success shocked the major parties into action. In 1997, a Democratic president and a Republican-led Congress negotiated a balanced budget that quickly led to budget surpluses into the start of the next decade. This action removed deficits as an issue, leaving little reason for continued public support for the Reform Party.Basics: Voting and ElectionsThe basics of voting and elections largely encompass four questions: Who votes? How do we decide? What do the results mean? and What can our vote affect?Who votes, part 1: the history of suffrageAt our founding, the answer to ‘‘Who votes?’’ was, ‘‘Not many!’’ While the original Constitution did not set voting requirements, most of the states restricted voting to propertied white males (often with additional restrictions based on religion, wealth, and other factors). In some states, free blacks and women could vote, though by the early 1800s no states allowed female suffrage. Since that time—with some notable and unfortunate exceptions—the trend has been toward expanding suffrage:• In the first third of the 19th century, states dropped most all of their property and wealth requirements, opening participation far beyond

– 130 –just the elites in society.• Following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the first constitutional voting requirement was enacted when the 15th Amendment extended suffrage to otherwise qualified African American males.• A long-developing women’s rights movement produced the next constitutional requirement when the 19th Amendment extended suffrage to otherwise qualified females.• By the mid-1960s, many ‘‘baby-boomers’’ had reached their late teens. At the time, voting in all states was restricted to those 21 and older. With the Vietnam War raging, many called for increased political rights for the young, arguing that if the government can draft 18-year-olds into the military, then they should be guaranteed the right to vote. In 1971, the 26th Amendment guaranteed just such voting rights to 18-year-olds nation-wide.By the 1970s, the vote was guaranteed (in theory—more on that below) to most everyone over 18. The remaining exceptions were (and still are) for convicted felons and those deemed mentally incompetent. Yet all was not well. Turnout rates were dropping significantly. In the 19th century, voter turnout often exceeded 80% of those eligible. As late as the 1960s, 60% of those eligible were voting in presidential elections. By the 1970s, though, that percentage had dropped to around 50% and remained around there through the rest of the 20th century. In recent years, the focus has been more on encouraging voter turnout than on expanding suffrage.Added Barriers: Some Intended, Some NotWhile the trend generally is toward expanding suffrage, that expansion has not been uniform and includes both regulations depressing turnout (often unintentionally), and deliberate attempts to deny the vote to some—most notably African Americans.Voting rights extended to former slaves by the 15th Amendment were originally enforced by federal troops during the Reconstruction era in the 1870s. When those troops were removed in the late 1870s, southern states enacted laws known as Jim Crow laws8 to strip African Americans of social and political rights. These laws included barriers to voting. Among these barriers were:• Literacy Tests: Many states required these tests of potential voters who could not prove their education. They were often administered in an 8 For more information on Jim Crow laws, see the 2002 PBS documentary, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow at https://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/voting_start.html.

– 131 –unfair manner, with long, difficult tests given to African Americans (i.e., see examples from Louisiana: https://www.crmvet.org/info/la-littest2.pdf and Alabama: https://www.crmvet.org/info/litques.pdf) while similarly-educated whites were simply given short words to spell. Some illiterate whites could not pass even the simplified tests. However, these tests affected African Americans to a far greater degree since the literacy rates for newly freed slaves (who, as slaves, were legally prohibited from being educated) and their descendants well into the 20th century (who were limited to inferior, segregated schools) were much higher than the rates for whites.• Grandfather Clauses: Even illiterate whites were often allowed to vote if their ancestors had that right prior to Reconstruction. Since most white ancestors had the right while slaves were denied it, African Americans were forced to prove their literacy while whites were often exempted from any required proof.• Poll Taxes: State laws required potential voters to pay an annual tax in order to vote. The sums were small but still out of reach for many African Americans and poor whites. They were cumulative—if you could not pay the first time, you likely could never pay since you had to pay all back taxes as well. While these taxes affected poor whites, enforcement was lax, and the taxes were also subject to grandfather clauses that exempted whites.• White Primaries: Because the Democratic Party dominated the south, almost literally to the exclusion of any Republican participation (i.e., see: https://www.umich.edu/~lawrace/votetour7.htm), winning the Democratic Party nomination for office was effectively the same as winning the general election. Democrats declared their organizations to be private and claimed the right to control their membership. They prohibited African American participation in party primaries, which as noted above, effectively disenfranchised them.• Difficult Registration and Voting Requirements: In addition to formal restrictions, there were all manner of methods used to discourage African American participation. Michael J. Klarman (2004) describes some discriminatory registration methods:Some registration boards…registered voters at undisclosed times in secret locations… Whites discovered through word of mouth where and when to show up to register, while blacks were kept in the dark…

– 132 –Registrars required blacks to fill out their own forms and flunked them for trivial errors, while they filled out whites’ forms for them. Blacks but not whites were asked to recite the entire U.S Constitution or to answer impossible and insulting questions, such as ‘‘How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?’’…Some registrars did not even bother to indulge in the pretense of legality and informed blacks that they would not be registered regardless of their qualifications. (p.244)• There were similarly discriminatory voting practices. Polls were often located in segregated white neighborhoods, meaning the few registered African Americans would have to travel great distances into hostile locations. There were complex procedures developed to facilitate disenfranchisement of African Americans. One notorious example was South Carolina’s ‘‘eight box’’ law, ‘‘which operated as a literacy test by requiring voters to deposit ballots in the correct boxes’’ (Klarman, 2004, p. 31). Any mistake would invalidate all ballots. As with the registration procedures described above, whites were usually given assistance as needed while African Americans were not.• Intimidation and Violence: Threats to the livelihood, safety, health, and even lives of potential African American voters turned voting procedures and requirements that might sound innocuous into very dangerous and discouraging hurdles. For example, some states required the names and addresses of registered voters be published in local papers. While this caused little concern for whites, African Americans knew that being publicly identified as voters often cost them their jobs, and even worse, subjected them and their families to beatings and killings (and their homes to burnings) from local Ku Klux Klan members.• Registration and Identification Requirements: Not all barriers involve deliberate suppression. Early in our history, when only a few prominent citizens could vote, no system of tracking voters was needed. As suffrage expanded and the ranks of eligible voters swelled, states began requiring eligible voters to register with the state to help track who voted (Fischer & Coleman, 2006). The purpose was to curb fraud (i.e., in the 19th century, some states recorded more votes cast than there were eligible voters!). A major effect, however, is a significant decline in turnout. That is, registration is a hurdle to overcome that is especially problematic among: ▷The Less Educated – because it requires awareness and knowledge of elections well before they are held. If we know anything about

– 133 –elections, we are much more likely to know approximately when Election Day is than to be aware of registration deadlines. ▷Lower Socioeconomic Classes – because voter registration is likely to be a very low priority for someone struggling to maintain food and shelter for their family. Upper classes are much more likely to have the time, ability, and awareness to be involved.In recent years, several states enacted strict photo identification requirements for voting (i.e., see Georgia’s requirements: https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/georgia_voter_identification_requirements2). These laws generally require people to produce a valid photo ID (usually a driver’s license, passport, state employee or student card, or something similar) before they can vote. Proponents claim the laws are needed to help prevent voting fraud, while opponents claim the requirements place an undue burden on those—like the elderly, minorities, and the poor—who are otherwise qualified to vote but are less likely to either possess such ID or to be able to obtain them. In 2008, the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s version (Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 2008). As of 2021, 36 states have some form of ID requirement (see: https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id.aspx). In some, like North Carolina and Texas, federal courts blocked the laws citing concerns similar to those noted above (Weber, 2017).By the mid-1960s, most of the deliberate attempts to suppress African American voting had been removed. In Smith v. Allwright (1944), the Supreme Court declared that white primaries were unconstitutional. In 1964, the U.S. Constitution was amended to outlaw all poll taxes. In 1965, the federal Voting Rights Act outlawed many of the remaining discriminatory practices and provided for federal enforcement of voting rights. In 2013, a key enforcement provision of the Act was struck down by the Supreme Court in the 2013 case of Shelby County v. Holder. Since then, many states enacted new restrictions, not just around ID requirements, but also regarding the times and places for voting among other things.Who votes, part 2: making it easierOriginally, registration meant taking time off to physically travel to a specific location to fill out paperwork. This fact added to the hurdles faced by the less educated and the lower classes, who were not aware of the locations and/or not able to take the time or travel the distance to register. In recent decades,

– 134 –attempts have been made to ease the burdens of registration. Most notably, the Motor Voter Act of 1993 requires all states to offer mail-in registration forms, and also requires them to offer the forms at most state government facilities like schools and many state services locations like motor vehicle bureaus (hence the name ‘‘Motor Voter’’). In addition, many states have made greater efforts to promote voter registration in high schools, colleges, and among the public in recent years.Many states have also attempted to make voting itself easier by liberalizing voter registration or absentee ballot rules (which were traditionally used for voters who certified that they could not get to their local voting location to vote) among other measures. As of 2021 there are 19 states that have adopted automatic voter registration (see: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/automatic-voter-registration-summary). Under an automatic system, voters are registered by the state unless they ‘opt-out’. Also, in the wake of the controversial 2000 presidential election (which was held up for over a month by voting controversies in Florida), Congress passed the Help America Vote Act. Among other things, it provided money to help states upgrade their voting equipment and required states to allow people to cast provisional votes if their eligibility is in question9.How we decide: Voting CuesWhen we cast votes, we are choosing among alternatives. How do we decide? The answer is that we use voting cues, or indicators. Historically, the most important of these is party identification (i.e., which candidate belongs to the party we favor?). As information has become easier to obtain in recent decades (at first with the immediacy of radio and television, and now with the information explosion on the internet), issue positions (i.e., which candidate’s issues do we most like?) have become an increasingly prominent indicator as well. Beware of issues, though (more on that below)! While these are the most prominent cues, there are others. Here’s a brief discussion:• Party Identification: Very few Americans are formal (i.e., ‘‘card-carrying’’) party members. That does not mean we lack strong attachments. Americans have very strong personal attachments. Most of us identify with a party. Recent polls say about 60% of the public identifies with a major party—and the number reaches 90% if ‘‘leaners’’ (self-described independents who, when pressed, express some support for a party) are included (see: https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/Party-Affiliation.9 Such votes would be counted later, if the voter’s eligibility was certified.

– 135 –aspx). This party attachment begins early in life as part of our political socialization (see chapter 4).Prior to the age of mass media (especially before radio and television), parties were the source of political information. Well into the 19th century, most major newspapers were run by one of the major parties and made no pretense of objectivity. Political rallies and speeches were considered social events. With little independent information, party labels served as our primary (and often only) cue.Modern commercial media displaced parties as a prime source of political information. With other sources increasingly available, Americans drifted away from political parties, with independents becoming as common as partisans. By the late 20th century, most observers said parties were ‘‘in decline.’’ Even as they have revitalized in the last couple of decades (first as fund-raisers, and now as ideological competitors), this decline allowed other cues to rise in prominence.• Incumbency: As parties declined in influence, more candidates appealed directly to the public through radio and television. With little help from the parties, voters searched for other cues, with incumbency (who currently holds office?) filling the gap (Mayhew, 1974). The thinking is that, with less party information, voters began to notice who was currently in office (the incumbent), and began voting for them. Incumbents had the finances and organization to take advantage of new media to out-campaign obscure and underfunded challengers.Though parties re-emerged as major players, incumbents still enjoy greater support than their challengers. For example, at a time of seemingly great dissatisfaction with the federal government, incumbents running for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020 won 95% of the time.• Issues: The mass media age (radio, television, internet) has made information easier for us to obtain. As such, voters focus increasingly on candidate issue positions. It is laudable to say, ‘‘I don’t vote just for a party label, I want to know where the candidates stand on the issues!’’—however, one must beware that issues can be manipulated. ▷Valence (one-sided) issues are campaign favorites. Many candidates will carefully emphasize issues they know you will agree with. ‘‘Criminals should be punished!’’ or ‘‘I believe in America!’’ are examples. You might find yourself saying, ‘‘I agree with that statement!,’’ but has the candidate actually said anything substantial?

