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Vol.:(0123456789)
Interest Groups & Advocacy (2024) 13:73–95
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-024-00202-0
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Lobbying venue selection underseparation ofpowers
andresource constraints
LaGinaGause1 · GeoreyM.Lorenz2
Accepted: 13 February 2024 / Published online: 15 March 2024
© The Author(s) 2024
Abstract
Prior work examines how organization resources and types shape venue selec-
tion strategies. Both Congress and executive branch agencies can change policy,
so interest groups must consider which of these venues to lobby on a given issue.
We argue that factors in the political environment—venues’ issue priorities and the
power of groups’ allies in a venue—influence how groups with different resource
constraints select lobbying venues. Examining over one million issue-level lob-
bying disclosures filed between 2008 and 2016, we find that low-resource groups
strategically lobby the venue(s) controlled by partisan allies and respond to the
government’s and public’s issue priorities. Meanwhile, high-resource groups more
often lobby all venues relevant to their issues regardless of the political environ-
ment, especially on issues gaining significant attention within government but not
in the public. Our findings suggest that separation of powers provides high-resource
groups more venues to lobby for favored policies. Conversely, low-resource groups
strategically only lobby venues they have the potential to influence.
Keywords Interest groups· Lobbying· Venue selection· Inequality· Public policy
Interest groups seeking to defend or challenge a status quo policy must decide not
just how but where to lobby. At the US federal level, the constitutional separation
of powers ensures that the policy status quo is the product of many different gov-
ernmental actors. For example, Congress might authorize a new program only to
see it implemented minimally by executive branch bureaucrats. Even within a single
branch, differences between congressional committees or executive branch agencies
can make them more or less attractive for particular interest groups’ lobbying. Thus,
to attain and maintain their desired policy outcomes, organized interest groups may
* LaGina Gause
lgause@ucsd.edu
1 Political Science, University ofCalifornia San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive #0521, LaJolla, CA,
92093, USA
2 Political Science, University ofNebraska-Lincoln, Oldfather 511, Lincoln, NE68588, USA
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74
L.Gause, G.M.Lorenz
need to target different venues at different times and across different issues. How do
organized interest groups decide where to lobby?
Venues vary widely in the interests they prioritize, even when ideologically simi-
lar policymakers control them and are located in the same branch of government
(Talbert etal. 1995). Moreover, policymakers and organized interests opposed to a
group’s interests may dominate some venues more than others (Holyoke etal. 2012;
Constantelos 2010). These differences across venues can give groups alternatives
to lobbying venues dominated by opposing interests (Holyoke 2003) and give them
much to gain from identifying and targeting friendly venues. Even though groups
might want to lobby all relevant venues all the time, they often do not. Organiza-
tional factors often constrain venue strategies (Pralle 2003), especially groups’
resources available for lobbying (McKay 2011; Boehmke etal. 2013). While dis-
parities in group resources are often criticized for allowing groups to hire more lob-
byists and lobby on more issues (Schlozman etal. 2018; Hojnacki etal. 2015), sepa-
ration of powers gives higher-resource groups more lobbying targets on any given
issue. Nevertheless, it is unclear how much resources constrain venue selection
decisions (e.g., McKay 2011; Boehmke etal. 2013), nor is it clear how the larger
political environment affects the attractiveness of different venues for lobbying. By
extension, how these internal and environmental factors interact to influence venue
selection decisions also remains unclear.
This article examines how internal and environmental factors interact to shape
interest groups’ venue strategies—decisions to lobby the legislative or executive
branch, or both,1 within an issue area.2 We theorize that groups target the venue(s)
that are most likely to (1) change policy and (2) be receptive to the group’s lobbying.
To discern these, groups rely on early indicators of potential policymaking within
a venue as well as public attention, policymaking capacity, and control of venues
by allied policymakers. Further, groups’ lobbying resources moderate these factors’
influence, as resource-constrained groups must select a single lobbying target, while
high-resource groups may lobby all relevant venues.
We test these expectations with data from over one million issue-level quarterly
US federal lobbying disclosures filed between 2008 and 2016. First, we use lob-
byist numbers as a proxy for interest groups’ resource capacity since groups with
more financial resources are capable of hiring more lobbyists, and more importantly,
as financial resources decrease, so does the number and value of lobbyists a group
can employ (LaPira and Thomas 2017; McKay 2011; Baumgartner et al. 2009;
1 We only address the decision to lobby Congress, generally, versus the executive branch, generally.
However, venue selection decisions are not exclusive to executive versus legislative lobbying. Indeed,
groups often have access to judicial processes (Hansford 2004), state and local governments (Holyoke
et al. 2012), and even multinational governments (Bouwen and McCown 2007) as alternative venues.
Our focus on US federal legislative versus executive lobbying is partly a product of data limitations.
However, in the conclusion, we return to how this analysis may generalize to venue decisions featuring
the judiciary.
2 By “issue,” we mean broad issue domains, like “health care,” “defense,” or “education,” rather than
specific bills or policy problems. Thus, one limitation of our analysis is that it does not predict differ-
ences in a group’s strategy between bills in the same issue domain.
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75
Lobbying venue selection underseparation ofpowers andresource…
Schlozman etal. 2018; Drutman 2015). After controlling for resources and other
variables, we find that lobbying Congress is strongly negatively associated with lob-
bying federal agencies, qualifying previous findings that lobbying one branch often
entails lobbying the other (e.g., Boehmke etal. 2013). Second, group-level factors
shape their default strategies. High-resource groups—those that allocated more lob-
byists to an issue area in a period—often lobby both venues, while contract lobby-
ing firms tend to be Congress-focused. Third, groups shift lobbying toward venue(s)
controlled by policymakers with similar preferences and away from Congress in
periods of divided control.
Finally, group resources appear to shape their response to issue salience. High-
resource groups respond to salience in any venue by lobbying both venues more.
However, when high-resource groups’ issues become publicly salient, they refocus
on lobbying Congress. Conversely, low-resource groups appear less sensitive to
venue-specific salience and avoid Congress on publicly salient issues. More broadly,
our findings show that the separation of powers system itself creates opportunities
for lobbying that high- and low-resource groups are differentially able to leverage.
We conclude by considering how these findings may be affected by endogene-
ity between lobbying and issue salience, the absence of judicial lobbying from our
models, and discussing this research’s implications for reforms intended to mitigate
wealthy interests’ disproportionate influence.
Venue selection, lobbying resources, andpolicy agendas
Lobbying can target any or all of the multiple policymaking venues created by the
US separation of powers system. In this system, statutes passed by Congress and
regulations promulgated by executive agencies both carry the force of law and are,
therefore, potential lobbying targets. Moreover, which venue makes policy affects
which interests are prioritized in policy outcomes (Talbert etal. 1995), even when
venue options are within the same branch and co-partisans control them. Thus,
selecting which venue(s) to target is essential to lobbying strategy.
Because many venues can affect the policies relevant to a group, groups might,
in principle, lobby all relevant venues. Nonetheless, many groups confine their lob-
bying to a single venue. This tendency partly reflects their members’ expectations
about how the group should operate and the relationships groups build with spe-
cific policymakers whom they lobby repeatedly over time (Pralle 2003). External
factors can also encourage groups to confine their lobbying to a single venue. For
example, collective action problems among interests drive higher-resource groups
to lobby ex ante for legislative change, while lower-resource groups lobby ex post
on bureaucratic implementation (You 2017). More broadly, groups are less likely
to lobby venues controlled by government officials (Constantelos 2010; McQuide
2007; Boehmke etal. 2005) or dominated by organized interests (Holyoke 2003)
hostile to their goals. Thus, even if groups wanted to lobby all relevant venues, vari-
ous internal and environmental factors can dissuade them from doing so.
Among important internal factors shaping venue selection decisions are group
resources. Generally, groups bring different levels and types of resources to bear on
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76
L.Gause, G.M.Lorenz
lobbying efforts. For example, business and professional groups may have copious
financial resources and professional staff, while citizen groups, trade associations,
and advocacy groups may possess broad and active membership bases and depend
more on unpaid volunteers (Gerber 1999; Dahl 1961; Yackee and Yackee 2006).
While the impact of such resource disparities on group success is hotly debated,3
it is clear that such differences in group resources lead to differences in group tac-
tics. In particular, resource disparities between interest groups produce differences
the number and value of lobbyists they employ (LaPira and Thomas 2017; McKay
2011; Baumgartner etal. 2009; Schlozman etal. 2018; Drutman 2015), how they
allocate lobbyists across issues (LaPira etal. 2014), and the advocacy tactics pre-
ferred or expected by their stakeholders (Kollman 1998; Victor 2007; Walker 1991).
As a lobbying tactic, venue selection is no different. That is, groups that spend more
money lobbying are more likely to lobby both Congress and the Executive (Boe-
hmke etal. 2013; McKay 2011). And so, resource disparities between groups con-
strain the ability of lower-resource groups to lobby all the venues that may be rele-
vant to their interests. Conversely wealthier groups may lobby more venues on more
issues. Thus, even if wealthy interests enjoy little advantage on individual policy
issues, they may be able to lobby on more issues and potentially shape more out-
comes. They need not win with greater probability to win with greater frequency.
The observation that many groups lobby only one venue and that resources con-
strain venue selection decisions suggests that rational groups will strategically select
venues to maximize the impact of the resources they do bring to bear. This raises
the question: When groups are forced, e.g., by resource constraints, to lobby only
one venue, who do they target? One potential explanation arises from the fact that
while many venues can change policy in a given issue area, some are more likely
than others at any given time. Different venues pay attention to different issues at
different times, attracting lobbying to issue areas high on the legislative and exec-
utive agendas (Leech etal. 2005; Baumgartner et al. 2011; Kimball et al. 2012).
While this may reflect some groups’ ability to “buy” policymakers’ attention (Hall
and Wayman 1990; Esterling 2007; Yackee and Yackee 2006; Witko and Morgan
2021), lobbying influence on governmental agendas often operates at the aggregate
level, with agenda-setters weighing the numbers (Grossmann and Pyle 2013; Box-
Steffensmeier etal. 2019), resources (Mahoney and Baumgartner 2015; Nelson and
Yackee 2012), and electoral appeal (Lorenz 2020) of lobbying “sides” or coalitions
against one another rather than responding to individual organizations. Thus, most
individual interest groups are more likely to respond to the legislative or executive
issue agendas than to change them (LaPira and Thomas 2017; Holyoke etal. 2012).
3 On the one hand, individual legislators are biased toward wealthy interests in how they allocate time
and attention across issues (Kalla and Broockman 2015; Hertel-Fernandez etal. 2019; Miler 2010; Hall
and Wayman 1990; Witko and Morgan 2021). However, groups’ lobbying resources are an inconsistent
(Hojnacki etal. 2012) and indirect (Baumgartner etal. 2009; Mahoney and Baumgartner 2015; McKay
2012) source of influence on policy outcomes, and resource expenditures are not necessarily more
impactful than other advocacy strategies (Lorenz 2020; Dwidar 2022; Gause 2022; Furnas etal. 2022) or
other factors that influence legislator behavior, e.g., partisanship (Lax etal. 2019; Wawro 2001).
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77
Lobbying venue selection underseparation ofpowers andresource…
Nevertheless, how groups react to differential issue salience across venues remains
unclear, as does whether groups vary systematically in how they respond.
We make multiple contributions to this scholarship. First, much work on venue
selection uses data from a single issue to demonstrate the plausibility of a theoretical
model (e.g., You 2017; Boehmke etal. 2005; Pralle 2003) or covers a limited period.
Evaluating an extended timeframe and across the range of issues reported in lobby-
ing disclosures allows us to account for variation in issue context (Grossmann 2013)
and party control of venues. Moreover, it enables analyses of how these factors inter-
act with group resources and policy preferences in shaping venue selection strate-
gies. Second, existing analyses often assume (theoretically or methodologically) the
independence of the decisions to lobby each venue. Relaxing this assumption allows
us to assess whether resource constraints impose trade-offs on venue-targeting deci-
sions. This is important under the separation of powers. For example, while the fed-
eral bureaucracy is responsive to lawmakers’ casework requests and regulatory com-
ments (Ban and You 2019; Ritchie and You 2019), lawmakers lack the resources
to engage all agencies on all issues. Interest groups can subsidize this oversight
(Hall and Miler 2008), but the implications for venue selection are unknown. Con-
sequently, it is unclear whether groups respond to salience in one venue by lobbying
that venue or respond to activity in one venue by lobbying the (potentially separate)
venue(s) where they have the most allies.
