Before the Roll Call: Interest Group Lobbying and Public Policy Outcomes in House Committees

Abstract

This research examines the relationship between interest group activities and the public policy decisions of congressional committees. Unlike the conventional approach, which estimates the relationship between interest group resources and legislators' roll-call votes, the technique used here treats as the dependent variable interest group success at getting what they want from committees on their individual policy preferences. This approach has the unusual advantage of allowing systematic investigation of deci sions made behind the scenes which never come to a formal vote. It also facilitates estimation of the relationship between policy outcomes and lob bying directed at committee staff as well as members, and allows evalua tion of the effect of contextual variables, especially conflict. A model of interest group success on dozens of provisions of two complex bills was estimated. Although conflict among groups dampened interest group suc cess, lobbying committee staff was associated with group success. How ever, even under the decision-making condition expected to be most favorable to interest groups, virtually complete public invisibility, interest groups did not always get their way with congressional committees.