Scholarly paper about McCain Finegold legislation

8/10/2019 Scholarly paper about McCain Finegold legislation

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EXECUTIVE DIRECTO

MICHAEL J . MALBIN

TRUSTEE

F. CHRISTOPHER ARTERTON

J EFFREY BEL

J . KENNETH BLACKWEL

WILLIAM E. BROCK

BECKY C AIN

ROD CHANDLER

DAVID COHEN

ANTHONY C ORRADO

VIC FAZIO

GEORGE GOULD

C. BOYDEN GRAY

KENNETH A. GROS

RUTH J ONEPHIL NOBLE

TREVOR POTTER

ACADEMIC ADVISOR

J ANET BOX-STEFFENSMEIER

J AMES CAMPBELL

ANTHONY CORRADO

DIANA DWYRE

J OHN C. GREEN

GARY C. J ACO BSON

ROBIN KOLODNY

RAY LA RAJ A

THOMA S E. MANN

MARK J . ROZELL

CLYDE WILCO X

1990 M. Street NW

SUITE 380

WASHINGTON, DC 20036

202-969-8890

202-969-5612 FAX

www.CFInst.org

[email protected]

AFFILIATED WITH THE G EORG E WA SHINGTON UNIVERSITY

New Interest Group Strategies --

A Preview of Post McCain-Feingold Politics?

Theoretical Structure and

A Preliminary Report On 2000

From the CFI Interest Group Project

Michael J. MalbinThe Campaign Finance Institute and

University at Albany, [email protected]

Clyde WilcoxGeorgetown University

[email protected]

Mark J. RozellThe Catholic University of America

[email protected]

Richard SkinnerThe Campaign Finance Institute

[email protected]

www.CFInst.org


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Contents

Introduction 1

Theoretical Frameworks 3Historical Overview: When Laws Change, So Do GroupsStrategies

4

Organizational Adaptation to Environmental Change 8Incentives: The Polarized Political-Legislative Environment 9Organizational Learning 10Diffusion of Innovation 12

Interest Group Tactics in 2000 14Back to the Basics Mobilizing Voters 15

Labor 16NAACP 18

NARAL 19BIPAC 20US Chamber of Commerce 21Citizens for a Sound Economy 21

National Rifle Association 22Taking It to the Airwaves 23

League of Conservation Voters 23Planned Parenthood 23Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence

(Handgun Control)24

Business Issue Ads by Newly Created Groups -- Citizens for

Better Medicare and Americans for Job Security

25

Internet Campaigns 26

What Have We Found? 28Innovation and Diffusion of Learning in 2000 28Partisanship and Strategy Future Research Questions 29Conclusions and Implications 30

Bibliography 34Index of Organizations 39


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New Interest Group Strategies www.CFInst.org 2002 The Campaign Finance Institute

INTRODUCTION

One of the fundamental premises of any system of legal regulation isthat laws alter behavior -- either by direct prohibition or by altering theincentives for voluntary action. The assumption behind any campaignfinance reform proposal is that changing the law will make a predictabledifference. But the assumption is not self-evident. One commoncounterargument sees no predictable connection between campaign financelaws and their consequences. The so-called hydraulic theory says that lawswill divert rather than restrain behavior because money, like water, willalways find a way.

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) is a good testcase for these two sets of assumptions. This new statute is the mostsignificant change to federal campaign finance law since 1974. Itsprohibition of soft money contributions to national parties, and itsconstraints on broadcast electioneering, willsurely send interest groups scrambling to

figure out what they should do. Within days ofits passage, speculation was rampant aboutwhich groups the new rules would favor. Somethought it would favor groups that could collectand bundle hard money contributions.Others thought the law would push groups into

direct mail, phones banks, voter mobilization, and other activities that wouldcontinue to be unregulated and undisclosed. Within two years, we surely willbe reading about how the law led many powerful organizations to discoverand exploit new loopholes of one kind or another. At least some of thosestories are bound to be right.

Yet, if our information in two years is based only on after-the-factobservations, our conclusions are just as likely as not to be wrong. There arelikely to be huge changes in interest group strategies over the next twoelection cycles. We may assume these will follow paths that are legal underthe new law. However, many of the changes might well have taken place

even without the new law; indeed, some have already started. If we want tounderstand the laws effect more precisely, we need to sort out its effectsfrom those caused by changes in the political and technological realm thatwould have taken place anyway. And we need to do this knowing is likelythat different groups, with different resources and internal constraints, willreact differently to the same sets of opportunities and political incentives.

To prepare us for looking at the effects of the new law in two years,the Campaign Finance Institute has started a baseline study to help us sort

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b e h a v i o r b e c a u s e m o n e y ,

l ik e w a t e r , w i l l a lw a y s f in d

a w a y .


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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS

Political scientists, sociologists, and economists who study interestgroup activity in elections generally have assumed that groups makestanding decisions about whether to be involved, the level of theirinvolvement, their general strategic position, and

the specific tactics to employ. Electoral activity hasbeen viewed as an extension of lobbying efforts; thedecision to be active in elections and the extent ofthat activity was seen as a rational calculationbased on the policy agenda of the group and thepolitical environment (Hansen, 1991; Gais, 1996).Groups were thought to adopt a general strategicstance whether to ally themselves with one partyor to support candidates of both, for example, or whether to supportincumbents or to attempt to change the composition of government. Theywere also thought to maintain that stance over time, making relatively

marginal adjustments to marginal changes in the political environment. Eventhe specific tactics of the groups were thought to be relatively stable.

