Scholars have succeeded in producing several explanations for why groups choose to pursue their policymaking goals in different venues. A synthetic framework that explains the choices these groups make is developed through two case studies describing a conflict over the environmental problem of agricultural field burning. Emergent, boundedly rational, groups with a mission to clear the air of the pollutants associated with field burning, are found to be choosing venues by strategically assessing the institutional context. The particular institutional context that matters involves three primary elements: the group's mix of resources, opponents' resource strengths, and the degree of venue accessibility. These initial choices allow groups to generate new resources, to learn about which strategies do and do not work, and to change venues on the basis of their new resources and what they have learned.

Scholars have succeeded in producing several explanations for why groups choose to pursue their policymaking goals in different venues. A synthetic framework that explains the choices these groups make is developed through two case studies describing a conflict over the environmental problem of agricultural field burning. Emergent, boundedly rational, groups with a mission to clear the air of the pollutants associated with field burning, are found to be choosing venues by strategically assessing the institutional context. The particular institutional context that matters involves three primary elements: the group's mix of resources, opponents' resource strengths, and the degree of venue accessibility. These initial choices allow groups to generate new resources, to learn about which strategies do and do not work, and to change venues on the basis of their new resources and what they have learned.

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The climate change countermovement (CCCM) deploys a broad repertoire of tactics in its effort to cast doubt on the science of climate change. One important yet understudied tactic is the effort by CCCM groups to use open records laws in scientifically uncertain areas to cast doubt on the accuracy of scientific information. This article explores the use of this tactic by CCCM groups and adds to the legal mobilization literature in three ways. First, it traces the origin of CCCM groups to the broader conservative legal movement of the 1970s that challenged the dominance of the liberal legal network. Second, it shows how CCCM groups waged an open records campaign against climate scientists in Virginia and Arizona, causing scientists to countermobilize by organizing their own legal campaigns. Finally, this article provides the first empirical evidence of the effect of CCCM Freedom of Information Act suits on the activities of university researchers. I find, through in‐depth personal interviews with twelve university researchers, that the experience of researchers who have been exposed to open records campaigns has been overwhelmingly negative, has caused them to change their methods of communication, and has imposed a new work burden that draws them away from other work responsibilities. I argue that the costs of these tactics are narrowly borne by a concentrated group of scientists whose production of knowledge is a public good that allows us to address the crosscutting and relentless problem of climate change.

A lot of scholarly attention has focused on why groups choose to pursue their policy goals in one venue over another. This manuscript adds to the literature by testing a new theory of venue shopping, the Adaptive Venue Shopping Framework. This manuscript finds empirical support that groups choose venues by strategically assessing the institutional context which involves three primary elements: the group's mix of resources, their opponent's resource strengths, and the degree of venue accessibility, which is a combination of opponents' degree of control over a venue and a venue's image amiability or receptivity. In addition to confirming these findings, this case study links the literature on venue shopping with recent scholarship about "vested interests" by demonstrating how a powerful agricultural group came to dominate in a legislative venue, how it protected its policy victories from reversal, and how it kept policy making from shifting into alternative venues, thus leading to long-term policy stability. Furthermore, it demonstrates how newly emerged groups can achieve policy success against stronger opponents by threatening to seek their policy goals in alternative institutions.