Interest Groups and Their Influence
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Over the last four decades, interest groups or lobbies have proliferated at an astonishing pace, with their numbers growing from 5,000 in 1956 to over 20,000 today. However, this figure is only a modest estimation of the actual number of interest groups that claim to represent the multiple interests of the diverse American population today. For many Americans who are preoccupied with daily survival and personal responsibilities, interest groups serve as a useful and political tool for the masses that do not have direct access to legislators. Therefore, these interest groups enable the spirit of democracy to thrive in the U.S. On a more practical level, these organizations have the resources, the organization and the experience to address important political issues on behalf of the people (Berry, 1989). On the other hand, opponents of interest groups believe that interest groups have their own agendas in their lobbying of Congress. Therefore, they do not truly represent the interests of the specific members of the American public who have donated to their organizations. In fact, they have contributed to the obstruction of the growth of direct democracy (Raunch, 1994). In this paper, the pros and cons of lobbying Congress using interest groups will be examined. Furthermore, the effectiveness of gun and education lobbying groups based in Maryland and Washington, D.C. will be analyzed to reveal the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing special interest groups.
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tributing to the content of the legislation (Schneier & Gross, 1993).
Both the major gun and education lobby groups rely on legislators who are sympathetic to their cause. In a letter addressed to its members in March 2000, the Maryland branch of Gun Owners of America (GOA) highlighted the failure of "pro-gun" Republican Senators to stop the passage of a gun bill that will require built-in locks on handguns along with other gun control rules in Maryland. Based on this letter, it is evident that the GOA in Maryland expected pro-gun Senators to resort to any political tactics to support their cause. In this situation, the Senators were charged with their failure to maintain the "filibuster." A filibuster occurs when a member holds the floor as long as possible and yields to members who also share his opposition to the bill in order to forestall the vote of the bill (GOA, 2000, p. 1).
Similarly, powerful education lobby groups such as the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) also rely on sympathetic senators to fight for their cause. For example, in 1997, Senator Paul Coverdell (RA-GA) formulated a proposal to create an A+ Account for parents of a child to invest up to
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Approximate Word count = 2563
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)
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