It is obvious, however, that a number of groups have changed theirelection activities over the past few cycles, in some cases dramatically. Thechanges are not merely random, with the decisions of single groups cancelingeach other out. The overall contour of group involvement has also changed,with direct contributions constituting a diminishing portion of total activity,while issue advocacy, voter mobilization efforts, and other tactics havebecome more prominent. These changes suggest a need to rethink ourassumptions about individual groups, and to consider the importance of theaggregate changes in strategy and tactics to the political system.

The magnitude of the changes by some groups in the 2000 campaignwas remarkable.

Planned Parenthood had in 1998 resurrected its PAC and contacted itsmembers by phone and mail on behalf of congressional candidates. In2000, the organization spent more than $12 million on politicallyrelevant activity through its PAC, 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation and

527 political committee, including $7 million in issue advertising onthe presidential race.

The AFL-CIO, which in 1996 had spent about two-thirds of a special$35 million assessment on issue advertising in targeted congressionaldistricts, focused in 2000 on mobilizing its members through person-to-person contact.

The National Rifle Association spent more money campaigning forRepublicans in 2000 than it had in 1996 and 1998 combined,quadrupled its contributions to parties (including significant soft money

I t i s o b v io u s t h a t a

n u m b e r o f g r o u p s h a v e

c h a n g e d t h e i r e l ec t i o n

a c t i v i t i e s , i n s om e

c a s e s d r am a t i c a l l y .

T h e c h a n g e s a r e n o t

m e r e ly r a n d o m .


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contributions), and mounted an ambitious voter mobilization effortthat is credited with helping George Bush carry West Virginia.

The NAACP formed the National Voter Fund, and spent $11 million onefforts to boost the registration and turnout of African Americans.

Americans for Job Security, an organization that formed in 1997 withthe assistance of the American Insurance Association but that does notdisclose the sources of its funding, spent millions on issue advertisingin several key Senate races.

Business Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC), an established ifonce sedate lead PAC for the business community, developed aprogram that encouraged employers to make direct contacts with theiremployees, providing information that often differed from thatprovided by unions.

In each case, these organizations increased the magnitude of theirefforts. In most cases, they also dramatically changed tactics. Unionsdecreased their spending over the airwaves in favor of personal contact. Incontrast, Planned Parenthood significantly increased its issue advertising.How can we begin to understand these rapid changes in interest groupactivities? In this paper:

We first examine the conventional understanding of group resourcesas well as the regulatory context that structures the way thoseresources are used in campaigns.

Next, we consider reasons to expect that group involvement in

elections is more dynamic than previously believed -- because groupsmust adapt to a changed political environment and because there arenetworks of groups that disseminate innovations quickly, sometimesusing carefully designed programs that allow groups to learn fromtheir behavior.

Finally, in the longest section of the paper, we describe the patterns ofchange in group activity in 2000.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW:

WHEN LAWS CHANGE, SO DO GROUPS STRATEGIES

The political science literature on interest group involvement inelections is vast. Comparatively little attention has been paid, however, toexplaining groups strategic choices. In general, scholars have assumedthese decisions to be based on the resources available to the group, theregulations that restrict and channel group activity, and the politicalenvironment (Baumgartner and Leech, 1998; Rozell and Wilcox, 1998). It


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was assumed that resources were relatively fixed, while regulations and thepolitical environment were seen as more variable.

Groups have many resources with which to influence elections. Amongthese:

Financial resources have received the most attention, becauseAmerican elections are expensive and candidates and parties regularlysolicit groups for contributions. Financial resources come from groupstreasuries, from wealthy donors, and from regular contributions ofgroup members.

Group membership is another resource. Most groups have regularchannels to communicate with their members and some groups haveactivist members who can help out on campaigns.

Sometimes, a groups favorable reputation can be a resource,

allowing its endorsements to bestow legitimacy on candidates, at leastamong some voters.

The comprehensive 1974 amendments to the Federal ElectionCampaign Act sought to channel interest group activity through politicalaction committees (PACs). Groups with sizabletreasuries could use those funds to help sponsora PAC but could not give that money directly tocandidates. PACs raised their money from theirmembers in contributions of limited size, therebypreventing groups with a few wealthy patronsfrom efficiently directing those funds into

elections. PAC members could also contributedirectly to candidates in coordination with thePAC, thereby expanding the scope of a PACs efforts. But because themaximum PAC contribution to a candidate was $5,000 per candidate perelection, there was a limit to any one groups ability to focus its attention ona few key elections, unless the PAC was willing to engage independentexpenditures.

PACs became the focus of a great deal of research by politicalscientists, economists, and sociologists in part because relatively cleandata on interest group allocations were available for the first time. Although

groups continued to use other tactics in elections including contactingmembers, endorsing candidates, issuing voter guides, or urging theirmembers to volunteer to aid campaigns PAC money was treated as themajor form of group activity.

The PAC system seemed at this time to be ideally suited tocorporations and trade associations, who could more easily mobilizeindividual contributions from executives, who understood the collectivebenefits of contributing and who might face additional, personal incentives to

B e ca u s e t h e m a x i m u m

P AC c o n t r i b u t i o n t o a

c a n d i d a t e w a s $ 5 , 0 0 0 ,

t h e r e w a s a l im i t t o a n y

o n e g r o u p s a b i l i t y t o

f o c u s it s a t t e n t i o n o n a

f e w k e y e l e ct i o n s .


