Date of Award
5-2017
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Political Science
First Advisor
Dr. Patrick Donnay
Abstract
Do powerful special interests have too much influence over what is written in congressional legislation? There has been ongoing debate about how influence should be distributed between interest groups in affecting legislation. A central question in this debate asks whether interest groups with more financial clout have more influence in policy-making than interests that have fewer resources? Furthermore, much research has been on interest groups influence on the lawmaker’s vote instead of the interest’s influence prior to the vote. My research seeks to determine the extent to which interest groups influence the content of legislation in the U.S. Congress. My analysis is on legislation that has strong competing support among interest groups. I look at how much access to lawmakers interest groups have on a given piece of legislation and which interests contribute more to the actual content of the final legislation. I conduct analysis of six case studies to answer this question. My results indicate that interest group with more resources have a stronger influence on the content of congressional legislation.
Recommended Citation
Johnson, Kyle, "Beyond Pluralism and Elitism: How Much Influence Do Special Interests Have on the Content of Congressional Legislation?" (2017). Political Science Theses and Capstones. 58.
https://pines.bemidjistate.edu/capstone-polisci/58
Included in
American Politics Commons, Election Law Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons
