Federal Policy Activity and the Mobilization of State Lobbying Organizations

Abstract

The mobilization of organized interests is affected not only by social and economic “supply” factors but also by government-related “demand” factors. The authors assess the impact of government activity on the mobilization of interests by examining how federal policy activity stimulates lobbying activity in the states. Empirically, they do this by introducing the federal hearings data used by Leech et al. into the model of state lobbying registrations used by Gray et al. The authors find that congressional hearings in a particular issue area have significant—albeit complex— effects on the mobilization of state interest organizations in that same area.