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contribute. By the mid 1980s, there were more than 1800 corporate PACs onthe FEC books. Unions were key players in the PAC system also, primarilybecause of their large membership totals. Citizens groups were able to

mobilize money, using the resources of the parent organization to pay for thePACs overhead. The rapid development of direct mail techniques allowed

some ideological groups to form as PACs, although the high overhead costsof running a PAC coupled with the inefficiencies of direct-mail fundraisingmeant that little of the money raised by these groups actually made it tocandidate coffers (Brownstein, 1985).

The studies of PACs often distinguished between pragmatic PACs thatgave to incumbents of both parties in order to gain particularized benefits inlegislation, and ideological or issue groups that sought to influence the partybalance in government. Most corporate and trade association PACs followedpragmatic strategies, giving to key committee members and party leaders ofboth parties. These pragmatic PACs had little incentive to alter theirbehavior so long as their contributions helped gain access to policymakers

(Handler and Mulkern, 1982).

In contrast, some groups sought policies that could best be providedby one of the political parties. Among these were ideological groups, laborunions, issue groups and a few business organizations. These groups soughtto influence the composition of Congress by recruiting candidates to run foroffice, providing help to candidates in intra-party primaries, and targetingtheir assistance to those party candidates who had the most to gain.Eismeier and Pollock (1988) showed that some of these PACs operated as

strategic actors, backing vulnerable incumbents from their preferred partywhen the election fortunes favored their opponents, and backing challengersand open seat candidates in elections that favored their party. Labor PACsand certain non-connected, ideological committees also shifted their givingbetween incumbents and non-incumbents of their preferred party, to help theparty maximize its seats (Wilcox, 1989).

In the late 1970s, changes in regulations allowed groups to contributetreasury funds directly to parties in the form of soft money contributions.The amount of soft money exploded in the mid-1990s, as parties began usingsoft money to pay for television advertising. This growth advantaged groupswith large treasuriesand fewer members,such as large

corporations, but wasalso useful for laborunions, which couldconvert union duesinto political funds.Although there havebeen fewer studies ofgroup decisions to

Growth in Party Soft Money

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

1992 1994 1996 1998 2000

MillionsofDollars

Dem Rep

c

Source: Federal Election Commission


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give soft money, it has generally been assumed that much of the corporatesoft money was a pragmatic effort to gain access to incumbents; indeed,many corporations gave soft money to both parties. For corporations and

trade associations, soft money was a simple extension of PAC contributions,allowing them to use a larger resource pool. Unions also gave significant soft

money, although it often comprised a smaller share of their overall activityand was given only after state party committees had presented viableelectoral plans (Wilcox, 1994). Democratic party committees receive morecorporate and trade association soft money than from unions (Biersack andHolt, forthcoming). Issue groups were not major players in party softmoney. Although they shared with the parties an interest in partisan controlof Congress, their key resources lay more in their members than in theirtreasury funds. Moreover, pro-choice, pro-life, environmental, gun controland gun rights groups sought greater control over campaign messages thansoft money permitted.

A shift in the legal landscape in the late 1990s made possible new

avenues of campaign support. Court decisions allowed groups to spendunlimited amounts of treasury funds to advocate issues throughcommunications that do not explicitly call for the election or defeat of specificfederal candidates. This issue advocacy could mention candidates byname, feature their pictures, and send strong signals of support oropposition, creating messages which voters found indistinguishable fromcampaign ads (Magleby, 2001).

Although independent expenditures had been allowed for PACs sincethe Buckley decision in 1976 and NCPAC in 1985 (Federal ElectionCommission v. National Conservative Political Action Committee, 470 U.S.480), issue advocacy could be funded from the organizations treasury, whileindependent expenditures could not. Issue ads thus permitted corporateprofits, union dues, and other group revenues to be marshaled for politicalaction. Moreover, independent expenditures conducted through PACs werelimited by the PACs ability to raise money under the FECAs contributionlimits. Issue ads were not governed by those limits. A number of newgroups were organized in the late 1990s to mount issue advocacycampaigns, often with names that did little to alert observers to the groupsfinancial bases.

Issue advocacy appealed to ideological and single-issue groups forseveral reasons. First, groups could direct significant sums toward a handful

of close races, thereby maximizing the electoral effect of their involvement.Second, because the funding for issue ads need not come from individualssubject to FECA limits, citizen groups can minimize the collective actionproblem by relying on contributions from a smaller group of wealthy donors.Finally, issue advocacy gave groups a chance to define the debate in closeraces and to elevate their issues in the publics eye.


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Issue advocacy was also an attractive avenue for unions, which soughtto raise public awareness of workers issues and to hold candidatesresponsible for anti-labor votes. In 1996 the AFL-CIO spent approximately

$35 million on a set of targeted races (Francia, 2000). About two-thirds ofthis was said by labor union representatives to have been spent on issue ads.