A theory ofinterest group venue selection
From straightforward assumptions, we develop expectations for how organizational
and environmental factors interact to influence an interest group’s venue selection
strategy within an issue domain. These assumptions imply that resource constraints
motivate groups to respond to early signs of policymaking activity within govern-
ment, public issue attention, Congress’s policymaking capacity, and the group’s
beliefs about the likely success of their lobbying efforts.
We begin with two basic assumptions. First, lobbying is policy-motivated. That
is, groups wish to bring or keep policy as close to their own preferences as possible
and lobby governmental venues to change or defend policy generated by those ven-
ues. Thus, lobbying may either encourage or limit a policy change produced by a
governmental actor. In either case, groups expect that lobbying a venue will result in
a policy outcome weakly closer to their policy preferences than not lobbying.
Second, we assume that lobbying a venue4 on an issue requires resources.5
Expending these resources is non-fungible, requiring groups to make strategic
choices about where and how to lobby. For example, because legislators and agency
4 For expository clarity, we discuss venues as unitary actors (Boehmke etal. 2005). In practice, lobbyists
target relevant individuals within a venue.
5 In the empirical analysis, we measure lobbying resources using the number of lobbyists. But conceptu-
ally, lobbying resources could relate to specialized policy expertise, relationships with key policy actors,
and capital for media appeals, campaign contributions, and other tactics.
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78
L.Gause, G.M.Lorenz
bureaucrats have different constituencies and informational needs (You 2017;
Heaney and Lorenz 2013), tactics adopted to lobby one branch do not neatly trans-
fer to the other. Thus, once a group spends time lobbying Congress on issue A, the
group cannot spend that same time lobbying Congress on issue B or the bureaucracy
on issue A. Moreover, it is weakly costlier (i.e., requires more resources) to lobby
both venues than to lobby either alone. These assumptions suggest that venue-target-
ing decisions depend on one another; a sufficiently resource-constrained group may
be unable to lobby a second venue even if they would benefit from doing so. Thus,
we expect the following:
Substitutive Lobbying Hypothesis: A group lobbying one venue is less likely to
lobby the other as well.
If a group chooses not to lobby a venue, the venue may produce policy further from
the group’s preferences than if it had lobbied that venue. So, groups prefer to lobby
both venues. However, the marginal cost of lobbying the second venue may exceed a
group’s resource capacity. Higher-resource groups are more capable of paying these
marginal costs than lower-resource groups, so we expect them to be more likely to
lobby both venues.
Unconstrained Resources Hypothesis: As a group’s lobbying resources increase,
it is more likely to simultaneously lobby Congress and the executive.
For lower-resource groups, lobbying one venue on an issue precludes lobbying
another. So, they target venues strategically. To maximize efficiency, groups want to
direct scarce lobbying resources to the venue(s) they believe will soon change policy
(LaPira and Thomas 2017). We assume, however, that groups make these assess-
ments with substantial uncertainty, as issue attention tends to be non-simultaneous
and sporadic across policy venues (Jones and Baumgartner 2005). Groups reduce
this uncertainty by relying on venues’ preliminary policymaking activities, includ-
ing congressional committee hearings and executive orders that spur agency rule-
making. Such activities indicate a shift in a venue’s agenda.6 These shifts, in turn,
encourage interest groups working on an issue to direct lobbying resources to ven-
ues, indicating they may generate policy on that issue. Accordingly, a group trying
to allocate resources efficiently prefers to lobby the venue(s) undertaking prelimi-
nary policymaking activities on a relevant issue area. This means they will be less
likely to target the other venue exclusively.
6 In some cases, interest groups may encourage increased policymaking activity in a venue because they
have electorally relevant resources (Witko and Morgan 2021; Esterling 2007) or through their participa-
tion in lobbying coalitions (Lorenz 2020; Potter 2019). Our theory does not address this possibility, but
we return to it in the conclusion.
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79
Lobbying venue selection underseparation ofpowers andresource…
Venue-Specific Salience Hypothesis: The more preliminary policymaking activi-
ties a venue takes on a group’s issue, a low-resource group is less likely to target
the other venue exclusively.
Broader public attention to an issue may also affect low-resource groups’ lobby-
ing strategies. For example, whether (Smith 2000) and how (Witko 2006) legisla-
tors respond to business lobbying on an issue depend on the general public’s issue
salience. Venues may respond to publicly salient policy problems by initiating pre-
liminary policymaking activities. Indeed, the majority party often exercises its insti-
tutional prerogatives to legislate more on publicly salient issues (Maltzman 1997).
Recognizing lawmakers’ susceptibility to public pressure, groups might pair Con-
gressional lobbying with “outside lobbying” (c.f. Gause 2022; Kollman 1998) to
make their issues appear salient. Conversely, while presidents can make issues pub-
licly salient by “going public” (c.f. Kernell 2006; Canes-Wrone 2001), there is less
evidence that public salience drives action throughout the executive branch (Brehm
and Gates 1999). Consequently, public salience may help low-resource groups antic-
ipate policymaking activities on issues Congress will pursue.
Public Salience Hypothesis: As the public salience of a group’s issue increases, a
low-resource group is more likely to target Congress exclusively.
Regardless of venues’ issue attention, venues may have unequal policymaking
capacity. Where Congress has facilitated the development of policymaking capac-
ity and discretion in the executive branch (Huber and Shipan 2002), Congress has
rarely invested as much capacity in itself and, at times, has reduced policymaking
staff (LaPira etal. 2020; Crosson etal. 2021). Moreover, bicameralism affects Con-
gress’s policymaking capacity. Policy change is less likely if different parties control
each congressional chamber than if congressional control is unified (Howell etal.
2000; Clinton and Lapinski 2006). Thus, while presidential prioritization of an issue
is likely to produce policy change, the certainty with which congressional attention
predicts policy change is lower. To the extent divided Congresses have lower policy-
making capacity, groups seeking to influence policy outcomes will be less likely to
adopt Congress-only venue strategies and more likely to adopt executive-only venue
strategies during a divided Congress than a unified Congress.
Divided Congress Hypothesis: Compared to when Congress has unified party
control, a group facing a divided Congress is more likely to lobby the Executive
exclusively and less likely to lobby Congress exclusively.
Finally, while venues capable of enacting policy change may attract lobbying, ven-
ues are not equally receptive to lobbying from all groups. Groups may anticipate
a venue’s receptiveness to their lobbying based on the policy preferences of the
actors who control that venue. Lobbyists often target allied policymakers (Hojnacki
and Kimball 1998; Newmark and Nownes 2022) because allies are more likely
to accept the information and legislative subsidies lobbyists offer to help advance
shared objectives (Hall and Deardorff 2006; Schnakenberg 2017). Thus, we expect a
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80
L.Gause, G.M.Lorenz
group’s influence in a venue to be greater to the extent that its policy preferences are
similar to those of the policymakers controlling that venue. Such “preference-proxi-
mate” venues make more attractive lobbying targets than more “preference-distant”
venues.
Proximity Hypothesis: As a group’s preferences are more similar to those of one
venue than the other, the group is more likely to lobby that venue and less likely
to lobby the other.
Data andmethods
We test these expectations using data from lobbying registrations filed under the
Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (LDA), as amended by the Honest Leadership
and Open Government Act (HLOGA) of 2007. Scholars frequently use these data to
study lobbying activity (LaPira and Thomas 2020), including venue selection (e.g.,
You 2017; McKay 2011; Boehmke etal. 2013). We use the version of these data
analyzed by You (2017), covering each quarter from 2008 through 2016. Follow-
ing LaPira and Thomas (2020), we drop reports of no activity, those subsequently
amended (while keeping the amendments), and those not reporting the venues tar-
geted on an issue. After these exclusions, 541,987 unique filings remain, represent-
ing the lobbying activities of 7900 unique registrants on behalf of 31,615 unique
clients (53,771 unique client–registrant pairs).
These data have several valuable features for our purposes. First, LDA/HLOGA
registrants report lobbying expenditures, the venues targeted, lobbyists allocated,
and topics discussed across several dozen issue areas. This detail allows us to assess
factors influencing venue strategy within issue areas while holding constant fac-
tors at the registrant–client–period level, e.g., lobbying resources. Second, LDA/
HLOGA requires separate reporting by lobbying clients and any others (typically
contract lobbying firms) lobbying on their behalf, which allows us to examine regis-
trant-level factors (e.g., issues lobbied and resources) while holding constant client-
and client-period-level factors (e.g., usually, ideological proximity to different legis-
lators). Thus, each observation in our analysis is a registrant’s (r) lobbying on behalf
of a client (c) in an issue area (i) in a quarterly period (p), or the registrant–cli-
ent–issue–period (
Nrcip =
1,099,597).
However, the LDA/HLOGA data have several limitations. First, LDA/HLOGA
reporting requirements are weakly enforced and not required for organizations
whose lobbying expenditures are below a certain quarterly threshold (as of 2023,
$14,000 for clients and $3000 for lobbying firms that register on behalf of clients).
This has produced a market of “shadow lobbyists” (i.e., who lobby on behalf of cli-
ents but do not register) that is estimated to rival the size of registered clients and
lobbyists and overrepresent advocates who do not focus on Congress or come from
a legislative background (Thomas and LaPira 2017). Consequently, our results are
biased to the extent that these “shadow lobbyists” focus exclusively on lobbying
agencies or weigh venue selection factors differently than registered lobbyists.
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81
Lobbying venue selection underseparation ofpowers andresource…
Second, even for groups who do report, standards for the content and quality of
reports are lax. For example, no standardized form of agency names is required.7
However, we must only distinguish whether a given venue is in the legislative or
executive branch. Even with some remaining variation in agency names, this task is
straightforward. While the LDA data are imperfect, their limitations are at least well
understood and outweighed by their advantages.
Measures
LDA/HLOGA registrants report the government entities contacted on each issue
in a quarter. We aggregate each congressional chamber or agency into a “lobbied
Congress” indicator and any executive agencies (including the White House and its
internal offices) into a “lobbied the executive” indicator. In our data, 76% of reg-
istrants report lobbying Congress in a given issue quarter, 40% report lobbying an
executive branch agency, and 16% report lobbying both executive and legislative
branch targets. Because we use a bivariate probit model (see below), lobbying each
branch is modeled in a separate equation. So, the outcome variables are dichoto-
mous indicators of having Lobbied Congress and Lobbied the Executive.
To operationalize registrants’ resource capacity, we use the Number of Lobby-
ists for Registrant on Issue (Logged). This measure reflects the allocation of lim-
ited resources (i.e., lobbyists with limited hours). It is also estimated at the correct
level of analysis because lobbyist allocations are reported for each issue area. Con-
sequently, the number of lobbyists working for the registrant (r) lobbying on behalf
of a client (c) on issue (i) in period (p) is an appropriate proxy for the resources
allocated to that effort.8 We assume diminishing marginal returns on additional lob-
byists and, accordingly, use the natural log.
We use expressions of issue priorities in policy processes and public surveys to
assess the salience of each issue area. To do so, we adopt the Comparative Agen-
das Project’s (CAP) categorizations (Jones et al. 2023) of congressional hearings
(for congressional salience), executive orders (for executive salience), and Gallup’s
Most Important Problem (MIP) responses (for public salience) into major issue top-
ics. We then employ an LDA issue code to CAP Major Topic crosswalk (see Online
Supporting Information A, p. S-3) similar to those created by Curry (2015) and
Potter (2019) to join the salience data with the LDA/HLOGA data. For each regis-
trant–client–issue quarter, we recorded the Number of Congressional Hearings and
the Number of Executive Orders in that issue quarter, and the proportion of Gallup
7 You (2017) reconciled many variations of agency names.
8 LDA/HLOGA registrants also report total lobbying expenditures in $10,000 increments over $10,000
for the registrant–client–period. This measure varies at the wrong level, the registrant–client–period
rather than the registrant–client–issue–period. Addressing that problem—e.g., allocating some fraction
of the total lobbying spending to each issue area—requires arbitrary assumptions. Moreover, for clients
with multiple registrants, total client spending includes the total spent by all registrants on their behalf,
necessitating further arbitrary assumptions in assigning expenditures to issue areas across registrants.
Thus, lobbying expenditures are an inappropriate measure here.