– 136 –Next time you hear an issue statement from a candidate, try applying the ‘‘stupidity test.’’ Imagine the opposite of the statement. If the opposite is debatable, then the statement is probably reasonable (‘‘Social Security should be reformed,’’ vs. ‘‘Social Security should be preserved’’). If the opposite sounds stupid (‘‘Criminals should be punished’’ vs. ‘‘Criminals should go free’’), then the statement is absurd. ▷Another favorite is attempting to appease all sides on an issue particularly on divisive issues. For example, about abortion a candidate might say, ‘‘I am personally opposed to it, but I don’t believe government should get involved.’’ There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this kind of issue position, but be aware that it may be designed to appeal to both sides. It says to pro-life supporters that the candidate is on their side, but it also says to pro-choice supporters that they have nothing to fear from the candidate.• Candidate Characteristics: In addition to the major cues, we use any number of others to help us decide. Most common among the remainder are candidate characteristics. We like to think candidates will understand us and help us. Demographics like race, gender, and ethnicity help us understand who candidates are and whether they can relate to our concerns. Other background characteristics like occupation, education, religion, ideology, childhood, and residence help us understand their experiences and whether they can empathize with our life. Lastly, basic personality traits like honesty, competence, friendliness, and intelligence help us understand how approachable they are and how they might handle the responsibilities of office.What votes mean: Rules (again!)This consideration may be decisive, yet it is little appreciated. Rules matter. They affect outcomes. In other words, how we translate votes into outcomes is how we know who wins. We tend to take words like ‘‘vote’’ and ‘‘election’’ for granted. However, it is not that easy.First, different votes do different things. Party primaries select nominees to represent the party in a general election. If you vote in a primary, you have exercised an important civic function, but you have not elected anyone to office. General elections fill government offices for fixed terms, while special elections are used to fill vacancies temporarily. Some states allow recall elections that can actually remove someone from office. Most unusual is the presidential election

– 137 –where you do not actually vote for president at all! It is an indirect system where you, in fact, vote for electors for your state who in turn vote for president.Second, rules vary from election to election and from state to state. The same set of votes might lead to different winners using different rules. Again, rules matter! Single-Member District, Plurality (SMDP) rules discussed earlier are one example. Elections using SMDP rules can produce different outcomes from Multi-Member District and Majority rules. We discussed earlier how these rules affect political parties. Let us now see how they affect elections.The following example (based on Ross, 1988) demonstrates the effect of rules on outcomes, even with the exact same set of voter preferences. We start with four candidates: A, B, C, and D. A is supported by 40% of the population, B is supported by 30%, C is supported by 20%, and D is supported by 10%. In a straight, SMDP election, where there is one winner needing only more votes than anyone else, A wins (see Table 6-1, Plurality column). However, if the rule is changed to a multi-member one, with say three winners, then A, B, and C would win. The votes have not changed, only the rules.In a single-member (or ‘‘single-winner’’) election with a majority rule, the same set of votes produces yet another result. Since the initial result, where A leads with 40%, does not produce a majority for anyone, we need a way to force one, which is done with a second, run-off election between the top two finishers, A and B. Since the supporters of C and D can no longer vote for them, they must decide between A or B. Table 6-1 lays out the distribution of preferences among all voters. Looking at C’s supporters, we see that their second choice is D, their third is B, and their last is A. Thus, we deduce that they prefer B over A. From the table, we also see that D’s supporters also prefer B over A. So, the result of the runoff is that A gets the 40% of their own supporters, and B gets the 30% of their supporters plus the 20% of C’s supporters, and the 10% of D’s supporters for a 60% majority. Again, no votes have changed, only the rules. A plurality rule favors A, but a majority rule favors B.Yet another possibility is approval voting, where voters may cast votes for each candidate they like. Proponents argue this is a more accurate representation of our preferences as it allows us to cast votes for two or more candidates if we cannot make up our mind or if we like two or more equally. The winner of such a vote would be the most widely approved candidate among the voters. In Table 6-1, we can determine voter approval by observing the vertical bars (‘‘|’’) among the voter preferences. Voters approve of choices to the left of the bar, and they disapprove of choices to the right. For example, the 40% whose first choice is A also approve of D, but not of C or B. Using this rule, we find that the first 40%

– 138 –cast votes for both A and D. The next 30% vote for both B and C. The next 20% vote only for C (which shows you can still cast a traditional single vote under this rule). The last 10% vote for everyone except A. Tallying these votes, we now find that C is the most widely approved candidate. Again, there are no changes in voters or their preferences, only in the rules.Table 6.1: Distribution of Voter Preferences and Results Using Different Voting RulesVotes1st2nd3rd4thPluralityMajorityApproval40%A >D > |C >BA = 40 ✓A = 40A = 4030%B >C > |D >AB = 30B = 60 ✓B = 4020%C > |D >B >AC = 20C = 6010%D >B >C > |AD = 10D = 50The bottom line: Again, rules matter. The same voters with the same preferences produced different results using different rules!What voting affects:The quick answer to this question is not everything. In other words, we do have some ability to shape our government, but we cannot shape everything. Our reach is limited.How is it limited? The most obvious answer is that not everything or everyone in government is subject to election. We cannot vote on:• presidential advisers or other executive branch officials.• congressional staff members.• federal judges or Supreme Court justices.• many state and local administrative and judicial officials.• federal laws or regulations.• many state and local laws or regulations.Even when we can vote, it is often in a limited fashion. For example, since U.S. Senate elections are staggered (see chapter 7), with only one-third of the Senate up for election every two years, we can only change that much in any single election. In other words, two-thirds of the Senate is insulated from us in every election. In addition, the reach of our vote is limited by geography; we can only vote for U.S. Senators in our state and U.S. Representatives in our local congressional district (and state and local geography is usually even more limited). Those geographic

– 139 –districts also limit our ability to act collectively, since many groups among the public (i.e., racial, ethnic, gender, occupational, ideological, religious, and others) are fragmented among many districts and states10.Too Many Votes?There are more than a half-million elected officials in the United States (i.e., see Shelley, 1996). Add to that party primaries, run-off elections, recall elections, special elections, judicial elections, sheriff and school board elections among other local offices, and even policy proposals on ballot measures and state constitutional amendments, and it becomes quite clear that Americans have a lot of voting to do! This amount contributes to a phenomenon known as ‘‘voter fatigue,’’ which helps account for why turnout rates in the United States are far lower than in similar democracies. Consider this example:There were five elections conducted in 2010 to determine who Georgia’s 9th Congressional District representative to the U.S. House would be. Why five? First, the incumbent—Republican Nathan Deal—resigned his House seat in March 2010 to run for Governor of Georgia (spoiler alert: he won). This situation required a special election to fill the seat until the term expired in January of 2011. The special election was held in May. Second, since Georgia’s election laws require a majority vote to win, a run-off election was needed because none of the candidates received a majority. The run-off was held in June. So, it took two votes just to fill out the term. Tom Graves was elected to fill the seat.It does not end there. The regular vote to fill the next term was still scheduled for November 2nd, and the party primary votes for this election were scheduled for July 20th. The Republican primary (there were no Democratic candidates) required a runoff vote which was held in August. The incumbent, Tom Graves, won the runoff. So, there was a special election in May, a run-off for that special election in June, a party primary in July, a primary run-off in August, and the election in November (Graves won)—five elections for one seat in one year! There could even have been a sixth, a November run-off, had any significant opposition kept Graves from getting a majority.It gets even more interesting. Like many states, Georgia attempted to make voting easier by allowing people to vote up to 45 days before an election at the time. This early voting meant people could vote in the July 20th primary as early as June 7th. It is noteworthy because the special election run-off date was June 8th, meaning it was possible for voters to vote in the regular election primary at 10 Sometimes deliberately so. See “gerrymandering” in chapter 7.

– 140 –the same time or even before they voted in the special election run-off (Fielding, 2010). Of course, this situation created some confusion. Some voters in the 9th District, who intended to vote in the special election run-off accidentally voted early in the primary vote instead (Redmon, 2010)! The state has since reduced early voting down to about three weeks.MoneyIn the past, political parties and election campaigns revolved primarily around organizing and energizing people in order to win elections. The focus was on face-to-face gatherings like campaign rallies. Today, things are far more complex. Make no mistake, people are still important. Our votes are, after all, the bottom line. However, as communications technologies (radio, television, internet) and campaign techniques (polling, phone-calling, direct mail marketing, and other public relations methods) develop, parties and campaigns have changed. In addition to the traditional armies of staffers and volunteers spreading out to win over our votes, there are now groups of more elite technology and marketing experts working behind the scenes to win us over as well.These new experts and their technologies and techniques are far more expensive than the hordes of staffers and volunteers. This in turn pushes money and fund-raising to the forefront, requiring parties and campaigns to seek out ever-greater amounts of cash. Candidates and parties naturally turned to wealthy supporters for large donations to meet the demands. By the 1970s, an increasingly uneasy public grew concerned that politicians were being ‘‘bought’’ by these wealthy contributors (that is, that politicians were ignoring the public and focusing on keeping their few, wealthy contributors happy). This situation led to federal regulations (see below) that limited the amount of money individuals could contribute in any election to $1000 per candidate. Oddly enough, these regulations make fund-raising more important because far more contributors were now required to pay for increasingly expensive campaigns11.Campaign Finance ReformSome campaign finance regulations date back more than a century. The Tillman Act of 1907 prohibited the direct contribution of corporate funds to campaigns. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 similarly prohibited direct contributions from labor unions. However, there have been two major waves of reforms in 11 Where a candidate could once raise $100,000 from a single wealthy donor, they now had to seek out 100 people to get the same amount.

– 141 –recent decades. The first was in the 1970s. Spurred on by perceived loopholes in the first wave, the second was in the late 1990s and early 2000s12.The Federal Election Campaign Acts of the 1970s (FECA)In 1971, 1972, and 1974, Congress enacted laws that:• limited contributions to federal campaigns from individuals ($1000 per candidate, per election) and from groups ($5000 per candidate, per election);• required groups representing various interests (known as Political Action Committees) to register with the federal government before they could contribute to federal campaigns;• limited both candidate and independent (individuals and groups• not connected with any candidate) spending in federal elections (House, Senate, Presidency);• created the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to oversee federal campaign regulations; and• set up a system of public funding for presidential nominations and elections.Opponents of these regulations claimed they violated the First Amendment speech rights of both candidates and potential contributors, and they challenged the laws in court. In the case of Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Supreme Court upheld many of the regulations. However, they struck down the spending limits as unconstitutional, saying that candidate and independent spending amount to protected speech. In addition, they said contribution limits only apply to activities involving ‘‘express advocacy’’–meaning words that clearly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate. Contribution limits and public funding of presidential campaigns set the tone for federal elections for the next two decades. However, things were changing.Soft Money and Issues AdsIn 1979, one change in FEC interpretations led to what is called soft money. This money is used for non-campaign, ‘‘party-building’’ activities like get-out-the-vote drives or issue advertisements (as opposed to express campaign advertisements). Based on the Supreme Court’s ‘‘express advocacy’’ restriction in Buckley, soft money contributions are not subject to limitations. Little-noticed at the time, this change, combined with federal court rulings in the 1990s that 12 A good description and history of campaign finance may be found on the Federal Election Commission website at https://transition.fec.gov/pages/brochures/fecfeca.shtml#Historical_Background.