Issue advocacy is less attractive for individual corporations; fewcompanies want their names associated with the vigorous negative contentthat is common in these campaigns. Research has shown that viewersdislike negative advertising, and their negative feelings toward politicaladvertising has a spillover effect on commercial advertising (Iyengar andPrior, 2001). Moreover, many voters are likely to be suspicious ofadvertising on issues that seems to be clearly in the economic interest of acompany. Clearly, any issue advertising campaigns mounted by corporationsmust find a way to surmount the problem of attribution.

Clearly, therefore, past changes in regulationsor in the

interpretations of existing regulations or a growing awareness of thepossibilities inherent in existing rules have permitted groups to mobilizenew resources and to use this money in new ways. Moreover different rules,and interpretations of rules, have favored different groups. Most of theliterature on groups in elections paints these groups as adopting standingdecisions on strategy and tactics that do not change over time. Yet there areother reasons to think that group involvement may be more dynamic thanthe literature implies.

ORGANIZATIONAL ADAPTATION TO ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

Despite the prevalence of assumptions about stable behavior, scholars

have long known that organizations adapt to changes in their environments(Simon, 1976; Woods and Waterman, 1994). For example, interest groupsadapted to the FECA regulatory regime fairly rapidly, with corporations,membership organizations, and ideological groups quickly forming PACs.(Sabato, 1984; Cantor, 1986.) In 1974 there were 89 corporate PACs and318 associated with membership organizations; by 1978 there were 784corporate PACs and 451 membership organization PACs. Although somecorporations appear to have created PACs without careful thought (Sabato,1984; Biersack, Herrnson, and Wilcox, 1994), the growth of thesecommittees was concentrated in particular sectors of the corporate world(Gais, 1996), suggesting a likely connection between an organizations goals,

policy environments and standing strategic decisions.


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Number of Registered Political Action Committees, 1974-2000

Committee Type 1974 1978 1988 2000

Corporate 89 784 1,816 1,545

Labor 201 217 354 317

Trade/membership/health 318 451 786 860Nonconnected - 165 1,115 1,026

Cooperative - 12 59 41

Corporation without stock - 24 138 118

Total 608 1,653 4,268 3,907

Note: The data are as of December 31 for every year.

Source: Federal Election Commission

Moreover, evidence from case studies has shown that even PACs withwell-defined allocation rules can alter those rules in responses to changes inthe policy agenda (Bedlington, 1999; Mutch, 1999). Finally, in the 1980s,some interest groups (especially unions and some companies) adapted tochanges in the regulatory regime that permitted contributions of treasuryfunds to party committees in the form of soft money. Clearly, therefore, weknow that interest groups canrapidly adapt their behavior to changes in theirpolitical environment or in the regulatory regime. Our questions are why,and to what effects. In our project, we focus on three factors thatcontribute to change:

(1) changes in the external environment that produce an

incentive for organizations to change;

(2) a willingness and ability for organizations to learn; and

(3) teaching, or the diffusion of innovation among similarorganizations facing similar problems and trying outdifferent solutions.

Incentives: The Polarized Political-Legislative Environment

Even though the FECA did not change for years, the politicalenvironment did change in important ways during the 1990s, creatingincentives for many groups to change their electoral involvement. First, thetrend toward party polarization accelerated during the decade. The averageideological position of Republicans and Democrats diverged sharplyand partyunity scores increased (Fleisher and Bond, 2000; Jacobson, 2000). As the

parties moved apart, voters seemed to respond to party cues, producingmore congruence between policy preferences and partisanship (Jacobson,


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2000). Party polarization had important consequences for issue groups thathad long sought to support candidates in both parties especially pro-gungroups like the NRA, pro-life and pro-choice groups, and environmental

groups (Thomas, 1999; Mundo, 1999; Patterson, 1999; Cantor, 1999). Onabortion, for example, as the two parties diverged it became harder for pro-

choice groups to find supportive Republicans, and for pro-life groups to findsympathetic Democrats. Moreover, the constituencies for these groupsbecame increasingly partisan (Adams, 1997).

50

60

70

80

90

100

Score

1970 1980 1990 2000

Year

Party Unity

House Dem

House Rep

Senate Dem

Senate Rep

Source: Vital Statistics on Congress, 2001-2002. N. Ornstein, T. Mann , M.Malbin. Washington, DC. AEI Press. 2002. P.173. Note: Data show the percentage of members voting with a majority of their party on party unity votes. Party Unityvotes are those roll calls on which a majority of a party votes on one side of the issue and a majority of the other partyvotes on the other side. By definition the minimum average is 50.

The growing party polarization led to difficulties in the conventionallegislative process and an increase in unconventional policymaking (Sinclair,2000). Legislative activity that could benefit or harm particular groups wasoften rolled into continuing resolutions, inserted during conferencenegotiations, or inserted during bargaining between party leaders and thepresident. Party leaders were conditionally given a larger role in craftingfinal legislation (Aldrich and Rohde, 2001).

These changes took on additional import when the Democratscaptured control of the White House in 1992 and then the Republicans took

control of Congress in 1994. In both cases, those interest groups withagendas best realized by one or the other party came to recognize theimportance of maintaining control of the policy agenda by controlling politicalinstitutions (Gais, 1996). When groups with strong ties to Democrats wereeffectively exiled from the new majoritys leadership offices on Capitol Hill(Gimpel, 1996), many reacted by increasing the level of their electoralinvolvement (Biersack, Herrnson, and Wilcox, 1999). In each election cycle


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after 1994, Democrats narrowed the GOP majority in the House. In 2000,the presidential, Senate and House elections were virtual ties.

