pt 3: the lobbying puzzle and Hall & Deardorff - Legislative Subsidy

“why so little money in politics?”

• Federal budget: $6+ trillion

• Combined lobbying + contributions: <0.1% of stakes

• Americans spend comparable amounts on candy!

• Puzzle: If money buys policy, why isn’t there much more of it?

More Puzzling Patterns

• Lobbyists overwhelmingly target legislators who already agree—not opponents

• Public interest groups without PACs get extensive access

• 3 of 4 studies find no significant effect of contributions on roll call votes

• Party and ideology predict votes far better than contributions

Key insight - hall & deardorff

Lobbying is primarily a legislative subsidy—help provided to legislators who already support the group’s goals.

three types of subsidies

policy information, political intelligence, and legislative labor

policy information

• research, analysis

• technical expertise

political intelligence

• vote counts, strategy

• coalition information

legislative labor

• bill drafting

• testimony, talking points

why target allies?

Helping allies be more effective champions is more valuable than trying to change opponents’ minds.

• Budget-centered (affects time allocation), not preference-centered (changing minds).

the normative paradox

“Representation is compromised without individual representatives being compromised.” Some constituencies get more subsidies than others.