– 142 –said candidate images and names used in ads do not amount to express advocacy, had profound consequences as the political parties re-invented themselves as soft money machines. Wealthy supporters were no longer able to donate more than $1000 to candidates or groups that run ads saying something like ‘‘Vote for Smith,’’ but they now could pour unlimited contributions into political parties and groups that run issue ads saying ‘‘Smith is good for America’’ or ‘‘Smith supports legislation X while Jones opposes it.’’ (For examples of issue ads in the 2000 presidential campaign, see: https://www.gwu.edu/~action/ads2/partyadlist.html).The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA)By the late 1990s, as issue ads saturated the airwaves before every election, many saw them as a loophole rendering contribution limits meaningless. The argument was that the average television viewer, in weeks before an election, would not distinguish between ads that say ‘‘Bob Dole will cut our taxes’’ and ones that say ‘‘Vote for Bob Dole.’’ Calls for new legislation to close the perceived soft money loophole were led by U.S. senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Russell Feingold (D-WI). Their proposals were debated for several years and finally enacted into law in 2002 as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. This law banned political parties from using soft money in federal elections (and restricted state parties’ soft money) so that contributions from wealthy contributors to political parties were once again limited. However, to compensate for 30 years of inflation, the individual contribution limit was doubled to $2000 and subsequently indexed to the inflation rate (as of 2020, the limit was $2800). In addition, issue ads featuring candidate names and faces were limited. Ads could not show or mention a candidate 30 days before a party primary or 60 days before a general election.The new laws were soon challenged, but the Supreme Court in 2003 upheld all but a few minor provisions.‘‘527’’ Groups “501” Groups, Citizens United, and beyondBCRA did little to stem the flow of money in elections. For one thing, the national parties subsequently became very adept at raising record sums of money through good old-fashioned limited contributions. For another, while parties were restricted from using soft money and running issue ads, many types of outside groups were not. Tax-exempt ‘‘527’’ groups (named for Section 527 of the federal tax code) could exploit a difference between tax law and campaign law. Tax law prohibits these groups from engaging in campaign activity, but remember Buckley and the FEC said issue ads are not campaign ads. Therefore, 527s could run all

– 143 –the issue ads, using all the unlimited money, they wanted!13 Traditional interest groups formed 527s. More importantly though, members of political parties that could not spend soft money simply went out and formed 527s which could.In the 2004 elections and beyond, the airwaves were still saturated with issues ads. But they were no longer party ads, they were 527 ads. Then came Citizens United.In addition to the long-standing bans on corporate and union campaign contributions, BCRA also restricted them from using their own funds to engage in ‘‘electioneering’’ (though their members could form political action committees to raise funds and make limited contributions. See chapter 5). In 2008, a little-known, non-profit corporation known as Citizens United wanted to broadcast and advertise a documentary titled ‘‘Hillary: The Movie,’’ which was critical of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. A federal court held that doing so would violate the BCRA restrictions on issue ads and on corporate electioneering. The case reached the Supreme Court in 2009, originally simply to determine whether or not the film and its ads amounted to issue ads or ‘‘electioneering.’’ However, the Court ordered the case to be reheard a year later, this time to determine the far more consequential question of whether or not the BCRA restrictions on corporations and unions use of their own funds is constitutional. In a 5-4 vote, the Court struck down the restrictions as unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment’s speech protection (Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 130 S.Ct. 876). This ruling opens the door for corporations and unions to use their own money for any political activity they desire (except for direct contributions, which are still prohibited).Where will this lead? Will we see multi-million dollar product marketing campaigns that endorse candidates (‘‘Vote for Smith for president because she uses our product!’’)? It is trite to say that only time will tell, but surely the issue is not yet resolved. The question remains: What place does money have in our elections?What we have seen in the last decade is that both traditional corporations and incorporated interests (like Citizens United) have become involved in campaigns. However, traditional corporations often wish to remain anonymous (to avoid offending customers or partners). Many incorporated interests also wish to remain anonymous (often just to avoid retaliation or scrutiny). In these cases, the kind of overt spending allowed by the Citizens United decision won’t do. To accommodate their wish to remain anonymous, many political organizations, including some quite close to candidates and campaigns (though direct co-13 Other types of tax-exempt groups, known as 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) groups could run these ads as well.

– 144 –ordination is illegal), are using a two-pronged approach. They form both Super PACs (see chapter 5) and tax-exempt groups known as 501(c)(4) groups. Why both? Because Super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money and overtly express support for candidates (though direct contributions are forbidden), but they must disclose their donors. That’s where the 501(c)(4)s come in handy. As “Social Welfare” groups, according to the tax code, express political support cannot be their primary function. However, they can accept unlimited donations and they can contribute to political organizations like Super PACs. The key is that 501(c)(4)s do not have to disclose their donors! So, corporations and wealthy individuals can contribute unlimited amounts to these 501 groups and remain anonymous. The 501 groups then contribute the money they raise to Super PACs that spend it on express electioneering.When you ask a Super PAC where they got their money from, they must tell you. If they use the approach described above, they tell you they got it from a 501(c)(4). When you ask the 501(c)(4) where their money came from, all they have to say is, “None of your business!” Mission accomplished!Majority versus Plurality in the real worldWhile most states use SMDP rules, Georgia does not. It requires a majority for election. In fact, a 1966 law made it the only state to require majority votes for all nominations and elections14. If no candidate receives a majority, the state requires a later run-off election between the top two vote-getters. This situation has had real-world consequences for the people of Georgia. Let’s explore an example.Case Study: Rules Matter—The 2020 U.S. Senate elections in GeorgiaMost U.S. elections use plurality rule. The state of Georgia is an exception. It requires a majority vote (see: Georgia Code Title 21. Elections § 21-2-501). If no candidate has captured a majority on election day, then a “run-off” is held several weeks later between the top two finishers to determine the winner. This rule affected not one, but two U.S. Senate elections in Georgia in 2020—and had repercussions for control of the Senate in 2021. Normally, 33 or 34 states have one Senate election in an election year (see Chapter 7). Why only 33 or 34 states, and why only one each for those states? More rules! The Constitution specifies that only one-third of Senate seats are up for re-election every two years, and they are 14 However, it exempted local municipalities using other rules prior to the law’s adoption.

– 145 –distributed so that no state has more than one seat up in any election cycle. So why did Georgia have two?In the summer of 2019, one of Georgia’s incumbent U.S. senators, Johnny Isakson, announced that he would resign at the end of the year due to declining health (Everett, 2019). Governor Brian Kemp appointed business executive Kelly Loeffler to fill the seat until a special election was held concurrently with the upcoming November election. Georgia’s other incumbent senator, David Perdue would also be up for re-election at the same time, as his regular six-year term was expiring.The rules were different for each of these contests. The special election for Loeffler’s seat was a “jungle primary”, with all eligible candidates competing (i.e., there were no party nominees). Instead of just two major-party nominees dominating the ballot, there could be any number of candidates from both major and minor parties. If no candidate won a majority, then the top two finishers—regardless of party—would compete in a later runoff (Keenan, 2020). The election for Perdue’s seat was a more traditional affair with the two major parties nominating candidates to compete in November. Georgia has been solidly Republican for a couple of decades, though Democrats have made recent inroads. 2018 saw their best results in many years, with a close governor’s race, and some gains in both the U.S. House and the state legislature. Still, throughout most of 2020, both Perdue and Loeffler were expected to retain their seats (i.e., see: Silver, 2020, Gonzales, 2020, Cook, 2020). By late October, both senators’ leads were nearly gone. Perdue’s lead dissipated at least partly because of missteps by the candidate (Fox News, 2020)—but also because of a well-positioned Democratic nominee, Jon Ossoff who maintained significant statewide name recognition and support from a strong U.S. House challenge two years earlier. Meanwhile, Loeffler’s lead fell victim to a strong challenge from Republican U.S. Representative Doug Collins (who was endorsed by President Trump). Remember, Loeffler was competing in the jungle primary, so there was no party nomination to settle intra-party challenges. Loeffler and Collins were splitting the Republican vote while on the Democratic side, Rev. Raphael Warnock had emerged as a singular favorite. Heading into election day, the special election was essentially a three-way race which virtually guaranteed that no candidate would receive the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. The other election was a razor-thin race between Ossoff and Perdue, with neither candidate clearly above 50 percent. It looked like both races would result in runoffs.On election day, neither of the races were settled. In the special election, Warnock finished first, with just under 33% of the vote. Loeffler finished second

– 146 –with just under 26%, and Collins finished third with just under 20%. Warnock and Loeffler were headed to a runoff. In the other election, Senator Perdue’s vote total flirted with the 50 percent mark, but as later votes (mostly absentee ballots) were tallied, he fell just short with 49.7%. Ossoff finished with just under 48% of the vote. This race was also headed to a runoff. So . . . rules matter. Under plurality rule, both races would have been settled. However, the state’s majority voting rule meant the contests would continue.Both runoffs were scheduled for January 5th, 2021—a date based on . . . you guessed it . . . Georgia election rules. This mattered as it occurred two days after Senator Perdue’s term expired. So, for two days, Georgia had only one Senator, Kelly Loeffler. Her term did not expire until after the special election was resolved. Runoff elections are usually very low-turnout events. However, because victories by both Democratic candidates would result in a shift in Senate power, these runoffs had national implications and drew a lot of attention, leading to unusually high turnout. This turnout was not uniform across the state. African Americans voted in large numbers in the runoff (Cohn, 2021). This helped the Democratic candidates in both races. In the end, both Democrats won their runoffs. Jon Ossoff defeated incumbent Senator David Perdue 50.6% to 49.4%, and Raphael Warnock defeated incumbent Senator Kelly Loeffler 51% to 49%. For the first time in more than 60 years, a state lost two incumbent U.S. senators in the same election cycle. The last time was in West Virginia in 1958 (Ostermeier, 2021).Under plurality rule, Republicans would have retained both seats and retained control of the Senate. However, under Georgia’s majority rule, Democrats were able to capture both seats and return control of the Senate to their party. Oh, one last rule. Jon Ossoff was elected to a full six-year term. So he will not be up for re-election until 2026. However, Raphael Warnock was elected to finish the full term begun by Johnny Isakson and continued by Kelly Loeffler. That term ends in 2022, so if Warnock wishes to retain his seat, he will have to run again just two years after he was first elected.Discussion Questions1. Why did political parties become such a central part of our political environment if the framers derided them as ‘‘factions’’? In other words, what do they do that might make them so central?2. Compare ‘‘third’’ or ‘‘minor’’ parties to the major parties. A list can be found here: https://www.politics1.com/parties.htm. Peruse their web sites and compare their goals, organization, and success to that of the two major parties.