Increasing partisanship coupled with narrow party margins created avery different set of incentives for groups engaged in the electoral processthan had the relative stability of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Ideologicaland issue groups that once sought to support candidates of both parties hadto rethink their strategy because a single seat could change the majority.There was a greater incentive for these groups to concentrate their resourceson those few seats that might decide control of Congress, or on thepresidential election.

This same logic did not apply to pragmatic groups, such ascorporations and trade associations, which had always provided support toincumbents of both parties. Although GOP leaders increasingly pressuredthese groups to be more active and more partisan, there were clear costs tosuch activity should the Democrats win control of the House and maintain

control of the presidency. If anything, the new political climate created evenstronger incentives for pragmatic groups to give to incumbents of bothparties.

Organizational Learning

For incentives to alter behavior, groups may have to learn in ways thatrun counter to long-standing decision rules and styles. It is not excessivelyanthropomorphic to think about organizations learning in this way. Cyertand March (1963) suggested that organizations learn from experience and

have a sort of memory (see also March and Olson, 1984). More recently,Suarez (2000) has argued that businesses adopt political strategies based onpast experience, yet the lessons learned from past events may well beinappropriate for the new political environment. Suarez argues that firmslearn most efficiently when a strategy fails, for firms will experiment inresponse to failure and perhaps adopt a new default strategy if theexperiment succeeds.

Most of the literature on organizational learning draws on sociallearning theory, which posited passive organisms responding to stimuli, andacquiring responses that have reinforcing consequences. Yet it is possible to

think of organizational learning in a more active sense. Cognitivepsychologists have viewed learning as a more active process, in whichindividuals seek out information that is useful in building their schemata. Inthe electoral arena, information is often readily available; interest groupsoften have access to candidate and party polls, and may commission theirown polling to monitor the effectiveness of their activities. Groups areembedded in networks that include others who are focused on learning whatworks, and sharing that information (Martin, 1995). Moreover, some groups


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have implemented quite systematic assessment strategies to determinewhich tactics work best, and which are less useful.

Of course, not all organizations will have an equal incentive to learn.Some will have little reason to innovate or to adopt innovations from othergroups. Pragmatic corporations, for example, may find that PAC and softmoney contributions to incumbents are sufficient to ensure that theirarguments are heard during policy debates. Others may have found aperfect match between their available resources and their campaign tactics.But those groups whose agenda is best advanced by a particular party havereason to adopt the most effective tools to influence the outcome ofelections. They also operate in a setting where learning can readily takeplace.

The Diffusion of Innovation

Organizational leaders are not isolated as they think through theiroptions. Learning can occur rapidly across organizations when the systemcontains people and mechanisms that encouragecross-fertilization. Politics is filled with campaignentrepreneurs who work together with interestgroup representatives in networks that seemalmost ideally suited to spread information. (For ageneral discussion of entrepreneurs and diffusion ofinnovation, see Mintrom, 2000). Electoralcampaigns are rich in innovation, for many reasons. First, very large sumsare spent on consultants whose fortunes hinge critically on winning and who

therefore work hard to come up with new techniques to convince voters.Second, campaigns attract large numbers of young, educated workers whoare also intensely committed to winning, willing to devote long hours to thecause, networking with their allies in a common venture. Finally, becausecampaigns center on communicating with voters, rapid advances intelecommunications have made it imperative for campaign professionals tokeep up with whats new.

As a result, the political world is almost ideally suited for innovationsto diffuse rapidly. Within ideological coalitions, there is significant exchangeof personnel. Informal networks based on friendship, ideology, and

professional interest also help the spread of new campaign tools (Martin,1995). Campaign finance disclosure laws, coupled with consultants whomonitor advertising buys and other activity, enable groups to copyinnovations made by other groups that may be outside of their own coalition.For all of these reasons, any new innovation in interest group tactics is likelyto be quickly copied by other groups.

One example of such diffusion of innovation is the recruiting andbundling activities of EMILYs List, a PAC that seeks to recruit and support

T h e p o l i t i ca l w o r l d i s

a l m o s t i d e a l ly s u i t e d

f o r i n n o v a t i o n s t o

d i f f u s e r a p i d l y .


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pro-choice, Democratic women candidates. EMILYs List is best known for itsbundling of small contributions by its members to candidates it has endorsed(Nelson, 1994). These tactics were learned from such organizations as the

Council for a Livable World, which developed the idea in 1962, long beforethe FECA, but spoke about the tactic freely and publicly as a device other

issue groups might want to consider to expand their influence under theFECA while adhering to contribution limits (Thomas, 1980). The tactic thendiffused -- first among organizations sympathetic to EMILYs list, such as theGay and Lesbian Victory Fund and WISH List (Rimmerman, 1994), and laterto groups as diverse as the pro-business Club for Growth and such ChristianRight groups as the Madison Project and Susan B. Anthony Fund.


