Lobbying regulations and unintended consequences of interest group influence

Abstract

This paper studies and analyzes the effects of lobbying and campaign finance regulations on interest group influence in state legislatures. The conventional wisdom supports the belief that lobbying regulations lead to decreased interest group influence. However, this may not be the case; there is some evidence that lobbying regulations may increase interest group influence rather than decrease it. To test these conflicting findings, I utilize the theory of punctuated equilibrium to claim that interest group mobilization is the missing link between these studies. I only end up finding partial support for my theory. Specifically, I find two independent effects. While interest group mobilization does not mediate for lobbying regulations and interest group influence, I do find evidence that interest group mobilization increases interest group influence in the short term. I also find that lobbying regulations increase interest group influence, which is contrary to conventional wisdom. These findings show that more research is needed to fully understand the effects of lobbying regulations on interest group influence in state legislatures. If interest group mobilization is not the cause of rising influence, then there may be some other factors that scholars should consider when studying this in the future.