– 147 –3. Compare our largely two-party system to other systems (i.e., Great Britain’s three-party system or Israel’s multiple-party system). How do their party systems affect their politics?4. As noted earlier, our history is full of attempts to disenfranchise African Americans (see chapter section: ‘‘Added Barriers: Some Intended, Some Not’’). Some were obvious (white primaries), but some seemed more innocuous to whites (publishing names and addresses of registered voters). Today, there are still provisions that might not concern whites while they seriously concern blacks. For instance, many states have toughened their identification requirements in the name of combating voter fraud. Why might this concern African Americans? Contact or visit a nearby chapter of the NAACP (https://www.naacp.org) and investigate their concerns with these tougher restrictions.5. Many campaign finance regulations were enacted in the name of preventing the appearance of elections being ‘‘bought’’ by wealthy contributors. Is there any validity to this concern? Explore campaign contribution data on these sites to investigate the role of money in election campaigns: https://www.cfinst.org/, https://www.fec.gov.ReferencesAnsolabehere, S., Rodden, J., & Snyder, J. M. (2006). Purple America. The journal of economic perspectives, 20(2), 97-118.Beck, P. A. (1997). Party politics in America. (8th ed.). New York, NY: Longman.Burnham, W. D. (1970). Critical elections and the mainsprings of American politics. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.Campbell, A., Converse, P., Miller, W., & Stokes, D. (1960). The American voter. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.Cohn, Nate. (2021). Why Warnock and Ossoff Won in Georgia. The Upshot (The New York Times). Retrieved June 17, 2021 from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/upshot/warnock-ossoff-georgia-victories.html. Cook Political Report. (2020). 2020 Senate Race Ratings. The Cook Political Report. Retrieved June 16, 2021 from https://cookpolitical.com/ratings/senate-race-ratings/230641. Everett, Burgess. (2019). Sen. Johnny Isakson to resign at end of the year. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved June 16, 2021 from https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/28/sen-johnny-isakson-to-resign-at-end-of-the-year-1476655.Fielding, A. (2010, May 16th). Runoff, primary overlap may cause confusion for voters. The Gainesville Times. Retrieved from https://www.gainesvilletimes.

– 148 –com/archives/33258/.Fiorina, M. P. (1981). Retrospective voting in American national elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Fischer, E. A. & Coleman, K. J. (2006, March 22). Voter registration systems. Retrieved from https://www.american.edu/spa/cdem/upload/2-Fischer_Coleman-Voter_Registration_Systems-AU.pdf. Fox News. (2020). Key Senate races begin to tighten two weeks out from election [transcript]. Special Report with Bret Baier. Retrieved June 16, 2021 from https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/key-senate-races-begin-to-tighten-two-weeks-out-from-election. Gonzalez, Nathan L. (2020). Senate Ratings. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales, Nonpartisan Analyst. Retrieved June 16, 2020 from https://www.insideelections.com/ratings/senate/2020-senate-ratings-october-28-2020. Green, D., Palmquist, B., & Schickler, E. (2002). Partisan hearts and minds. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Karol, D. (2009). Party position change in American politics. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Keenan, Sean. (2020). What in the world is a jungle primary, and what’s in store for Georgia’s? Atlanta Magazine. Retrieved June 16, 2021 from https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/what-in-the-world-is-a-jungle-primary-and-whats-in-store-for-georgias/.Key, V.O., Jr. (1964). Politics, parties, and pressure groups. New York, NY: Crowell.Klarman, M. J. (2004). From Jim Crow to civil rights: The Supreme Court and the struggle for racial equality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Madison, J. (1787, November 23/2011). Federalist #10: The Same Subject Continued: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection. The New York Packet. Retrieved from https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-10.Main, J. T. (2006). The Anti-Federalists: Critics of the Constitution, 1781-1788. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Mayhew, D. R. (1974). Congressional elections: The case of the vanishing marginals. Polity, 6(3), 295-317.Nie, N. H.,Verba, S., & Petrocik, J. R. (1976). The changing American voter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Office of Management and Budget. (2010). Table 7.1—Federal debt at the end of year: 1940-2015. Historical Tables. Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2011/assets/hist07z1.xls.Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. (2010). Party divisions of

– 149 –the House of Representatives (1789 to Present). Retrieved from https://clerk.house.gov/art_history/house_history/partyDiv.html.Ostermeier, Eric. (2021). Georgia Democrats Record Historic Rarity. Smart Politics. Retrieved June 15, 2021 from https://smartpolitics.lib.umn.edu/2021/01/06/georgia-democrats-record-historic-rarity/.Redmon, J. (2010, July 21). Congressional election redos costly, confusing. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved from https://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/congressional-election-redos-costly-575715.html.Rosenof, T. (2003). Realignment: The theory that changed the way we think about American politics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Ross, R. S. (1988). American national government: Institutions, policy, and participation. Guilford, CT: Dushkin Publishing Group, Inc.Senate Historical Office. (2010). Party Division in the Senate, 1789-Present. Retrieved from https://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm.Shelley, F. M. (1996). The political geography of the United States. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.Silver, Nate. (2020). Forecasting the race for the Senate. FiveThirtyEight. Archived from the original on September 20, 2020. Retrieved June 16, 2021 from the archived site https://web.archive.org/web/20200920193754/https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/senate/.Sundquist, J. L. (1983). The dynamics of the party system. (Revised Ed.) Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.Wasserman, David. (2017). Purple America Has All But Disappeared. FiveThirtyEight, March 8, 2017. Retrieved April 13, 2017 from https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/purple-america-has-all-but-disappeared/.Weber, Paul J. (2017). Judge again finds discrimination in Texas’ voter ID law. Associated Press. Retrieved April 13, 2017 from https://apnews.com/3ac028eda56a4cf39c0efd02aab12881.Wood, G. S. (1998). The creation of the American republic, 1776-1787. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Court CasesCrawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008).Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976).Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 130 S.Ct. 876 (2010).Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944).

Interest GroupsLearning ObjectivesAfter covering the topic of interest groups and political participation, students should understand:1. The history of and reasons why interest groups exist.2. Why we join interest groups, and their structure, their organization, and the ‘‘free-rider’’ problem.3. The mythology and reality of interest groups.4. The influence of interest groups on public policymaking, including the various methods of influence.AbstractThe framers’ hostility to ‘‘factions’’ was addressed not by restrictions, but by encouraging proliferation, creating what today is referred to as a pluralist system. While groups offer potential members many social and economic reasons for joining, obtaining active support is often difficult because of the ‘‘free-rider’’ problem. Modern literature challenges the popular myth of benevolent groups alleviating inequities in society. Instead, Roberto Michels speaks of an ‘‘iron law of oligarchy’’ and E.E. Schattschneider warns of a strong upper-class bias. Data on federal spending by lobbyists support this theory about bias. Groups use many methods to influence public policy. These methods include lobbying, direct access through ‘‘iron triangles,’’ litigation, direct grants of power from governments, ‘‘going public,’’ and electoral activity. Government regulation of groups’ electoral activity has resulted in the formation of many types of organizations, including political action committees, ‘‘527’’ and 501(c) organizations, and, most recently, ‘‘SuperPACs.’’Carl D. Cavalli and Barry D. Friedman

– 90 –IntroductionWatching each others’ backsIn the feudal systems that once dominated European countries, lords, as the saying goes, ‘‘watched each others’ backs.’’ For that matter, so did the serfs. The feudal system placed all individuals into automatic, life-long affiliations with their peers. In case of trouble, help was on the way.The European immigrants who came to North America to populate the colonies had a common, middle-class background. Besides, while the shortage of land in Europe was part of the rationale for feudalism, once they arrived here, the immigrants discovered an abundance of land. Imitating feudalism in North America was, quite simply, out of the question.But the choice of individualism came with a new challenge: Each individual, faced with some sort of problem, could not automatically rely on any association for assistance. For example, if someone’s barn was burning down, it would be problematic to endeavor to put out the fire alone. Therefore, the colonists learned to create associations for collective benefit—associations like volunteer fire departments. As a matter of fact, it was Benjamin Franklin who founded the first such association, known as the Union Fire Company, in 1736 in Philadelphia. The stage was set for the creation of innumerable interest groups in the United States.In Federalist #10, James Madison reflects the distaste of the framers toward what he called ‘‘factions’’ (see Chapter 2): ‘‘The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice [i.e., factions]’’ (Madison, 2001, p. 92). We generally understand his term ‘‘factions’’ to encompass political interest groups, political parties, and other instruments whose purpose is to cultivate political influence. Conventional wisdom states that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were still in some kind of shock over Shays’ Rebellion, the recent incident in Massachusetts during which debt-ridden farmers set out to topple the state government in Boston so that there would be no instrument to enforce their debts. Although the rebellion failed, the affluent delegates to the convention must have feared imitators and, thus, the possibility that private property would not be secure. Insofar as the Federalist papers were intended to advocate the ratification of the proposed Constitution, Madison took on the challenge of showing that the document would manage the threat posed by factions. Did the delegates to the Constitution Convention decide to outlaw factions? No, says Madison; they did not outlaw them by ‘‘destroying the liberty which is essential to [their] existence.’’ That, he acknowledges, would be ‘‘worse

– 91 –than the disease’’ itself. Instead, he explains, the framers did something much cleverer: They decided to ‘‘extend the sphere’’—i.e., they transformed the system of 13 separate political systems into one large, national system.And then they set the stage for factions to proliferate. Then, he boasted, there would be so many factions in this one national system that they would cancel each other out, rather than creating the conditions under which one faction would eventually prevail.By the time that the French observer Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States in the early 1830s, the creation of clubs and associations had clearly become second nature to Americans. His observation was that Americans form associations at the drop of a hat. Subsequently, scholars in the field of American government found many reasons to celebrate the proliferation of interest groups. Tocqueville himself referred to the spectrum of clubs and associations as ‘‘great schools, free of charge, where all citizens come to be taught the general theory of associations,’’ in which Americans learn to make proposals, debate them, vote on them, and accept the majority decision (Tocqueville, 1835/2000, p. 497). In 1951, David B. Truman referred to interest groups as the ‘‘balance wheel in a going democratic system’’ (p. 514). The existence of innumerable interest groups, and each American’s affiliation with a variable number of such groups, amounted to a system of pluralism, whose net effect is the moderation of individual Americans and, as a result, of the entire political system.The BasicsWhat are they and why do they exist?Quite simply, interest groups organize to influence government. This makes them purely political entities, as they seek to affect public policy. However, these groups generally are not interested in all policies. Typically, they focus on a single area, remaining uninterested in others (except to the extent those others may affect their interest). This focus leads many to refer to them as special- or single-interest groups.While the framers’ distaste for ‘‘factions’’ included interest groups as well as political parties, this single focus distinguishes them from political parties, which generally seek to mold policy in all areas. Another distinction is that, in general, while interest groups are focused on influencing government—largely from the outside—parties want to get their members elected to government in order to run it (see Chapter 6).