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82
L.Gause, G.M.Lorenz
respondents citing a problem in that issue area as the Most Important Problem in
that year (i.e., the level at which MIP is reported).
To test the Proximity Hypothesis, we use Crosson etal. (2020)’s IGScores to esti-
mate the ideal point of each interest group, legislator, and president active during
our period. For interest groups, we matched registrants in the LDA/HLOGA data as
closely as possible to organizations with IGScores. Indeed, some registrant or client
names appear identically across LDA/HLOGA filings and the public positions from
which IGScores are estimated. We matched organizations by name first to the regis-
trant (503 unique registrants matches), then the client (706 additional matches), and
then the client’s parent organization (104 more matches). These direct name matches
account for about 14% of issue-level LDA reports in our dataset.
We impute the IGScore for other LDA/HLOGA registrants using those of organi-
zations representing similar interests. Usefully, both datasets classify each organiza-
tion according to the OpenSecrets interest group taxonomy.9 This taxonomy classi-
fies organizations into over 400 interest categories, each classified into one of 100
industries and, by industry, into one of 13 sectors. Because IGScores are estimated
for organizations in nearly all categories, it is possible to compute mean IGScores
for each category, industry, and sector. Accordingly, for each LDA/HLOGA client
not matched by name, we impute its IGScore as the mean of organizations in its
category (21,490 clients, accounting for about 75% of issue-level observations).
For organizations whose category lacks a mean IGScore, usually because they are
placed into miscellaneous or “other” categories within an industry or sector, we
instead take the mean of their industry (1860 clients, accounting for 6% of issue-
level reports) or, failing that, sector (327 clients, accounting for less than one percent
of issue-level reports).10 Consequently, the IGScore used to identify each organiza-
tion’s government allies is the “best matched” IGScore by, in decreasing order of
preference, registrant, client, client parent, category, industry, or sector.
Our IGScore distance measure compares these organization IGScores to those of
principals controlling each branch. For the executive branch, we take the president’s
IGScore. For Congress, our theory expects that groups target the chamber con-
trolled by their closest allies. So, we compare each chamber’s majority party mean
IGScore. We then take as “Congress’s” IGScore the chamber majority mean most
proximate to the organization’s IGScore. We construct the final measure by calculat-
ing the following:
As this measure increases, the group moves further from Congress relative to its
distance to the president. Accordingly, at higher values of IGScore Proximity, we
Relative IGScore Proximity
rcip
=
|Distance to Closest Congressional Chamber Majority Mean |
−
|Distance to President |
9 https:// www. opens ecrets. org/ indus tries/ slist. php. Accessed July 19, 2023.
10 All results reported below are robust to excluding observations where clients were matched only by
industry or sector.
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83
Lobbying venue selection underseparation ofpowers andresource…
expect the group to become less likely to lobby Congress and more likely to lobby
the executive, all else equal.
Finally, we include two indicator variables. To test our Divided Congress Hypoth-
esis, we include an indicator of whether the same party does not control the two
chambers in a period. Also, we control for whether the Registrant is a Lobbying
Firm, indicating whether the text strings containing the registrant and client names
differ. Lobbying firms often employ lobbyists who are former legislators and staff
(LaPira and Thomas 2017). Thus, we expect lobbying firm registrants to lobby Con-
gress more often than the bureaucracy.
Standardization
We standardize all continuous variables discussed above: log lobbyists, IGScore
proximity, hearings, executive orders, and Most Important Problem proportion. Spe-
cifically, we mean-center each variable and then divide by two times its standard
deviation; a one-unit shift in each standardized variable represents a two-standard
deviation shift in the original variable. Standardization enables comparison of
effects across variables at different scales. Even better, standardization to two stand-
ard deviations facilitates comparisons of the effects of continuous predictors to those
of dichotomous predictors—in this case, divided Congress and lobbying firm regis-
trants (Gelman etal. 2020). This is particularly important because our sample size
is large; thus, even tiny coefficients are precisely estimated. Therefore, accurately
interpreting our coefficient estimates requires examining whether the coefficients are
statistically significant and whether the associated effects are large enough to make a
substantively meaningful difference in venue strategies. Standardization contextual-
izes estimated effect sizes.
Empirical models
We test our hypotheses by estimating a bivariate probit model, an adaptation of
seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) to two dichotomous outcomes (in this case,
indicators of lobbying each venue). Bivariate probits simultaneously estimate two
equations:
y∗
1
=x
�
1
𝛽
1
+𝜀
1
,
y1=1
if
y∗
1
>
0, 0
otherwise,
y∗
2
=x
�
2
𝛽
2
+𝜀
2
,
y2=1
if
y∗
2>0, 0
otherwise, with
E[𝜀1|x1,x2]
=
E[𝜀2|x1,x2]
= 0,
Var[𝜀1|x1,x2]
=
Var[𝜀2|x1,x2]
= 1, and
Cov[𝜀1,𝜀2|x1,x2]=𝜌
The bivariate probit allows us to simultaneously estimate whether lobbying of the
executive branch (
y1
) and Congress (
y2
) is associated with the set of factors (
x1,x2
) iden-
tified in our hypotheses. Because many of our hypotheses hold that some factor will
simultaneously make a group lobby one venue more and the other less, we keep the set of
covariates in each equation the same. That is,
x1=x2
. As in SUR, in the bivariate probit
model, the estimated parameter
𝜌
indicates the covariance between the error terms of
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84
L.Gause, G.M.Lorenz
these estimated equations and the extent to which these venue-targeting decisions
depend on one another, conditional on predictors. This is useful because our Substi-
tutive Lobbying Hypothesis predicts that, conditional on other factors, a group lob-
bying one venue is less likely to also lobby the other. If the hypothesis is correct, the
estimate of
𝜌
will be negative.
To assess the Unconstrained Resources, Venue-Specific Salience, and Public Sali-
ence Hypotheses, the model includes interactions between the standardized logged
number of lobbyists and each salience measure (standardized logged number of
lobbyists x standardized hearings, standardized logged number of lobbyists x stand-
ardized orders, and standardized logged number of lobbyists x standardized MIP
proportion) as well as each interaction’s constituent terms. Further, our measures
of issue salience (hearings, executive orders) are assigned at the level of the issue
quarter; thus, we cluster standard errors by PAP major topic and quarter.11 Finally,
issue areas have distinct interest group politics and vary in how much they are exec-
utive- vs. legislative-dominated (Grossmann 2013), so we include PAP major topic
code fixed effects.
