Persuading Legislators

Pressure groups are most conspicuous in their activities in support of and in opposition to legislative proposals. They have developed this work into afine art; whether applied in Washington or in state capitals, their methods are much alike. An association's staff is ordinarily in immediate charge of its legislative activities. The larger associations maintain permanent offices in Washington; whereas the more common practice in the states is to assign men to the capital during legislative sessions. These men – lobbyists, legislative counsel – have often served in Congress or in the state legislatures. If they lack that experience, they are usually well informed on legislative procedure and tactics. Their tenure is likely to be longer than that of many legislators; and in the course of their service they may gain the confidence and respect of the legislators.

The use of the term "pressure" conjures up a picture of a wicked lobbyist attempting to coerce a righteous legislator to deviate from his disposition to follow the public interest. By and large, the relations between organized interests and legislators must be described in other terms, though on occasion the crudest pressures are invoked for indefensible purposes. Each group has its friends and allies in Congress, men whose constituency and party connections dispose them generally favorably toward the group. Often these men are ahead of the pressure groups in the advocacy of a cause and may even enlist the support of pressure organizations on specific matters. From the farming states come Senators and Representatives who will aid the American Farm Bureau Federation. The National Association of Manufacturers and the AFLCIO have their legislative allies from the industrial states. Lobbyists and friendly legislators labor together in common cause.

A major point of contact between Congress and the interest group is the committee hearing. On legislative proposals of importance, when the appropriate committee of Congress holds public hearings, representatives of organized groups appear to present their case. At times their presentation may rest on substantial factual research and provide genuine help to the committee in estimating the effects of a proposal; the hearings, incidentally, give committee members an opportunity to push as deeply as they wish into the motivations and interests of the group. The committee members may indulge in a bit of heckling and push the group representatives hard for justifications of their position. More and more the professional secretaries of pressure groups depend on the officials of their organizations to appear before committees: the full-time lobbyist is merely a "hired man"; he brings in the president and vice presidents of the organization, coaches them on the bill, and they appear before committees.

While committee hearings are designed primarily to enlighten the committee members, they may also be an element of a broader propaganda strategy to advance or defeat a measure. The purpose may not be so much to inform the committee as to gain publicity in the press. The management of bearings may, indeed, be designed to give one set of organizations the opportunity to build an impressive case and to handicap the opposition by drastic limitations on its hearing time. Moreover, though hearings may not always change legislators' minds, they produce a record to support a position – in either direction – and make it appear that the legislator is responding to some widely held view in society.

Given the controlling influence of the committee on many legislative questions, often an interest group contents itself with an appearance before the committee,and perhaps with interviews with committee members, to make certain that the group's views are understood. The lobbyist then philosophically hopes for the best possible outcome on the assumption that he has presented his case on a complicated question with which the committee members have to wrestle. Problems of tactics arise, however, when it seems expedient to acquaint as many legislators as possiblewith the views of the group.

Of the measures considered by a session of Congress relatively few involve extensive mobilization of pressure. Of the bills of interest to even a large lobbying organization, on only a few will there be any effort to stir up pressure on Congress. Some lobbyists regard the barrage of telegrams on Congress as "death bed" politics to be resorted to only under dire circumstances. Others regard such techniques as ineffective. Indicative of the strategy of a seasoned lobbyist is the remark of an AFL legislative representative that his organization appealed to the general membership to write to their Congressmen only "infrequently" and then only "in an acute situation."

When pressure organizations attempt to direct upon a legislator influence from his constituency, they have a choice of two broad sorts of pressure: the "rifle” type and the "shot-gun" type. The first consists in enlisting the support of a few persons thought to have great influencewith an individual legislator. Obviously its utility differs with the type of bill and the circumstances of the individual legislator. Some legislators, given the character of their constituency and their policy commitments, are strongly resistantpersuasion on some types of bills, and efforts to pressure them are a waste of time. Yet on other measures the same member may have only doubt about what he should do, and a word from an influential constituent may sway his vote.

To bring to bear upon a Senator or a Representative pressures from persons influential with him requires an elaborate intelligence service. Some associations designate "contact" men who are thought to be known favorably to their Representatives. The National Association of Retail Druggists developed such a system in its fight for fair-trade legislation. The journal of the association described the system:

One of the outstanding achievements of the association through its Washington Office was the organization of the congressional contact committees. Under this plan, in 1935 and 1936, there were organized in each congressional district committees of pharmacists who were known to be friends of or intimately acquainted with Senators and Congressmen. These committeemen were the "minute men" upon whom the association relied to act, quickly and decisively, whenever the association's legislative program needed special attention....

This year the congressional contact committees were reorganized on a county basis, nearly every county in the entire United States being represented on the contact committee lists in the Washington Office. These organizations, kept alive and enthused by the regular messages from the Capital, proved their effectiveness time and again this spring. Now, these committees are busy among the pharmacists and other independent businessmen of their counties, keeping a steady barrage of letters and telegrams directed upon the White House, in an effort to convince the President that he should reconsider his action in delaying the passage of the Tydings-Miller bill.