– 92 –Democracy, Diversity, and DivisionWhile not an absolute requirement, democracy helps explain the existence of interest groups. Democratic governments are set up to listen to public input, and an organized group is more easily heard than a scattered collection of individuals (Think of a chorus versus a crowd).Another explanation is found in diversity. There would be little reason for groups to form if the entire population possessed the same beliefs, desires, and needs. Indeed, in Federalist #10, Madison notes that one way of ‘‘removing the causes of faction’’ is to give everyone ‘‘the same opinions, … passions, and … interests’’ (Madison 2001, p. 92). He quickly dismisses this as impossible. So—factions happen!One other less appreciated but equally important explanation for the existence of interest groups is division. More precisely, our government is fragmented—divided in many ways. Implementing the constitutional principle of separation of powers leads to a divided government—three branches (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial) in each of three levels (national, state, and local). In addition, each branch at each level usually has multiple agencies with many individuals within it. This diversity creates numerous access points for interest groups to contact. In addition to lobbying Congress for favorable legislation, they may also lobby executive agencies for favorable regulations as well as accessing the legal system to affect laws, regulations, and their implementation. All of these may be pursued at the state (governor, state legislature, state courts) and local (mayor, city council, municipal courts) levels as well.The Rationale for Forming or Joining GroupsClubs and associations originate because of their founders’ perception of self-interest. Others join these organizations to advance their self-interests, too. While one cannot rule out the possibility that those who establish an association are doing so for purely altruistic reasons, systematic observation suggests that such an event is a rarity. People join groups for some of these reasons:• People may join an organization in order to obtain a material benefit. For example, one may join AARP—the organization for people 50 years of age and older—to obtain health insurance at a discounted group rate or to obtain discounts when checking into a hotel.• People may join an organization in order to feel good about themselves. They may volunteer their unpaid labor to helping a free-soup kitchen so that they can get some personal satisfaction out of feeding hungry

– 93 –people. They may join a museum organization to feel as though they are doing something worthy by being a patron of the arts.• People may establish or affiliate with an organization in order to obtain employment. Clubs and associations employ millions of Americans. The most successful organization executives even in the nonprofit charitable sector command generous salaries, sometimes exceeding $1 million.• People or business enterprises may affiliate with an organization in the hope that the organization will attempt to persuade legislators and others who possess government authority to make decisions that will promote the well-being of the members’ industry or other common interest.• People may affiliate with an organization because of their intention that the organization’s ideological program or policy preferences would, if transformed into public policy, benefit the individual or, at least, create the kind of society that they prefer.OrganizationThere are more potential interests than most of us may comprehend. Your interests may stem from any number of factors related to you or your surroundings, including sociological factors (race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation), political factors (partisanship, ideology), behavioral factors (activities, personal and consumer habits), demographic factors (gender, age, location, income, occupation, education), and even physical characteristics (height, weight, health issues). However, not all interests gain the attention of government. The key to gaining this attention is organization. Organization is what separates interests from interest groups (recall the earlier analogy: a chorus versus a crowd).Any interest wishing to influence government must have some sort of structure, consisting most basically of leadership and membership. The leadership provides direction and (along with the staff) usually accounts for much of the group’s activities. The membership may account for some activity (i.e., picketing, protesting, writing to or calling government officials), but in many instances provides mainly financing and popular support.In general, organized groups cannot achieve significant success without a sound financial structure. Most organizations rely on membership dues along with additional contributions from supporters (including charitable foundations and think tanks—i.e., other groups). Many groups also benefit from federal and state funding. This funding is not supposed to be used to support their attempts to influence government. However, funding in the form of research or project

– 94 –grants—often providing data in support of a group’s aims—may help them succeed nonetheless.The ‘‘Free-Rider’’ ProblemAs noted above, people join groups for many reasons. In general, it makes sense to say that we look to obtain some sort of benefit from our memberships. In turn, groups need our support in order to function effectively. Yet many groups find it difficult to obtain that support. Interestingly, this difficulty generally increases with the size of a (potential) group. You might think that the broader the interest, the easier it is to organize, collect resources, and take action. You would be wrong! Broad interests face a free-rider problem. Mancur Olson (1982) describes the logic:The successful boycott or strike or lobbying action will bring the better price or wage for everyone in the relevant category, so the individual in any large group with a common interest will reap only a minute share of the gains from whatever sacrifices the individual makes to achieve this common interest. Since any gain goes to everyone in the group, those who contribute nothing to the effort will get just as much as those who made a contribution. It pays to ‘‘let George do it,’’ but George has little or no incentive to do anything in the group interest either, so … there will be little, if any, group action. The paradox, then, is that (in the absence of special arrangements or circumstances …) large groups, at least if they are composed of rational individuals, will not act in their group interest (p. 18).In other words, groups that pursue collective, or public, goods, cannot limit them only to those who contribute time and resources to the cause (see Samuelson 1954). National defense is one of the purest examples of a collective good. It is impossible to divide: If it is provided at all, it is provided for everyone. Contrast this with largely private goods—like typical consumer goods—that are bought and sold through individual transactions. You must pay for that iPhone you want! On the other hand, much of the regulations regarding the manufacture and sale of iPhones (material and manufacturing quality, limitations on the use of hazardous materials, required disclosure of radiation levels) are closer to public goods that exist (or not) regardless of your individual actions. If you benefit from these goods whether you contribute or not, it is not rational for you to contribute to any groups seeking these benefits. Groups seeking these regulations often will struggle to build support. You will just ‘‘let George do it’’ (which, of course, he will

– 95 –not because he has no more incentive than you!). In small groups (such as a local union seeking a pay raise for a company’s workers), you may quickly realize that if you and George do not act, you may not receive any benefit. This realization may spur you to action. However, in large groups (such as consumer, environmental, social, and issue groups), there are lots of other Georges, at least some of whom (you are likely to assume) will act. Yet again, they have no more incentive than do you. This lack of action is the problem.Governments may address this problem through compulsory action. National defense is funded through tax revenues. You pay taxes or you go to prison (assuming you are caught). Interest groups, however, do not have that compulsory power. So how do groups overcome this problem? Two words: selective incentives (or selective benefits). These are benefits that can be limited in their distribution. As Olson (1971) says,… group action can be obtained only through an incentive that operates … selectively toward the individuals in the group. The incentive must be ‘‘selective’’ so that those who do not join the organization … can be treated differently from those who do (p. 51).These are the kind of benefits mentioned earlier, including material benefits like access to or discounts on consumer goods or other resources or information, and social benefits like entertainment, travel, and other group activities. Regardless of what George does, you are more likely to contribute your time and money to the group if it means that you can get a t-shirt with the group’s logo on it, or a magazine with information on the group’s accomplishments and activities, or a discount on tickets to a Yankees game or on an insurance policy, or if you can attend a group party or lecture, or go on a Caribbean cruise with group members.The Mythology and the RealityThe Myth: Inequities Are AlleviatedThe spectrum of communications-media sources that discuss American life in general contains a significant amount of mythology about groups, organizations, associations, and so forth. The traditional mythology describes these collectivities in mostly flattering terms. They are said to contribute to the spirit of American democracy. They are described as effective instruments of political participation. Charitable organizations are rhapsodized as instruments by which socioeconomic inequities are alleviated because the charities redistribute wealth from generous

– 96 –haves to appreciative have-nots.That there is such a mythology is somewhat ironic, given the clear skepticism among the framers of the U. S. Constitution about such collectivities. To Tocqueville, the participation of Americans, who, he said, organized clubs and associations at the drop of a hat, in such groups gave the public experience with the idea of democracy: The members would learn to make a proposal, debate it, vote on it, and abide by the results of the majority vote. Thus, he said, these groups served as training grounds for democracy. While Madison considered ‘‘factions’’ a threat to the republic, Tocqueville considered associations to be its very mainstay.The Reality: Oligarchy, the Upper Class, and CorporationsAs the twentieth century proceeded, the literature of political science, following the direction of the literature of sociology, gradually departed from the mythology of popular publications about the value of interest groups, but for reasons that were different from Madison’s rationale. In 1915, French sociologist Roberto Michels made this chilling observation: ‘‘Who says organization, says oligarchy’’ (1915/1958, p. 418). His ‘‘iron law of oligarchy’’ suggests that, in any organization, a clique of some sort will inevitably rise to the top and assume control. The automatic process that determines who will become the leaders recognizes charisma, strength, leadership ability, intelligence, wealth, access to influential individuals, and so on. When, in 1966, Grant McConnell studied special-interest groups in the United States and their influence on public policy, he rediscovered Michels’ ‘‘iron law,’’ and complained: ‘‘If private associations themselves should be undemocratic [because of the iron law of oligarchy], … how can they be essential to democracy?’’ (pp. 122-123).The further development of the literature of political science explores with increasingly greater sophistication and alarm the actual effect of groups. The effect is not, as Tocqueville surmised, the empowerment of average people as their participation in groups makes them effective participants of the political system, but, rather, to solidify the dominant position of those who are already affluent and influential. Evaluating the celebrated idea of American ‘‘pluralism,’’ which heralds the role of groups as, in the words of David Truman, the ‘‘balance wheel in a going political system like that of the United States’’ (1951, pp. 514).E. E. Schattschneider lamented, ‘‘The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent’’ (1960/1975, pp. 34-35). Theodore J. Lowi decried the influence of special-interest groups in American policy-making as a distortion of democratic decision-making that he called ‘‘interest-group liberalism’’ (1979, p. 50).

– 97 –Even though groups of various kinds tend to promote the interests of the wealthy, their insatiable appetite for funds causes them to solicit dues and donations from people of modest means. These groups certainly include political parties, ideological groups, SuperPACs, and campaign committees. While, to be sure, political leaders tend to be wealthier than the average American, they send desperate solicitations to the masses to send money lest their political opponents inflict irreversible damage on the United States. The solicitations, written by shrewd fundraisers, contain shrill, disingenuous messages to alarm and inflame the recipients, who proceed to write checks as donations to the organizations. Undoubtedly, an immediate effect of these transactions is to transfer wealth from lower-middle and middle-class Americans to wealthier political operatives and fundraising professionals. Most vulnerable to these appeals are elderly citizens, who, confronted by the question, ‘‘What kind of country are we going to leave for our children and grandchildren?’’ write generous checks that they can often ill afford. Even the most casual observer can see that this economic activity has done little to create a better country, but it certainly has depleted the resources of working-class and retired Americans somewhat while it has allowed the organizations’ managers to prosper.In addition, this upper-class ‘‘accent’’ leans in a clearly corporate direction. This leaning can be demonstrated by examining the spending done by lobbyists at the federal level. Compiling data from the U.S. Senate Office of Public Records, The Center for Responsive Politics ranked various sectors of society by how much they spent on lobbying (Center for Responsive Politics, 2021a). In 2020, definably corporate sectors—health (dominated by pharmaceutical companies), finance/insurance/real estate, communications/electronics, energy/natural resources, transportation, agribusiness, defense contractors, construction, and other business interests—spent almost $3 billion on lobbying while non-corporate interests—ideological, single-issue (i.e., environmental, human rights, social issues), labor, education, public sector, religious interests, lawyers/lobbyists—spent about $428 million. In other words, corporate interests spent about seven times as much as did non-corporate interests.Case Study: The Self-Centered Behavior of Many Charity ExecutivesRelentless Begging for DonationsLet’s say you receive in the mail a solicitation for a donation for a charity, and you send them $25. Is the charity satisfied? Of course not!  The charity now

– 98 –suspects that you might own other money, and it will want that, too. You can expect to receive another solicitation from the charity within a few weeks. If you send more money, then a fundraiser for that charity may call you before too long, get you to admit you have $500 in your checking account, and persuade you to send them that $500. Is the charity satisfied now? Possibly, for the time being. But, in a few months or a year, they will suspect you have replenished your supply of money, and will want the next installment. The fundraiser might call you again and suggest that, for your and the charity’s mutual convenience, you should authorize a continuous $50 monthly transfer (by authorizing their use of your bank-account or credit-card number ). If you agree, the charity may eventually propose that you include in your will a bequest to the charity. In other words, the charity won’t be finished with you until you are dead.In his 1979 book Charity U. S. A., Carl Bakal wrote (p. 211):So ubiquitous is the Red Cross presence, particularly in connection with fundraising, that it is easy to believe the probably apocryphal story of the mountaineers stranded for days on some Alp who, upon seeing a Red Cross-armbanded rescue party approach, instinctively waved it away, shouting, “We gave!”But charity fundraisers understand that, to establish continuing relationships with donors, they need to cause donors to feel good about having donated. What would cause this good feeling? Well, let’s say you might like to enhance your social status. Many people would like enhancements like this. So donors might feel good about donating to a charity that appears to be successful and supported by influential people.One has good reason to be skeptical about the accuracy of the content of charities’ communications. Charity publicists and fundraisers are paid to manipulate the public, and the more persuasive they are, the more pay they will draw. They are certainly not paid to be scrupulously honest. Charities take advantage of Americans’ gullibility and depend on us not to check on their claims and, when the charities are caught doing scandalous things, to forget about them.News-media outlets aid and abet charities by promoting them on their news pages and during their news broadcasts and printing and airing their public service announcements at no charge. At the extreme, the news-media outlets get their own editors, writers, and on-air talent to solicit donations from readers, listeners, and viewers. These news-media outlets exaggerate the purity of the charities’ operatives and—what is even worse—underestimate charities’ misconduct.