Results
Table1 reports the results of the bivariate probit model described above. Because
we standardized the continuous covariates, the coefficients represent the change in
the probit index associated with a two-standard deviation change in each continuous
variable. Moreover, because each continuous variable is mean-shifted, each coef-
ficient for a constituent term of an interaction effect represents the change associated
with a two-standard deviation shift in that variable when all variables it is interacted
with are at their means. The estimated
𝜌
statistic is the correlation between the error
terms of the equations corresponding to whether the registrant lobbied the execu-
tive and legislative branches, conditional on covariates. The estimated
𝜌
approaches
-1, consistent with the Substitutive Lobbying Hypothesis: conditional on the model’s
covariates, registrants mostly lobby Congress or the executive branch.
To examine the implications of our model estimates for our hypotheses, we rely
on average marginal effects (AME) plots. AME plots are valuable for several rea-
sons. First, the implications of bivariate probit coefficients, like probits generally, for
changes in the probability of each outcome depend on the values of the other covari-
ates and the starting value of the variable of interest. Second, AME plots facilitate
the interpretation of complex interaction effects like those we estimate here (Bram-
bor etal. 2006). Thus, we focus on Figs.1 and 2 to draw inferences for our theory
from the results. Furthermore, although the bivariate probit model estimates coef-
ficients for each probit equation on the decision to lobby each venue, our hypotheses
are about the combination of venue choices—Congress-Only, Executive-Only, or
11 In Table B.1 in the Supporting information, we show models clustering by client–registrant (McKay
2011), Congress, issue and year, and client–registrant and Congress, matching the levels at which other
key variables are assigned.
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85
Lobbying venue selection underseparation ofpowers andresource…
Both-Venues. Thus, the AMEs we report in Figs.1 and 2 are the difference in proba-
bility of each overall venue strategy—i.e., the combined results of the two estimated
equations in the bivariate probit model—associated with two-standard deviation (or
zero to one) increases in the value of our covariates.
As reported in Fig.1, interest groups’ venue strategies are associated with group-
level and macro-political factors in ways largely anticipated by our theory. The fig-
ure displays the overall AME (with 95% confidence intervals) on the probability of
each venue strategy of four explanatory variables for which our theory does not pre-
dict a moderated effect: standardized logged lobbyists, a divided Congress, stand-
ardized relative proximity IGScore distance, and lobbying firm registrant.
Table 1 Bivariate probit model of lobbying each branch
Standard errors clustered by issue period in parentheses
∗
p
<
0.05
,
∗∗
p
<
0.01
,
∗∗∗
p
<
0.001
Lobbied executive branch Lobbied
legislative
branch
Std log lobbyists 0.266*** 0.914***
(0.00612) (0.0102)
Std # Exec. Orders 0.00192 0.0221**
(0.00796) (0.00679)
Std # Hearings 0.0123 0.0239**
(0.00824) (0.00801)
StdMost Imp. Prob 0.105*** − 0.142***
(0.0160) (0.0152)
Std log lobbyists x Std # Hearings 0.0483** 0.103***
(0.0180) (0.0228)
Std log lobbyists x Std # Exec. Orders 0.0128 0.0790**
(0.0208) (0.0248)
Std log lobbyists x Std Most Imp. Prob − 0.0591*** − 0.103***
(0.0117) (0.0132)
Divided Congress 0.0653*** − 0.0501***
(0.00571) (0.00490)
Lobbying firm registrant − 0.610*** 0.787***
(0.00711) (0.00664)
Std IGScoreCong–Prez distance 0.151*** − 0.127***
(0.00543) (0.00426)
Constant − 0.229*** 0.714***
(0.0254) (0.0263)
Issue area FE Yes Ye s
Observations 1,099,597
𝜌
− 1.000***
Log likelihood − 908858.8
Wald
𝜒2(
1
)
Leg and Exec models independent 1070.3
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86
L.Gause, G.M.Lorenz
Consistent with the Unconstrained Resources Hypothesis, the probability of a
Both-Venues Strategy increases, and the probability of lobbying either branch alone
decreases, as the number of lobbyists lobbying on behalf of a registrant increases.
A two-standard deviation increase in log lobbyists is associated with an over 30
percentage point (ppt) increase in the probability of lobbying both branches. These
results are consistent with the Unconstrained Resources and Substitutive Lobby-
ing hypotheses and the theory that resources shape the venue strategies available to
interest groups. High-resource groups usually lobby both venues, while low-resource
groups appear forced to choose which venue to lobby on issues of their interest.
The Divided Congress Hypothesis holds that because divided Congresses are less
likely to produce substantial policy changes, groups will be less likely to choose
congressional lobbying exclusively in periods with a divided Congress. The model
estimates are consistent with a small shift in venue strategy during divided Con-
gresses. A divided Congress is associated with a 2.3 ppt decrease in Congress-
Onlystrategies. Meanwhile, the probability of an Executive-Only Strategyincreases
by about 1.3 ppts, and the probability of a Both-Venues Strategy increases by about
1 ppt. While not a large effect relative to other factors, this suggests that, on the
margin, groups respond to changes in the likelihood that Congress can undertake
substantial policy initiatives.12
The results also comport with the expectation of our Proximity Hypothesis that
interest groups, on the margin, prefer targeting venues controlled by their ideological
allies. That is, a two-standard deviation increase in relative IGScore distance (Con-
gress–Executive) is associated with an average 5.5 ppt decrease in the probability of
Fig. 1 AMEs of group and macropolitical factors on venue strategy
12 This is also consistent with the possibility that overall congressional capacity for policy change is not
affected by being in a period of divided party control (Curry and Lee 2019).
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87
Lobbying venue selection underseparation ofpowers andresource…
Fig. 2 AME of venue-specific and public salience measures on venue strategies, across levels of lobby-
ists assigned to issue
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88
L.Gause, G.M.Lorenz
lobbying Congress alone, with a 3.4 ppt increase in the probability of lobbying the
executive alone and a 2.1 ppt increase in lobbying both venues.