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INTEREST GROUP TACTICS IN 2000

The broad contours of group activity in the 2000 elections were quitedifferent from those of 1996. Most importantly, regular PAC contributionsand independent expenditures made up a significantly smaller portion of

overall group activity in 2000 than four years before. Direct PACcontributions to candidates increased from $204 million to $248 million overthis period, and contributions to party committees by PACs also increased,from $31 million to $59 million. Soft money contributions to parties, most ofwhich came from interest groups or interest group members, increased from$261 million toalmost $500million. Andcandidate-specificissue advocacyspending ontelevision increased

from perhaps $50million in 1996 to atleast three times asmuch in 2000. Insum, direct PACactivity in 1996constituted about40% of all interestgroups spending onhard and soft money contributions, independent expenditures and broadcastissue ads. By 2000 the figure was roughly 25%. None of these numbers

includes the vast amount spent on direct mail, telephone, internalcommunication and other direct voter mobilization techniques. As we shallsee, the growth in these activities has been highly significant and is poised tobecome more so.

For the sake of our analysis, we shall return to the distinction betweenpragmatic versus partisan or ideological groups if only to explain why thepragmatic groups will not be our focus in the report. Much of the growth inhard money PAC contributions, and in political party soft money, did comefrom donors whose contribution goals were pragmatic. As suggested earlier,

we would not expect the polarized partisan politics, or high stakes, of the2000 election to have had a great impact on the decision calculations of

these pragmatic groups. Indeed, most pragmatic PACs behaved in 2000much as they had in 1996. Smaller PACs often gave to the same candidatesand did not generally increase the level of their activity or the distribution oftheir resources. Some larger pragmatic groups increased their soft moneygiving noticeably, in response to party solicitations, but their soft moneygiving generally mirrored the partisan split of their hard money contributions.For example, AT&T increased its soft money giving from just over $1 millionin 1998 to more than 3.8 million in 2000, but it retained the overall 60%

PAC Contributions as a Percentage of

All Interest Groups' Hard and Soft Money

Contributions and Broadcast Issue Ads

0%

10%

20%

30%40%

50%

1996 2000

Election Cycle

PercentofTo

tal

Source: The Campaign Finance Institute


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used was an election in Kentuckys sixth congressional district, in whichfreshman Republican Ernie Fletcher defeated former Rep. Scotty Baesler (D),who was seeking to regain his old seat. While a number of factors

contributed, one Wall Street Journalarticle gave a great deal of the credit toa grassroots voter mobilization effort among business people. (Hamburger,

2000)

Business of course was not alone. A number of groups focused onexpanding their voter lists, and some built networks to permit personalcommunication with the people whom they had identified. Political scienceresearch has shown that personal contact has a far greater impact on turnoutthan phone calls and mail (Gerber and Green,2000. Note, however, that most of theresearch so far has focused on non-partisanmessages.) Many activists share the perceptionthat personal contact is important, and haveadopted a return to the grassroots strategy.

Many of them see broadcast issue advocacy assometimes being counterproductive, activatinga groups opponents as well as its supporters.(Magleby, 2001). However, the return to thegrassroots, and skepticism about broadcast,should not be confused with a Luddite view oftechnology. Many of the organizations in our study used highly sophisticatedtechniques, sometimes including the Internet, to target their audiences andto get their messages across.

Labor

Several groups concentrated the bulk of their efforts on reaching theirown members and sympathizers, spending relatively less on advertising tothe general public than they had in the past. The AFL-CIO emphasized votermobilization in 2000, a major shift in emphasis away from the issue advocacyof 1996. There is some evidence that Labors issue advocacy in 1996 didreduce the victory margins of first term House Republicans (Jacobson, 2000),but few of the targeted members lost and many analysts concluded that thetactic was unsuccessful. In 1998, Labor reduced its emphasis on issueadvocacy and instead focused on expanding new mobilization techniques that

it had also first tried in 1996. Labors internal research shows these 1998efforts to have been responsible for an increase in turnout among unionhouseholds over the previous midterm election (1994), that outdistanced theshifts among other large voting blocs.

Service Employees InternationalUnion members mobilizing voters forthe 2000 election.


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In 2000, the AFL-CIO (www.aflcio.org) again focusedheavily on mobilizing union voters. The AFL-CIO did givesoft money to parties, and mounted a significant issue

advertising campaign as well, but a majority of itsresources went toward voter mobilization. Less than 25%

of labors $40 million in 2000 was spent for televisionadvertising (Biersack and Holt, forthcoming). Themobilization effort was impressive in the sheer number ofpaid staff and volunteers who were involved. The AFL-CIO

deployed more than 1000 paid staff and many more volunteers to registervoters and built networks of personal contacts.

The magnitude of the other resources in the ground war was alsoimpressive. Organized labor reportedly made more than 8 million phonecalls in the 2000 campaigns, and sent out more than 14 million pieces bymail, not including materials distributed in person by volunteers and paidstaff (Biersack and Holt, forthcoming). Unions also used e-mail to send get-

out-the-vote messages to 60,000 households, and provided fliers on-line foractivists to download and print at home. The AFL-CIO claims that more than2 million forms were downloaded and distributed in this manner.

However, Labor has always been able to put up impressive numbersfor these kinds of activities. According to labor union political directors, themore significant shifts involved personal, face to face contact. According toSteven Rosenthal, political director of the AFL-CIO, organized labor found --after field tests and follow-up surveys that their communications have beenmost effective when one union member talks directly to another, much asthe old-style political party precinct captains would do in the past. Heconsiders this approach to have been responsible for a significant increase inparticipation among Labor households at a time when turnout in generalstayed flat. This increased the union household share of the electorate from23 to 26 percent. But the program still needs improvement, Rosenthal said:too much of the political organization disappears after Election Day whenlocal coordinators return to their normal jobs.

