POLS 101 1st Edition Lecture 21Outline of Last Lecture I. Interest Groups- Electioneering II. Why do we have so many interest groups?Outline of Current Lecture I. Resources of Interest Groups- NonfinancialII. Financial Resources of Interest GroupsIII. Models that explain how Interest Groups and other Political Actors InteractCurrent LectureI. Resources that make it likelier for Interest Groups to have influence- NonfinancialA. Large membership of an interest group to have influence- motivated members will vote, legislators know those who are the most motivated to vote, some interest groups are very effective in motivating members to contact legislators. When legislators hear from their constituents they listen. AARP- has 35 million members, some member’s join to get insurance as a private policy to extend coverage, not every member is politically active, and members receive a tangible benefits. Legislators are reluctant to move forward with law that would hurt AARP members.B. Cohesive Group- Groups with one-issue focus makes it easier for interest groups to get all members to support. Members of the group have opinions with INTENSITY, are more likely to work to support focus of IG. Examples of groups with strong opinions of public- National right to life (making abortion illegal), PEETA. Members of these groups have intensity and strongly care about their issue.C. Demographics- IG’s with members who are more wealthy and older have more influence. People most likely to vote. II. Financial Resources of IG’sA. Groups with more money to spend can engage in more lobbying, may be able to afford to goto D.C. law firm that has lobbyists and utilize their resources. Group can spend more money to pay the staff members to be more effective. An interest group with money to spend an example is “The Business Round Table”, composed of 150 CEO’s and executives of large U.S. companies. In 2009, this group had 13 million dollars to spend on lobbying. B. Money is a wonderful thing to have IG’s influence and to be effective but it is not everything.These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.C. EARMARK- on a bill, putting a specific provision provison of a bill that helps a particular set of constituents to get them to vote for it, legislators use this frequently, to get bill passed, getting many people to be in favor of it because it benefits them in some way. Earmarks usually have to due with. In the senate the earmarks on bills have to be Germaine, or relatedto the main goal of the bill. III. Models- Explain how interest groups and other political actors interact, limit or help interest group influence. A. IRON TRIANGLE: An attempt to sketch out in a brief form, the influence interest groups have,Interest groups in the top point of the triangle, the triangle is focused on one particular type of policy. Examples of types of legislation using Iron Triangles- water projects, sugar beat growers. Another leg on the triangle is an agency, federal agencies that are committed to getting money for projects such as army corps. Engineers. The third leg of the triangle is senators, representatives, and subcommittees. They all promote the project together. Iron triangles were more common 1930’s -1950’s on policies that were not very popular, under the public radar. The Iron Triangles were more popular because they were less competing interest groups. B. ISSUE NETWORK: More common in this day and age, came about because there are more participating interests than previous. More diverse group of individuals and organizations within an issue network, differing opinions and disagreement in an interest network becausethey all want different thingsC. Interest group in iron triangle is more effective than in an interest
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