Estimates in Fig.1 also suggest that contract lobbying firms usually lobby Con-
gress. Lobbying firm registrants are over 20 ppts more likely to lobby Congress
alone and are less likely to lobby the executive alone by about the same amount as
self-registrants. We did not theorize differences between in-house and contract lob-
byists, so we consider this result exploratory. However, future work might examine
whether revolving door lobbyists who are former legislators or congressional staffers
are more likely to work as contract lobbyists than in-house lobbyists. A preference
for lobbying Congress among lobbying firms might reflect their reliance on profes-
sional allies that remain in Congress (LaPira and Thomas 2017). Such a preference
for lobbying personal allies would resemble the logic of the Proximity Hypothesis.
Contrary to theoretical expectations, the results (Fig.2) suggest a complex rela-
tionship between resources, salience, and venue strategies. At the lowest numbers
of lobbyists, increases in congressional hearings in an issue area have statistically
indiscernible effects on the probability of any particular strategy. As lobbyist num-
bers increase, venue strategies become more responsive to hearings, with groups
less likely to lobby either venue individually and more likely to lobby both together.
At just above the average number of lobbyists, a two-standard deviation increase
in hearings is associated with a statistically discernible 0.8 percentage point (ppt)
decrease in the probability of a Congress-Only Strategy, a 1 ppt decrease in the
probability of an Executive-Only Strategy, and a 1.8 ppt increase in the probabil-
ity of lobbying both venues. As resources increase further, the AMEs for Congress-
Only Strategies and lobbying both venues become larger (corresponding to a 5.8
ppt decrease in Congress-Only Strategies and a corresponding increase in lobbying
both venues). Meanwhile, the AME of hearings on Executive-Only Strategies moves
toward zero at the highest resource levels.
Groups exhibit similar patterns of responsiveness to executive orders, albeit with
some notable differences in both Congress-Only lobbying and broader implications
for our theory. Executive orders have no discernible effect on Congress-Only lobby-
ing at any number of lobbyists. This suggests that registrants who lobby Congress
alone do not change that approach when the president begins issuing executive
orders in the issue areas in which they lobby. Otherwise, groups react to executive
orders in the same way they respond to congressional hearings. At just about the
average number of lobbyists, a two-standard deviation increase in executive orders
is associated with a statistically discernible 0.9 ppt decrease in the probability of
lobbying the executive branch alone and a 1 ppt increase in the probability of lobby-
ing both venues. As lobbyist numbers increase further, the AME of executive orders
on Executive-Only Strategies moves toward zero. Meanwhile, the AME on lobbying
Both Venues increases rapidly to 1.4 ppts and remains near that magnitude.
The venue-specific salience findings suggest that low-resource groups systemati-
cally prefer to lobby venues active in their issue areas but do not exclude the other
venue to do so. That is not the same as saying venue-specific policymaking activities
do not influence venue-targeting strategies; it is just that our theory has mistaken
assumptions about how salience influences strategies for low-resource groups. One
potential explanation is that issues become salient among elites in general, resulting
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89
Lobbying venue selection underseparation ofpowers andresource…
in simultaneous attention from Congress and the executive. However, issue attention
is sporadic and non-simultaneous across policy venues and issue networks (Jones
and Baumgartner 2005); the correlation between hearings and executive orders (by
issue quarter) is weak (Spearman’s
𝜌=0.20
). These findings suggest that interest
groups aware of agenda-setting processes in both venues would not assume that sali-
ence in one venue would induce salience in the other.
Another explanation revisits how groups respond to venue-specific salience. Leg-
islative lobbying is being added to some Executive-Only Strategies at lower levels
of lobbyists, where there is also a decline in Executive-Only Strategies in response
to congressional or executive salience. Perhaps, then, the results suggest that active
government venues prompt interest groups to bring that activity to the attention
of the other venue. Indeed, executive branch agencies are responsive to legislators
(Lowande and Potter 2021; Lowande etal. 2019; Ritchie and You 2019), and inter-
est groups can subsidize legislators’ bureaucratic engagement (Hall and Miler 2008).
Accordingly, groups’ best response to an active bureaucracy may be to subsidize
congressional oversight, while the best response to preliminary lawmaking might be
to bring the executive’s attention to an issue. Rather than focusing lobbying efforts
on active venues, groups that do respond to venue-specific salience may do so by
moving from a single-venue strategy (Executive-Only or, more often, Congress-
Only) to a strategy of targeting both venues. When groups observe policymaking in
either branch, they mobilize to push their case to all relevant policymakers.
Future work could examine whether this response is different between groups that
are challenging the status quo (and thus need to clear several veto points in the pol-
icy process) or defending it (and therefore need only succeed in one venue) (Baum-
gartner et al. 2009). If so, the better inference may be that salience in one venue
prompts groups to lobby any venues whose cooperation is necessary for the group
to achieve its desired policy outcome. Regardless, these results do not contradict the
Substitutive Lobbying Hypothesis. We expect and find plenty of observations of low-
resource registrants lobbying both venues, even if, on average and conditional on
covariates, venue-targeting decisions are substitutes.
Finally, as public issue salience increases, groups at different resource levels
focus on different venues. At the lowest number of lobbyists, a two-standard devia-
tion increase in MIP proportion is associated with a 4.2 ppt decrease in the prob-
ability of a Congress-Only Strategy, a 3.6 ppt increase in the probability of lobbying
the executive branch alone, and a statistically indiscernible effect on the probabil-
ity of lobbying both venues. This suggests that low-resource registrants switch from
lobbying only Congress to lobbying only the executive on publicly salient issues.
As lobbyists increase, the probability of an Executive-Only Strategy continues to
increase, but while remaining statistically discernible, it is not substantively mean-
ingful at the highest levels. The alternative, however, changes. As lobbyist numbers
increase, the effects of MIP proportion on Executive-Only and Both-Venues strate-
gies decrease while the effects on Congress-Only Strategies increase. The effects on
Congress-Only and Both-Venues strategies eventually switch signs, such that at the
highest number of lobbyists, a two-standard deviation increase in MIP proportion
is associated with a 3.5 ppt increase in the probability of lobbying Congress alone
and an equivalent decrease in the probability of lobbying both venues. Thus, when
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90
L.Gause, G.M.Lorenz
an issue becomes publicly salient, high-resource groups are less likely to lobby the
executive branch and focus just on Congress. Nevertheless, our theory does not
anticipate our findings with respect to how low-resource groups respondto issue
salience—in either government or the public.