Labor unions also trained hundreds of members to runfor public office in 2000, the first time that Labor had sought ina significant way to recruit candidates from within its ranks.Skip Roberts, legislative director of the Service EmployeesInternational Union, (www.seiu.org) singled out this strategy --

not only because it might elect people to office with strong labor sympathies,but also because the campaigns have energized local members to participatein elections. He cited examples of several state legislative campaigns inwhich his unions members were Democratic Party nominees and we justhad, literally, hundreds of members as volunteers, because they werentvoting for some politician. It was someone they knew. He called thistechnique his most exciting effort for getting membership involved. The


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AFL-CIOs president, John Sweeney, announced in December 2001 that Laborintends to expand this program in 2002.

For some groups, personal contacting is the most

obvious approach given the nature of their daily workactivities. The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC)(www.nalc.org) is one such group. According to George Gould,Assistant to the President for Legislative and Political Affairs,about 96% of the letter carriers are members of the union and

these individuals tend to be highly interested in political activity. Their majorasset is a detailed knowledge of the communities in which they work. AsGould noted, the letter carriers know their territory, so theyre very valuablein the campaign. And for a get out the vote operation, a letter carrier canwalk in and say, That map is ten years old, that building isnt there anymore [That will] save the campaign a great deal of effort and time.

Theyre also very good on campaign phone banks. Theyre comfortable withpeople.

NAACP

Most groups, unlike Labor, focused their mobilizationefforts outside their own membership, developing lists ofpotential voters who were likely to be sympathetic to theirissues. The NAACP (www.naacp.org), for example, becameinvolved in electoral mobilization for the first time in 2000,

establishing a 501 c(4) organization the NAACP Voter Fund.The NAACP recruited Heather Booth, a longtime group

organizer and former director of the Womens Campaign Fund to run theVoter Fund. The goal of the Voter Fund was to mobilize African Americanturnout in the 2000 elections. The Fund concentrated its efforts oninfrequent voters those who had voted two times or fewer in the past fourelections. It hired a consulting firm to identify 3.8 million infrequent blackvoters in forty congressional districts that were either predominantly African-American or had substantial clusters of black voting-agecitizens. The funds leaders believed that infrequent voters,who are not often targeted, could still be reached with

communications of a type that have been losingeffectivenesswhen used on over-saturated frequent voters. Althoughfrequent voters may be annoyed by receiving too much junkmail, and too many marketing calls, infrequent voters werereceptive to calls from an organization they were likely totrust. The fund made an effort to contact each of thesepotential voters as many as nineteen times seven mailings, seven phonecalls, and five door-to-door contacts. The phone calls included some by

Kweisi Mfume,President,NAACP


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volunteers and some pre-recorded calls by celebrities including Bill Clinton.More than 40,000 volunteers were involved in the door-to-door canvassing.The group also initiated a re-enfranchisement campaign to register potential

voters who were either serving time in jail or who had lost their franchisebecause of a previous conviction. Overall, this voter mobilization campaign

cost more than $11 million, with a single, anonymous donor reportedlyproviding a significant amount of the funding.

The Voter Fund put organizers in the field in more than a dozen stateswhere either the presidential election or a Senate election was expected tobe close. It also aired commercials in coordination with other groupsincluding the Sierra Club. The group ran more than 750 spots in the top 50media markets, mostly attacking GOP Senate candidates. One controversialspot attacked George W. Bush for opposing an expanded definition of hatecrimes, graphically suggesting that Bushs position amounted to indifferenceover the brutal murder of James Byrd, Jr.

NARAL

The National Abortion Rights Action League(NARAL) (www.naral.org) also stepped up the levelof its grass roots activity in 2000, devoting a largeportion of its budget -- as much as 80%, accordingto its now former political director Gloria Totten --to field operations and mobilization. A much

smaller amount was spent in 2000 on media perhaps only 20%. Thegroups major focus was to build the National Pro-Choice voter files through a

Pro-Choice identification project. (NARAL conducted this project incooperation with Planned Parenthood and through a grant from the TurnerFoundation). Totten said the effort added about one million people to thevoter file, bringing it to 2.9 million people. She said that the organizationspent a great deal of money and time to turn the file into a workable tool . .. that our affiliates could access quickly. It was utilized in the educationaland advocacy work, so by the time we got to the elections, it was reallyready to go.

According to one person on NARALs political staff, election 2000 wasthe first time the organization increased its communication toward a targeted

audience specifically to move voters. After developing its voter file early, theorganization later could target its efforts to competitive elections or regionsin which the issue of abortion was projected potentially to affect the decisionsof at least three percent of the voters. The group made independentexpenditures in thirty-nine targeted congressional districts to help Democratsin tight races or open seats. NARAL also endorsed a presidential candidate ina primary battle for the first time, choosing Al Gore in his campaign againstBill Bradley. Perhaps most interestingly, NARAL targeted messages to


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supporters of independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader to try toconvince them that their support of his candidacy would ultimately helpGeorge Bush get elected.

