Legislating in the Dark

Curry, James M.

doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226281858.001.0001

Cited by 116 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…We suspect that the power committees are not especially important to sponsors because they chiefly target committees whose jurisdictions cover their interests. Given the centralization of power in Congress to party leaders over the past few decades (Curry 2015;Sinclair 2012), it is possible that a sponsor desiring significant alterations in appropriations or tax policy could conceivably achieve those goals by targeting party leaders. 16 This finding adds interesting nuance because it suggests that in general sponsors target committee chairs in their area(s) of interest, but for bigger-ticket items they may rely on party leaders instead.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gift Travel in the U.S. House of Representatives

McGee

Moniz

2021

Political Research Quarterly

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Members of Congress take more than 2,000 trips sponsored by private organizations and interest groups every congress. Using a new data set of gift travel from 2007 to 2019 and interviews with former members of Congress, current and former congressional staffers, and staffers from interest groups that fund trips, we attempt to answer two core questions about this increasingly frequent behavior. Why do members take privately sponsored trips and what types of groups are driving this behavior? We argue that members of Congress take trips because they believe it makes them more effective legislators by exposing them to real-world consequences of their policy decisions and forcing them to build relationships with their fellow members. Trip sponsors, alternatively, seek to persuade and build relationships with members of Congress that ultimately shape their legislative coalitions. We find that trip-taking is associated with greater legislative effectiveness, in particular for Democrats, and that the provision of policy-specific information is a valuable benefit from taking these trips.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gift Travel in the U.S. House of Representatives

McGee

Moniz

2021

Political Research Quarterly

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“…With a decline in the number of staff and civil servants supporting legislative research (Baumgartner and Jones 2015) and an increase in legislators' workloads and fundraising pressures (Curry 2015, Lee 2016, the opportunities for outside interests to influence legislation have increased. Our model can speak to when, and to whose benefit, these opportunities will be exploited.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lobbyists as Gatekeepers: Theory and Evidence

Hirsch

Kang

Montagnes

et al. 2023

The Journal of Politics

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Lobbyists are omnipresent in the policymaking process, but the value that they bring to both clients and politicians remains poorly understood. We develop a model in which a lobbyist's value derives from his ability to selectively screen which clients he brings to a politician, thereby earning the politician's trust and preferential treatment for his clients. Lobbyists face a dilemma, as their ability to screen also increases their value to special interests, and the prices they can charge. A lobbyist's profit motive undermines his ability to solve this dilemma, but an interest in policy outcomes-due either to a political ideology or a personal connection-enhances it, which paradoxically increases his profits. Using a unique dataset from reports mandated by the Foreign Agents Registration Act, we find that lobbyists become more selective when they are more ideologically aligned with politicians, consistent with our prediction.

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“…This pattern suggests that lobbyists facilitate information aggregation among members. Given members' time constraints and the diverse issue portfolios on which they work (Cotton, 2016; Curry, 2015), lobbyists who specialize in an issue could help communications among members and make group persuasion feasible. In addition, even if there is little uncertainty about the passage of a bill, members still might have incentives to allow contacts by lobbyists to learn more about the legislation's economic consequences on their districts 22.…”

Section: Dynamic Patterns Of Lobbying Contactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic lobbying: Evidence from foreign lobbying in the U.S. Congress

You

2022

Economics & Politics

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How do interest groups decide which member of Congress to target when decisions are made collectively? Do lobbying strategies change as legislation advances? Answering these questions is challenging due to a lack of systematic observations of lobbying contacts. I answer these questions using a novel data set constructed from reports submitted by lobbyists on behalf of South Korea regarding its free trade agreement with the United States for 10 years. I show that a diverse set of politicians are contacted but the timing, intensity, and strategy of lobbying contacts vary by politicians' institutional positions as well as their predisposed preferences for free trade.

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Legislating in the Dark

Cited by 116 publications

References 0 publications

Gift Travel in the U.S. House of Representatives

Gift Travel in the U.S. House of Representatives

Lobbyists as Gatekeepers: Theory and Evidence

Dynamic lobbying: Evidence from foreign lobbying in the U.S. Congress

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