A potential explanation for our findings on public salience lies in how legisla-
tors respond to publicly salient issues. Issue salience makes individual lobbying less
effective at persuading lawmakers to adopt a position contrary to the preferences
of the lawmakers, their constituents, or the many other advocates active on such
issues (Mahoney 2007). Moreover, indirect “outside lobbying” works by increasing
the public salience of an issue (Kollman 1998) and can be especially effective for
the low-resource groups for whom such activities represent costly protests (Gause
2022). Thus, we might expect lower-resource organizations to prefer outside lobby-
ing of Congress over inside lobbying on salient issues. Conversely, higher-resource
organizations can afford to intensify their congressional lobbying efforts to maintain
influence in the face of a more attentive public.
Discussion andconclusion
Despite widespread criticism of the outsized role of moneyed interests in US poli-
tics, empirical evidence of wealthy interests’ influence on policymaking is inconsist-
ent. However, even if wealthy interests do not attain their policy preferences with
greater probability in any given issue, they may influence policy with greater fre-
quency if their resources enable them to take advantage of more opportunities for
influence. This article focuses on how resources, issue salience, and macro-polit-
ical factors interact to shape interest groups’lobbying venue selection strategies.
Because both Congress and the federal bureaucracy can move the policy status quo,
an interest group can pursue its objectives by lobbying either venue or both. In this
context, resources may allow groups to lobby both venues and also change their cal-
culus in responding to environmental factors.
Analyzing over one million quarterly issue-level lobbying disclosures, we find
that higher resources allow groups to lobby both venues. Nonetheless, groups
direct lobbying efforts to venues controlled by policy-aligned policymakers and de-
emphasize lobbying Congress during periods of divided party control. Moreover,
groups at different resource levels adopt different venue strategies when their issues
become salient within the government or the public. For example, high-resource
groups target Congress on publicly salient issues while low-resource groups lobby
the executive branch. When either Congress or the president takes up an issue, high-
resource groups lobby both venues. Thus, our findings suggest that both high- and
low-resource groups try to lobby efficiently, but their different starting points mean
they respond differently to environmental factors.
One limitation of this analysis is potential reverse causation. In particular, per-
haps lobbying changes venues’ issue priorities. We think this is unlikely to introduce
significant endogeneity bias into our results. Congress’s policy agenda is constructed
to address institutional demands, majority party priorities, exogenous shocks, and
legislator entrepreneurship (Adler and Wilkerson 2012; Maltzman 1997). While
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91
Lobbying venue selection underseparation ofpowers andresource…
groups may subsidize legislative entrepreneurship, their influence on policy agendas
usually arises from their participation in advocacy coalitions (Mahoney and Baum-
gartner 2015; Phinney 2016; Lorenz 2020; Dwidar 2022). Thus, rarely would one
group’s lobbying produce committee hearings, executive orders, or swings in public
priorities.
Furthermore, groups often want government venues not to take up their issues.
Indeed, many groups lobby for status quo policies (Baumgartner etal. 2009). Insofar
as an issue gaining attention in government indicates that policy change is being
considered, status quo-defending groups are losing, or, at least, their interests are
threatened. If so, the relationship between status quo-defending interest groups’
venue strategies and venue issue salience would appear null or negative. Thus, it is
unclear on theoretical grounds that endogeneity bias resulting from interest groups’
agenda-setting influence would remit to a stronger positive association between an
individual registrant’s lobbying and venue-specific salience. It is also unclear how
our results would reflect endogeneity bias. As mentioned above, the groups with
the most resources usually lobby both venues. Yet, venues continue to vary in how
much they address the issues that are the focus of high-resource groups’ lobbying.
Thus, while our research design cannot rule out reverse causation, there are reasons
to suspect it introduces minimal bias into our results.
Another limitation is that this analysis ignores judicial lobbying. We cannot eval-
uate whether our argument would apply to a decision by a group to advocate at the
court versus (or in addition to) other venues. In principle, the judiciary could simply
present a third lobbying venue. In this case, we would expect the effects of resource
differences to be greater when accounting for the decision to lobby among three ven-
ues rather than two. Indeed, prior work on the decision to file amicus briefs before
the court suggests that decision is also a product of similar internal and environ-
mental factors (Hansford 2004; Solowiej and Collins Jr 2009; Bouwen and McCown
2007)—however, several unique aspects of the federal judiciary present complexi-
ties that demand consideration. In particular, courts have the unique agenda-setting
feature where cases almost always move through several levels of the federal judici-
ary over several years before any ultimate decision by the Supreme Court, which
is not guaranteed. Thus, whether the quarterly timescale we use is appropriate for
judicial lobbying is unclear.
There are also practical obstacles. In particular, groups are not required to report
judicial advocacy in lobbying disclosure filings. In fact, no disclosure filing in our
data mentions any court. While data on the authorship of amicus filings are available
(Box-Steffensmeier etal. 2013), amicus briefs are only one means by which groups
advocate in the courts (e.g., they can also be plaintiffs). Regardless, no crosswalk
between these data and the lobbying disclosure data we use is available.
These limitations notwithstanding, it remains plausible that all interest groups
would prefer to behave as political observers fear: lobby every policymaker on every
issue to exert as much influence as possible. Our findings demonstrate that this is
not achievable for most groups. This study demonstrates that group venue strate-
gies account for both venues’ likely policymaking activity and receptiveness to the
groups’ lobbying. Moreover, this research provides evidence that how these factors
influence venue selection decisions varies with group resources. Both high- and
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92
L.Gause, G.M.Lorenz
low-resource interest groups are strategic agents in their efforts to influence the
behaviors of legislators and bureaucrats.
Our findings suggest that the attention paid to high-resource interest groups is
well deserved. Nevertheless, we should not ignore the decision-making of more
resource-constrained groups. Such groups respond strategically to their political
environment and appear to lobby where they will maximize their impact. Under-
standing these strategic choices can further critical analyses of lobbying influence by
focusing scholars’ attention on when and where to look for effective lobbying efforts.
It can also clarify how wealthy interests exert undue interest in policymaking.
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https:// doi.
org/ 10. 1057/ s41309- 024- 00202-0.
Declarations
Conflict of interest On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of
interest.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,
which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative
Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line
to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended
use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permis-
sion directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/.
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