– 99 –Taking Advantage of Gullible AmericansIt is typical American behavior to trust charities implicitly and to donate without asking questions about the motivations of the charities’ managers. In his 1979 book, Charity U. S. A., Carl Bakal reflected on the gullibility of Americans who, in studies conducted by newspapers and researchers, have been found to contribute willingly to a “Heroin Fund for Addicts,” an “American Communist Refugee Fund,” a “National Society for Twinkletoed Children,” a fund to “Help Buy Rustproof Switchblades for Juvenile Delinquents,” a “National Growth Foundation for African Pygmies,” and a “Fund for the Widow of the Unknown Soldier” (pp. 289290).Roberto Michels’ “Iron Law of Oligarchy” pertains to nonprofit organizations, most of which operate as oligarchies. It is safe to say that all large nonprofits operate as oligarchies. These oligarchical organizations tend to serve as instruments of elite privilege. Let’s say that a population of affluent individuals in a large city donates money to a symphony orchestra. When these donors donate, they deduct the amount of these donations from their amount of income that is taxable. Thus, the government receives less tax revenue from them—revenue that it could have used for social-service programs for disadvantaged people. Who benefit from the symphony? Typically, the audience of symphonic performances consists of affluent people. Not too many homeless individuals show up to hear a concert at symphony hall. Now consider this situation: Harvard University has an endowment fund whose investments total over $40 billion. When an affluent alumna of Harvard donates $10,000, her tax liability may decline by some $4000—money that the government cannot use to alleviate inequity and poverty. Little about the structure of the nonprofit sector gives us any reason to believe that the existence of nonprofit organizations serves the purpose of redistributing wealth from rich to poor and alleviating the suffering of society’s neediest people.In a case study about the American Red Cross (ARC), this chapter’s coauthor, Barry Friedman (1997), describes an incident in which new disaster-relief volunteers in White County, Ga., struggled to become productive and disaster-ready while the executive director and some board members conspired to deprive them of access to such resources as staff support. (A major purpose of a charity’s paid staff is to provide information and other resources that enable the volunteers to do what they are supposed to do.)  When these volunteers became aware of the conspiracy and protested it, the board cracked down on them and terminated the volunteer status of three individuals, including Friedman. Their appeals to the state, regional, and national levels of the ARC caused the leadership to circle the wagons and stymie the volunteers’ efforts by putting in place a veil of secrecy.

– 100 –The dignitaries on the chapter board—business owners, bankers, lawyers, etc.—could not identify with the field volunteers, who aspired to donate a lot more of their volunteer labor than the dignitaries were prepared to give. Threatened by the volunteers’ desire to be active and to participate in decision-making and disaster planning, the executive director, chairman of the board, members of the executive committee, and other board members preferred to insult, browbeat, frustrate, and chase away the volunteers and perpetuate the chapter’s pathetically insufficient disaster-relief force. When two of the volunteers were invited to meet with the two board members whose title was “chairmen of volunteers,” and stated that the disrespect for volunteers would leave the chapter bereft of sufficient volunteer participation to cope with the needs of disaster relief, the board members replied contemptuously, “There will always be volunteers.” That is to say, the Red Cross will always be able to attract new people who assume that the organizers will relate to them in good faith. “Perfect information”—an assumption of the free marketplace—is hard to come by. The volunteers in Northeast Georgia are certainly not the only ones to offer their volunteer labor and find themselves the targets of mean-spiritedness. There are former Red Cross volunteers all over the United States who describe the same kind of experience. Here are two observations:• This case study about the ARC is not meant to suggest that the Red Cross is unique in its treatment of volunteers. The literature review makes the clear point that this abuse is common in nonprofits that recruit volunteers.• Nobody should approach a nonprofit organization, offer generous gifts of money and volunteer labor, and expect to find managers who will respond with a commensurate level of generosity of spirit. Ask questions. Probe by asking about “what if” scenarios. Ask to see minutes of the last several board meetings!  Protect yourself from exploitation and disappointment. Use the rule of caveat emptor that applies to purchases from for-profit firms.Secrecy vs. TransparencyThe perpetuation of corruption is the product of secrecy. Nonprofit operatives who are benefiting personally from organization resources depend on secrecy. Under the cover of secrecy, those who practice corruption are not subject to the pressures of stakeholders who might otherwise intervene in the misconduct. One might wonder why a nonprofit organization needs secrecy. Perhaps there are personnel matters that require secrecy. Perhaps there are pending real-estate transactions that require secrecy. But why should anything about the character

– 101 –of revenues and expenditures be shrouded in secrecy? Why should the decisions made during board meetings be shrouded in secrecy? What can possibly be the rationale for confidentiality in a nonprofit’s proceedings? Friedman and North Georgia alumna Amanda M. Main (2015) assert that charities should publicize their minutes of their board meetings. Examine the Web sites of some charities and notice how many of them have links to such minutes. It rarely happens. Friedman and Main contacted leaders of 17 organizations in Dahlonega, Ga. In every case, the leaders said that, if asked, they would disclose their minutes to anyone who requested access to them. Why should anyone donate to a charity that opts to conceal its decision-making process? Why don’t the Better Business Bureau and Charity Navigator include charities’ willingness to publicize minutes of board meetings when they rate the charities? Why doesn’t the IRS require charities to make their minutes public? Perhaps, if a charity asks you to donate, you should request a copy of the minutes of the most recent board meeting. If the charity withholds the minutes from you, perhaps you should withhold your money from the charity. If a board is doing its job responsibly, it should be proud to display its minutes to the public.Ethics and transparency go hand in hand. Americans ought to insist on both from nonprofit organizations and give a wide berth to those that prefer secrecy.The Misguided Character of State Corporation LawsCommon provisions of state laws impose on board members the duties of care, loyalty, and obedience. As Tschirhart and Bielefeld (2012, pp. 204205) explain the duty of loyalty, they state:Once a board has made a decision, each board member is expected to stand behind it or resign from the board. However, board members may still wish to record their dissent from a decision on the record. This may protect them from personal liability if this decision is later found to be in violation of board duties or connected to illegal activities. Board members are also expected to respect confidentiality in relation to the nonprofit’s legitimate activities.The implication of this legal mandate is that there is no room for dissent in board deliberations. Board members believing that the majority is doing something improper, can acquiesce to the misconduct or quit. Even if they quit, they are legally constrained from telling anyone, even other members and field volunteers of the organization, about their objections. This makes it impossible for the organization’s members and field volunteers to intervene in organizational

– 102 –misconduct that is being kept a secret from them. How does this situation promote accountability? What kind of transparency can this be? How can this possibly serve the public interest?A dissident board member may report misconduct to law-enforcement officials, the state’s attorney general’s office, and/or the U. S. Internal Revenue Service. The IRS even has a form, Form 13909, “Tax-Exempt Organization Complaint (Referral) Form.” The board is unlikely to successfully sue a dissident for blowing the whistle by truthfully notifying these government authorities about misconduct. However, if the dissident discloses the misconduct by informing organization members or the local newspaper, the board can sue for violation of duty of loyalty. Incidentally, a dissident’s whistle-blowing report to government authorities rarely results in repercussions to the nonprofit organization. Law-enforcement officials are much too busy arresting folks for possession of half an ounce of marijuana. The IRS doesn’t have nearly enough personnel to review complaints. As an IRS agent once said about submissions of Form 13909, “We get thousands of them.”Comedian Jerry Lewis served as the chairman of the board of the Muscular Dystrophy Association for decades and hosted annual fundraising telethons from 1952 to 2010. He raised $2.6 billion in the process. In 2011, the association announced that Lewis had been ousted from his volunteer-leadership position and banished from the Labor Day telethon. Why? The association has never divulged the reason, and Lewis was uncharacteristically silent. Many observers have wondered whether Lewis had developed doubt about the association’s progress in discovering a cure for muscular dystrophy after $2.6 billion had been raised for that purpose. An August 20, 2017, CBS News obituary written by Justin Carissimo reported:The money led to longer life spans for those patients, but it didn’t buy a cure. At times, Lewis could only watch as the disease claimed the lives of children.“The days and hours I spent in hospital hallways waiting for the answer of this child—was he going to live or die? And I took it very personal,” Lewis told CBS News in 2016. “How could he die? Look at the work I’ve done. And what did we do with all that money? Why don’t we use it to help him?” [emphasis added].But Lewis couldn’t say any more than that because of the confidentiality rule. Let’s consider this question: Why should the public know why Lewis and the MDA’s board had this parting of the ways? If we don’t know, then how are

– 103 –Americans supposed to make an informed decision about whether to donate to the MDA? Remember that the capitalist model assumes that the parties to a transaction have perfect information. In the MDA case, there cannot be perfect information, because the laws muzzled Jerry Lewis. The theory of scholarship about the nonprofit sector is that it is designed to serve the interests of the entire public. In reality, the system is not designed to do any such thing but is, instead, designed to satisfy an elite community that controls nonprofit organizations, not to mention the other significant institutions of American society.The Influence of Groups in Public PolicymakingLobbyingCountless interest groups have been established to influence public policymaking in the national government. If you plan to visit Washington, D. C., consider taking a walk along K Street. Enter the buildings, and look at the list of groups that appear on each building’s directory. You will notice that a lot of the groups that occupy space in the buildings are called ‘‘American ______ Association’’ and ‘‘Center for _______.’’ These groups have set up shop in the nation’s capital to lobby Congress and other government officials and to obtain public policies that will benefit or satisfy them. Of course, maintaining an office in Washington and staffing it are costly matters, so that the upper class is disproportionately represented in this competition to influence policymaking. The business community is amply engaged at numerous points of contact in this frenzy of lobbying activity.One of the challenges facing these groups is knowing how to play the game. All the money, expertise, and effort a group has may go to waste if it does not know the whos, hows, and whens of lobbying. To assist them, an entire community of professional lobbying firms also line K Street. These firms are not dedicated to any causes—their value lies in both their knowledge of the policy process and (more importantly) their connections to it. They are populated with highly-paid former members of Congress and ex-congressional and Executive Branch staffers. What makes these people so valuable is their knowledge of the process and especially their connections to current members of the Legislative and Executive Branches. A former member of Congress has access to many places in the Capitol to which others do not. This advantage gives them a chance to buttonhole current members that ordinary interest-group members do not have. The ‘‘revolving door’’ of legislators and staffers going from government to lobbying firms (and back again) has become a regular feature in Washington, D. C. The high price