Other associations have built up such systems of contact men; still others attempt on a smaller scale to bring to their support men thought to be influential with individual Congressmen. Such tactics may elicit resentment as well as support, but the nudge from a large campaign contributor, a powerful supporter, the man who holds the mortgage, or some other such individual may be decisive.

The "shot-gun" type of pressure campaign encourages all and sundry to wire their Congressmen. Often this sort of effort is but an incident in a short-term campaign designed to build up public favor for or against a particular piece of legislation. The object may be to panic Congress into action by promoting the appearance of a universal and insistent public demand. The opposing strategy will be to delay until the dust settles in order that considerations other than the volume of artificially induced clamor may govern. The pressure organization may, indeed, in some of these campaigns on particular pieces of legislation succeed in activating a latent public sentiment to the service of its cause.

Letters and telegrams have some effect on some legislators on some bills, but most of these missives fall on fallow ground. Legislators speak with disdain of communications obviously stimulated by an interested party. Even if a legislator is disposed to be guided by these instructions, he soon finds that advice is offered often in ignorance of the parliamentary situation, at an untimely moment, or without an understanding of the details of the bill. Legislators, however, speak with tears in their voices of the influence of the letter written in pencil on a low-grade paper without complete mastery of the rules of English composition. Yet on rare occasions a mass mail campaign may have its effects. That may have been the case in the 1962 campaign against the Administration proposal for withholding at the source income taxes on dividends and interest. One Senator reported that within a few weeks he received 50,000 letters, most of them from persons who did not understand the legislation but nearly all of them from persons doggedly opposed to it. By a campaign of misrepresentation, savingsand loan associations, which constitute an interest not notable forits public morality, moved their depositors to express opposition. Never have so many persons been brought so effectively to the aid of tax evasion.

Pressure-group lobbyists may play a role in shepherding a bill through the legislative mill. The processes of legislation are intricate and the channels can become clogged at many points. Lobbyists may give a push at one point and another to keep their bill in motion and may serve both as gadflies and strategic advisers to their legislative friends. If the purpose is to defeat a bill, their skill and attention may be even more effective. The procedure of legislatures gives advantage to those who seek to prevent action. At many stages, from committee consideration to executive approval, a bill can be killed, and an alert legislative counsel may perhaps carry the day at one step if not at another.

Implicit in the importunities of a lobbyist may be the threat that his organization will at the next primary or election throw its strength against the legislator who does not vole right. Historically the most impressive example of this type of persuasion has been the Anti-Saloon League which had enough of a following to determine the results of many elections. Most groups that have a numerically large membership analyze the voting records of legislators and inform the membershipof the candidates' stands on issues of concern to them. Such operations may affect some votes, but it is doubtful that most legislators need have much fear of such activity. The number of voters who know both the name of their Congressman and how he voted on any measure is quite small, and, of those, the candidate may gain as much by his vote on one measure as he loses on another. Moreover, often the admonitions of a pressure group only re-enforce other pressures on a legislator. A Representative from a working-class district may have his back stiffened by a word from the AFL-C10 but he need not fear a candidate backed, say, by the state manufacturers' association. On the other hand, a Representative from a suburban Republican district who consistently supports labor measures has no right to be astonished if he faces primary opposition financed by those interests against whose wishes he has voted. In any case, it is not so much the rank-and-file legislator who receives the dedicated attention of pressure groups in campaigns as it is the conspicuous advocate or opponent of measures. The legislator who spearheads a movement that touches some interest in the pocketbook should give close attention to his political fences.

Any catalogue of methods of dealing with legislators would be incomplete without mention of the methods of corruption. That such techniques are employed is undeniable; the extent of their use is another matter. The prevailing supposition is that their use has declined over the past half-century and that they survive chiefly in sporadic applications in state legislatures. Instances of bribery – and near-bribery – seem to be associated with the maneuvers of relatively small groups interested in legislation that involves the grant or denial of privileges of great, immediate, monetary value. In such general category could be placed revelations during the 1930's and 1940's of the activities of small-loan companies, public utilities, race-track promoters, highway transport groups, gambling syndicates, and the like. Pecuniary ties between lobbyist and legislator may take forms other than an outright bribe.Thus, in the skirmishes over the 1956 natural gas bill an attorney for the Superior Oil Company spread about gifts of $2,500 which were later described as contributions to senatorial campaign funds made with no understanding about any Senator’s vote on the bill. Human credulity has its limits, but the distinction between a campaign contribution and a bribe cannot always be made with certainty.

What estimate is to be made of the significance of pressure-group representations in the determination of a legislator’s votes? The unsatisfactory answer is that it “all depends.” It depends in part on the strength of other factors bearing on legislative behavior; those factors vary from bill to bill, from time to time, and from legislator to legislator. The strength of party leadership may at times offset group pressures; the insistent but inarticulate demands of constituency may outweigh group representations. Another variable is the nature of the group itself. One group may be able to guide some legislators along the desired direction and another may be completely powerless. Still another variable may be the type of bill. All these factors and others are mixed in proportions that vary from legislator to legislator as well as from roll call to roll call. Such complexities warn against the easy generalization that Congressmen are usually pushed around by lobbyists.