– 104 –of these professional lobbyists also limits their availability to upper-class and corporate clients.LOBBYISTS HELPING LOBBYISTS: Sometimes, interests and their lobbies form unlikely allies. T.R. Reid (1980) describes a situation in the late 1970s in which railroad lines and environmentalists both favored a waterway user charge for barge lines and opposed funding to rebuild a major Mississippi River Lock and Dam in Alton, Ill. The environmentalists were concerned about the ecological impact while the railroads were battling a competitor in the transportation business. The railroad companies were flush with lobbying cash while the environmentalists were not (see the earlier discussion of the free-rider problem). Yet railroads were hesitant to spend a lot for fear of being dismissed as a self-interested competitor with a financial stake. They thought that environmental lobbying could have a greater impact because these groups had no direct financial or business interest in the policies. However, the railroads could not contribute funds directly to the environmentalists because they were equally big (if not bigger) polluters as were the barge lines. Environmental groups would not take their money. The railroads’ chief lobbyist got an idea.He conjured, out of thin air, a new organization, for which he created a name (The Council for a Sound Waterways Policy), an address (a vacant office down the hall in the Western Railroads Building), and a bank account. Each month he transferred some money from the railroads’ lobbying fund to the Council, and the Council, in turn, transferred a monthly grant to environmental groups lobbying for waterway charges and against the Alton project…. For the environmental groups, this arrangement was just right. They could continue their work without ever acknowledging that they were accepting money from a major polluter (Reid, 1980, pp. 50-51).The funding for the non-corporate environmentalists was now coming in large part from a major corporate interest. So, the corporate bias discussed earlier is likely even greater than the data may indicate.Interest Groups in the Iron TriangleDavid Truman (1951) maintained that interest groups have an extensive influence in public policymaking in the United States (see a detailed description of his analysis in Chapter 12). Another analysis is widely known among scholars and students in the field of political science. This analysis features the ‘‘subgovernment model of public policy.’’ Cater and Freeman discussed this theory in their 1964

– 105 –and 1965 works, respectively. This subgovernment model states that, in each area of public policy, there is a subgovernment that dominates policymaking in that policy area. The famous illustration of subgovernment is the iron triangle (see Figure 5.1).Figure 5.1: Iron TrianglesConstituent ServicesMoney & AuthorityFavorable RegulationSupport by LobbyingInformation & VotesFavorable LegislationInterest GroupCongressional CommitteeExecutive AgencyFor example, in the policy area of agriculture, the partners in the iron triangle are as follows: congressional committees, the standing Agriculture Committees; executive agency, the Department of Agriculture; and interest groups, the American Farm Bureau Federation, among others. The theory is that these partners take control of policymaking in the policy area of agriculture, while other officials and citizens pay little attention to the making of agricultural policy.Meanwhile, other iron triangles dominate policymaking in other areas. In the policy area of veterans’ benefits, the partners are as follows: congressional committees, the standing Veterans’ Affairs Committees; executive agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs; and interest groups, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and others. Again, these partners take control of policymaking in the policy area of veterans’ benefits, while the partners in the agriculture iron triangle pay little attention to the making of veterans’-benefits policy.

– 106 –If this model is accurate—and many political scientists have found it to be very persuasive over the years—the motivation of people to establish and operate interest groups becomes perfectly clear. Participating in an iron-triangle partnership can be extraordinarily beneficial for the partners, while those who are not involved in these mutually beneficial arrangements are condemned to pay the taxes that finance the benefits that the iron-triangle partners are enjoying. No enterprising individual or group will be content for very long to be left out of the process by which the pie is divided and the pieces are distributed to those who are actively playing the game.Interest Groups and LitigationMany groups—notably public-interest groups—set out to influence policy by going ‘‘over the heads’’ of the president and Congress, and filing lawsuits in the judiciary. This tactic accounts for much of the influence that public-interest lawyer Ralph Nader and his ‘‘Public Citizen’’ public-interest law firms have been able to exert. While Nader’s interests have been far-reaching, he is best known as an activist for consumer protection. For example, when in 1972 Nader was ‘‘bumped’’ from a flight that Allegheny Airlines had deliberately overbooked, Nader retaliated against the airline by filing a lawsuit in the case of Nader v. Allegheny Airlines, Inc., 426 U.S. 290 (1976), accusing the airline of concealing its policy of overbooking. Nader collected $25,000 in punitive damages, as did an organization of his creation—the Connecticut Citizens’ Action Group—whose meeting Nader, the would-be guest speaker, was unable to address when Allegheny refused to board him. Today, of course, an airline will do anything within its power to find ‘‘volunteers’’ who are willing to give up their seats to ticket-holders whose travel plans are inflexible. Many policies in the areas of consumer protection, worker protection, environmental protection, and so forth have come about through litigation filed by interest groups.Delegations of Raw Government PowerCongress and the state legislatures sometimes delegate raw government power to certain kinds of interest groups. This occurrence happens most commonly when one of these legislatures empowers a professional association of some kind to determine who will be licensed to practice the profession.Often . . . the exercise of licensing powers is delegated to ‘‘private’’ associations, even though the coercive power involved is that of a state. In the clearest case of

– 107 –this sort an association receives direct delegation; in other cases professional or trade associations are given the power to nominate personnel, virtually as a form of representation, to official licensing boards (bar associations, for example) and, on occasion, to policy-making boards (McConnell, 1967, p. 147).The licensing power is an extremely significant form of influence over economic activity. For example, the American Bar Association has a keen interest in the licensing of lawyers and the accreditation of law schools, for such reasons as erecting barriers to entry into the profession in order to limit competition and sustain the levels of their fees. McConnell writes:The practice of giving public authority—sometimes formally but often in practice—to private associations of professionals is quite old. As early as 1859 the North Carolina legislature enacted that ‘‘the association of regularly graduated physicians . . . is hereby declared to be a body politic and corporate,’’ with ‘‘power to appoint the body of medical examiners’’ (1967, p. 188).While one might find the licensing of physicians and dentists to have some justification as a method of protecting the public from incompetent practitioners, the practice of licensing, often controlled by the members of the profession and trade, extends into a variety of fields for questionable reasons.. . . [T]he list of activities frequently given state authority to regulate the qualifications of their members also includes barbers, hairdressers (‘‘cosmetologists’’), dry cleaners, funeral directors, cemetery salesmen, and many others. Even garage mechanics have attempted to gain such standing. Clearly, protection of the job market, which has been behind much trade unionism, forms a large part of the motivation to establish under state authority licensing systems effectively controlled by members of a given vocation (McConnell, 1967, p. 189).Going Public, Grassroots, and ‘‘Astroturf’’Legislators may or may not listen directly to interest groups (who may sometimes be discounted or dismissed as unrepresentative of the general population), but they will frequently listen to public opinion. The quest for reelection means constantly pleasing the voters. Recognizing this idea, many groups attempt to influence public opinion in addition to trying to directly influence government. In the age of modern media, ‘‘going public’’—as it is often

– 108 –called—is an increasingly popular strategy that may take several forms:• Advertising: Trade and issue groups will try to build a favorable public image through advertising. One of the more successful ad campaigns is the dairy industry’s ‘‘Got Milk?’’ ads (i.e., see https://www.gotmilk.com/). Look carefully at the ads. They are not designed to sell one company’s brand of milk. They are designed to build support for the overall dairy industry. Their hope is that these ads will pressure governments to support policies favorable to a ‘‘popular’’ industry. Other ad campaigns may involve more naked attempts to pressure governments for favorable action. In 2021, the National Association of Manufacturers (https://www.nam.org) ran a series of ads to pressure the federal government into enacting tax policies favorable to manufacturers. Its ads raised the specter of job losses and other calamities if Congress did not do what it wanted (see: https://www.nam.org/manufacturers-launch-ad-campaign-to-protect-american-jobs-13411/?stream=series-press-releases). In addition to broad advertising, groups may try to build support with narrower direct mail or email campaigns in which they obtain lists of customer addresses from companies that they believe their potential supporters will patronize (i.e., if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, you are a good target for business, Republican-leaning, and conservative groups), and send out information to those customers.• Letters, phone calls, and emails: As they build favorable public opinion, groups will also encourage supporters to take action. One of the simplest forms of action is to have supporters contact government officials by mail, phone, or email. The New York branch of the AIDS policy organization ACT-UP explains the value of letter-writing campaigns:Letter-writing and post card campaigns, like phone and fax zaps, are a direct means of letting public officials and others know how you feel about a particular issue and what you want them to do. Like phone calls, they are counted and often used by politicians or agency heads to justify their actions. Without taking personal responsibility, they can then claim they were ‘‘responding to their constituencies.’’ (ACT-UP New York, 2000).Notice their suggestion that this kind of contact not only helps pressure officials into action but also provides them with some cover as

– 109 –well. Phone calls and emails work much the same way.Rallies and protests: As with letters, phone calls, and emails, rallies and protests are a way of turning public support into action. They are often used by groups with fewer resources, as the main costs—time, transportation, bullhorns, and hand-signs—are much less expensive than media ads, billboards, and professional lobbyists. The purpose of most rallies and protests is to gain the attention of government officials and the news media in the hopes of building further support for a cause. It should also be noted that, in many instances, these gatherings provide as much of a cathartic experience for their participants as anything else. CODE PINK—AN EXAMPLE: Code Pink is a grassroots, anti-war organization comprised largely of women (see http://www.codepink.org/about). Its tactics include interrupting events with shouts and large signs. During the 2016 election, they condemned both major presidential candidates as “war hawks” (Gupta, 2016, para.7). Some members interrupted former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s Republican Convention speech by shouting and holding up large signs decrying the party’s “hate” and “Islamophobia” (Norton, 2016, para.6). Similarly, other members disrupted New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Democratic Convention speech, decrying his support for Israel (Vielkind, 2016, para.9).‘‘Grassroots’’ and its evil twin, ‘‘Astroturf’’: Sometimes the public seemingly will act on its own, with little or no aid from organizing groups. This type of spontaneity is known as grassroots activity (as in, from the bottom up). Grassroots activity generally consists of the letters, phone calls, emails, rallies, and protests described above. New laws or proposed legislation may energize people to contact their legislators in support or opposition. They may gather in public to protest, as Code Pink often does. Interest groups may encourage these activities or use them as a springboard for their own activities. Grassroots activities may appear to be democracy at its purest—but sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Knowing the value of public opinion to lawmakers, interest groups may try to artificially generate activity that appears to be grassroots. That is, what look like grassroots letter-writing campaigns or spontaneous protests may actually be carefully planned and orchestrated by interest groups. These activities have been derisively (but not inaccurately) referred to as ‘‘Astroturf’’ (get it? fake grass!). In a 1996 PBS documentary, Hedrick Smith interviews

– 110 –the head of a professional public-relations firm that generates these kinds of campaigns (Smith, 1996): HEDRICK SMITH [VOICE OVER]: Usually, business is targeting Congress.JACK BONNER/PRES., BONNER & ASSOCIATES: They want 100 phone calls, 20 calls into a senator, 25 letters, 200 letters to a particular member of the House.SMITH: So you have 300 phone lines, that means you can have 300 people out of here at one time?BONNER: The biggest thing we ever did we were doing six thousand patch through phone calls a day to the Hill.HEDRICK SMITH [VOICE OVER]: Patch through phone calls are a hot item for Bonner and leading edge lobbyists. Bonner’s staff phones ordinary citizens, sells them on a client’s issue, and when successful, immediately patches the call through to their senator or house member, while the mood is hot.SMITH: If they’re on the side of the issue your client wants, they get patched through?BONNER: Right.SMITH: If they’re on the other side of the issue, what happens to them?BONNER: What’s your guess?SMITH: They get dropped.BONNER: That’s right.[Source: http://www.hedricksmith.com/site_powergame/files/uneltrans.html.]So be wary. What appears to be grassroots activity may be democracy at its purest—or it may be Astroturf at its most artificial!Groups and Election CampaignsOne way in which groups may increase their chances of obtaining favorable policies is to help put the ‘‘right’’ people in office in the first place by getting involved in election campaigns. The further benefit of this is that officials who arguably owe their election to groups’ support may feel gratitude for that support. This gratitude, in turn, may influence their policy positions in ways beneficial to the groups.The most common electoral strategy is campaign spending. This spending may take the forms of either contributions to parties and candidates or direct spending

– 111 –in support of candidates. To address the concern among many Progressives in the early 1900s that politicians were ‘‘bought’’ by corporate money, the 1907 Tillman Act outlawed corporate campaign contributions. The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act also outlawed labor-union contributions. In addition to those laws, many others in the first half of the twentieth century established a patchwork of regulations on money in elections. Following the 1968 presidential election and during the 1972 election and the Watergate scandal, there was still public concern regarding the influence of wealthy individuals and groups over elections.Congress enacted a set of laws known as the Federal Election Campaign Acts (FECA) in the early 1970s to• Set strict limits on individual and group contributions to parties and candidates.• Require the public reporting of contributions.• Require groups to register with the federal government before they can contribute.• Limit the spending of presidential and congressional candidates.• Set up a system of public funding for presidential elections.• Create an independent agency, the Federal Election Commission (FEC), to administer and enforce the regulations.See Chapter 6 for more details on the FECA.Political Action CommitteesWhile law forbids corporations and unions from contributing to candidates’ campaign committees, the FECA formalized their members’ ability to create political action committees (PACs) for the purpose of raising money to contribute to campaigns. These PACs (the legislation actually refers to them as ‘‘multi-candidate committees’’) must register with the FEC before they can raise and contribute money, and they are limited to contributing a maximum of $5,000 per candidate, per election. To qualify as a PAC, they must support at least five candidates.The number of PACs has grown dramatically, from fewer than 1,000 in the mid-1970s to over 4,000 today, with the bulk of that increase coming in trade association and non-connected (ideological and issue-oriented) PACs (Campaign Finance Institute, 2016). Consistent with the upper-class and corporate biases discussed earlier, the greatest amount of spending on campaigns by far comes from corporate and trade-association PACs. FEC data from 2020 indicate that corporate and trade-association PACs spent almost 60% more than labor and non-connected PACs combined (U.S. Federal Election Commission, 2021).

– 112 –FOLLOW THE MONEY: PACs differ in their goals and strategies. Paul Herrnson (2016) describes three PAC strategies: access, ideological, and mixed. The bottom-line goal of access PACs is to influence legislation. They like winners, so they contribute most often to incumbents and to sympathetic candidates in close elections (where the extra money may make the difference). They do not wish to waste resources on challengers with little chance of getting elected. Most corporations pursue an access-oriented strategy. Ideological PACs wish ‘‘to increase the number of legislators who share their broad political perspective or position on specific, often emotionally charged issues …’’ (Herrnson, 2016, p. 147). Most of their contributions go to sympathetic candidates in close elections, but they are far more likely than access PACs to contribute to sympathetic challengers as well. Most non-connected (issue or ideological) PACs pursue this strategy. PACs pursuing a mixed strategy will make some contributions to candidates sharing their views, and some contributions to incumbents ‘‘to improve their access to legislators’’ (Herrnson, 2016, p. 149). Most unions pursue a mixed strategy.Beyond PACs: ‘‘Soft Money,” 527 Groups, and ‘‘Super PACs’’Restrictions placed on political-party spending by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002 (see Chapter 6) opened the way for vastly-increased spending by groups in recent elections. The law restricted the ability of parties to raise and spend unregulated ‘‘soft money,’’ and restricted their ability to run ‘‘issue ads.’’ However, no such restrictions were placed on interest groups. Party activists, now restricted by BCRA, simply shifted their activity to outside groups. Given the exponentially growing costs of campaigns, PACs were not an attractive alternative, given their $5000-per-candidate, per-election limitation. Activists found their answer in tax-exempt ‘‘527’’ groups (named for Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code). These groups are technically not allowed to engage in campaign activity.However, FEC and court decisions established that soft money and issue ads do not amount to campaign activity as long as they do not expressly advocate the election or defeat of candidates. What seals the deal is that these decisions also said that candidate names and images could be used in soft-money-funded issue ads without violating the campaign restriction.In recent years, whole new classes of groups have formed to keep interests involved in the big-money world of modern campaigns. The latest creation is the ‘‘Super PAC.’’ These are officially known as independent expenditure-only committees, and they

– 113 –may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, then spend unlimited sums to overtly advocate for or against political candidates. Unlike traditional PACs, super PACs are prohibited from donating money directly to political candidates, and their spending must not be coordinated with that of the candidates they benefit. Super PACs are required to report their donors to the Federal Election Commission on a monthly or semiannual basis—the super PAC’s choice—in off-years, and monthly in the year of an election (Center for Responsive Politics, 2021b).In addition, the restrictions placed on corporations (and presumably unions) have been upended by the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (130 S.Ct. 876). The court said that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend money from their own treasuries to expressly support the election or defeat of candidates, which the BCRA had forbidden (though they are still forbidden from contributing to campaigns, and their members’ PACs still face contribution limits).Other ActivitiesWhile spending dominates the election-related activity of interest groups, there are other ways in which members may get involved. Group members may volunteer their time and effort to candidates. Supportive candidates may recruit volunteers for groups to help with information and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) activities. This often involves staffing phone banks, operating computers, or stuffing envelopes. Given their place among the workforce, union members are especially able to help candidates they support by going door-to-door throughout their communities, encouraging residents to vote for their candidates.Discussion Questions1. Discuss the history of interest groups. Why do they exist at all?2. Tocqueville said that America is a nation of joiners. What did he mean? Investigate other nations to see whether they differ from the United States.3. Contact a local interest group or the local chapter of a larger group. A number of groups may be found at this site: https://www.twyman-whitney.com/americancitizen/links/lobbies.htm. What are their goals? What are their strategies for achieving those goals?4. Examine the data on the ‘‘revolving door’’ by going to the OpenSecrets.

– 114 –org Web site. Under the ‘‘Influence & Lobbying’’ menu, click on ‘‘Revolving Door.’’ On the left-hand menu, click on ‘‘Lobbying Firms,’’ and select one of the firms. You will see a list of its lobbyists. Examine the lobbyists’ employment timeline and history. In addition, there are tabs for information on the industries they represent and their expertise. Examine several lobbyists’ profiles. What do you see? Did they spend time in government service before their current employment as a lobbyist? If so, explore their time in government. Does it appear related to their expertise and/or their clients? Can you make the case that their past government work constitutes a current asset to their lobbying work?ReferencesACT-UP New York. (2000). Letter Campaigns. Accessed February 22, 2011, at https://www.actupny.org/documents/LW.html.Bakal, C. (1979). Charity U.S.A. New York: Times Books.Campaign Finance Institute. (2016). Number Political Action Committees Making Contribution to Candidates, 1976-2016. Retrieved June 14, 2021 from https://www.cfinst.org/pdf/vital/VitalStats_t9.pdf. Carissimo, Justin. (2017). “Jerry Lewis, legendary comedian and actor, dies at 91.” CBS News, August 20. Retrieved on June 9, 2020, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jerry-lewis-legendary-comedian-and-actor-dies-at-91/.Cater, D. (1964). Power in Washington. New York: Random House.Center for Responsive Politics. (2021a). Influence & Lobbying: Ranked Sectors. Accessed June 14, 2021 from https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/ranked-sectors?cycle=2020.Center for Responsive Politics. (2021b). Super PACs. Retrieved June 14, 2021 from https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/super-pacs/2020. de Tocqueville, A. (1945). Democracy in America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.Freeman, J. L. (1965). The political process. New York: Random House.Friedman, Barry D. (1997). Cracking Down on Red Cross Volunteers: How American Red Cross Officials Crushed an Insurrection by Agitated, Mistreated Volunteers in Northeast Georgia. Retrieved on June 9, 2020, from https://faculty.UNG.edu/bfriedman/Studies/REDXcd.htm. Also available from the Chapter 5 documents section of the textbook ancillary web site: https://upnorthgeorgia.org/amergovt/.__________, and Main, Amanda M. (2015). Transparency in Nonprofit

– 115 –Organizations: Public Access to Meetings of Board Meetings. Retrieved on June 9, 2020, from https://faculty.UNG.edu/bfriedman/Studies/TransMin.html. Also available from the Chapter 5 documents section of the textbook ancillary web site: https://upnorthgeorgia.org/amergovt/.Gupta, Prachi. (2016). Why This Women’s Group Is Protesting at Both Conventions. Cosmopolitan. June 20, 2016. Retrieved April 12, 2017 from https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a61574/code-pink-rnc-protesters/.Herrnson, Paul. S. (2016). Congressional Elections: Campaigning at Home and in Washington. 7th ed. Washington, D. C.: CQ Press.Lowi, T. J. (1979). The end of liberalism: Ideology, policy, and the crisis of public authority. (2nd ed.). New York: W.W. Norton.Madison, J. (1788/2001). The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection. The Federalist 10. G. W. Carey & J. McClellan (Eds.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.McConnell, G. (1966). Private power and American democracy. New York: Albert A. Knopf.Michels, R. (1911). Political parties: A sociological study on the oligarchical tendencies of modern democracy. Tübingen, Germany: J.C.B. Mohr.Norton, Ben. (2016). Protesters disrupt RNC with anti-racist, anti-war, environmentalist messages. Salon. July 19, 2016. Retrieved April 12, 2017 from https://www.salon.com/2016/07/19/protesters_disrupt_rnc_with_anti_racist_anti_war_environmentalist_messages/.Olson, Mancur. (1971). The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press._____. (1982). The Rise and Decline of Nations. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Reid, T.R. (1980). Congressional Odyssey: The Saga of a Senate Bill. New York: W.H. Freeman & Company.Samuelson, P. A. (1954). The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure. Review of Economics and Statistics 36(November): 387-389.Schattschneider, E. E. (1960/1975). The semisovereign people: A realist’s view of democracy in America. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press.Smith, Hedrick (producer). (1996). The Unelected: The Media & The Lobbies. The People & The Power Game. PBS. Online transcript accessed February 22, 2011, at https://www.hedricksmith.com/site_powergame/files/uneltrans.html.Truman, D. B. (1951). The governmental process: Political interests and public opinion. New York: Albert A. Knopf.

– 116 –Tschirhart, Mary, and Bielefeld, Wolfgang. (2012). Managing Nonprofit Organizations. San Francisco: JosseyBass.U.S. Federal Election Commission. (2021). PAC Contributions to Candidates. Retrieved June 14, 2021 from https://www.fec.gov/resources/campaign-finance-statistics/2020/tables/pac/PAC2_2020_24m.pdf.Vielkind, Jimmy. (2016). At convention, separate tracks for Cuomo and de Blasio. Politico. July 27, 2016. Retrieve April 12, 2017 from https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2016/07/at-convention-separate-tracks-for-cuomo-and-de-blasio-104258.Court CasesNader v. Allegheny Airlines, Inc., 426 U.S. 290 (1976)Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 130 S.Ct. 876 (2010)

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