BIPAC

One of the most remarkable tactical shifts came in theactivities of the Business-Industry Political ActionCommittee (BIPAC) (www.bipac.org). BIPAC had longbeen a cue-giver to business PACs, but in recent years

had seemed somewhat staid particularly when compared with the moreaggressive tactics of the small business community (Nelson, 1994; Biersackand Nelson, 1998). In 2000, BIPAC commissioned a national poll to find outwhere voters received political information. It found that 17% of therespondents had heard something from a labor union regarding the elections,

but only 7% had heard anything from their employer. Yet the poll alsoshowed that 24% of workers thought their employers were their mostcredible source of political information, compared with only 17% who choseunions. This led BIPAC officials to believe that corporations could persuadeemployees, if only they would communicate with them in a meaningful way.

BIPACs assessment was based on a significant rethinking of how toact most effectively in a changing political environment. BIPACs President,Greg Casey, said that hard and soft money contributions typically were usedto pay for mass communications that had lost much of their impact withmodern voters. Specifically referring to organized labors recent adaptations,Casey said that he wanted to persuade individual business leaders to engage

in conversations with their employees, and to provide them with tools thatwould make it easy for them to do so. This would be more effective thanrelying solely on large associations to carry businesss message. The aimwas to use a messenger who had credibility with the workers, much as aunion might do by using a shop steward. BIPAC encouraged printcommunications and peer-to-peer efforts, but its most effective deviceprobably was the Internet program it developed forProject 2000.

Under this program, BIPAC developed a databaseon political issue information, including members roll call

votes on a wide variety of issues. BIPAC would then workwith a local business leader to help the leader pick issuesthat were important for his/her own company orcommunity. These would form the basis for a tailoredscorecard or information packet. They also wouldpersuade the local business leader to buy in to theconcept BIPAC was offering. With the local businessleaders direct involvement, the information would be

Greg Casey,President, BIPAC


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mounted on the corporations own website, with that corporations look andfeel. According to Casey, the people who work at Randys Repair Shopdont care about me or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. What they care

about is Randy. The user would perceive what he or she was viewing ascoming from the local business, but the local business could not have

mounted the effort without BIPACs infrastructure.

In most corporations, the web sites were just the informational pieceof a larger program of grassroots mobilization. Casey described the activitiesas innovations for BIPAC and its allies because the business community hadignored grass-roots level political activity for fifteen years in favor of simplymaking contributions. Today, he said, there is a recognition that electionscan be won with grass-roots activity. The major impetus for this change instrategy was the recognition by people in the business community of

changing political paradigms: close elections in which control of theCongress hinged on a few competitive races, and the likelihood that thiswould not change soon.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

The Chamber of Commerce (www.uschamber.org) alsoworked to strengthen its grassroots in 2000, although itcontinued to spend money on issue ads and reinvigorated itsPAC. The Chambers executive vice president for governmentaffairs, R. Bruce Josten, noted that the Chamber sought to

take resources and maximize them in what we considered tobe close races, if there was a defining philosophical difference between two

candidates, and that if it was close enough where one could make adifference. The Chamber sent out more than a million express advocacymailings to members (of either the national organization or of local chapters)in twenty-five targeted House races and ten Senate contests. Theorganization also mailed thousands of voter tool kits to state and localChambers as well as to businesses that wanted to participate in the effort.In addition, the Chamber expanded some of its existing programs, such asthe Meet and Greet program in which state, local or national Chambermembers meet with incumbent Congress members or aspiring candidates.Part of the purpose was fundraising and part was to build enthusiasm andsupport for members and candidates who were friends of the Chamber and

involved in competitive races. The Chamber expanded these meetings fromabout 100 in 1998 to more than double that number in 2000.

Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE)

Citizens for a Sound Economy (www.cse.org) was formed in 1986 to supportfree markets and limited government. In 1996, CSE focused its electoralactivity on television advertising. In 2000 the group had changed toemphasize grassroots politics. Vice President for Public Affairs Martin Reiser


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said that the reasons for the change were first, to buildan effective and long-term grassroots network, second,to engage in activities that enabled the institution to

grow. We would run multi-million dollar campaigns,whether they be voter education or issue advocacy,

and at the end of the day all that money had gone out the door and wehadnt built anything. After the 1996 cycle CSE decided to build agrassroots network of free-market advocates and began to open statechapters throughout the country. For the 2000 cycle the group focused onthe twelve states where it had state offices. According to Reiser, the groupultimately sent two million pieces of mail, made one million phone calls, andnumerous precinct walks. In Florida alone the group had about 500volunteers and did door-to-door visits in about 20,000 neighborhoods.

National Rifle Association

In each of the previous cases, a group changed its tactics toplace more of an emphasis on grassroots communications.The National Rifle Association (NRA) (www.nra.org) hadalways focused on direct voter contacts. In 2000 it increasedthe magnitude of its efforts and the targeting of itscommunications. This was part of a larger campaign that also

featured significant media buys and efforts to attract free media. In 1999,the NRA aired a series of infomercials in the Midwest and in battlegroundstates, urging gun owners to join the organization. In the spring of 2000,the NRA ran a series of issue ads trying to refocus the gun control debateand draw momentum away from the Million Mom March.

During the fall campaigns, Charlton Heston did a highly publicized tourin six key states, stumping for GOP Senate candidates. The NRA aired issueads in key states, and increased its contribution to party committees whilegiving money to candidates in most House districts. But its major effort wasin contacting voters. The NRAs Vote Freedom First campaign wasdesigned not only to mobilize gun enthusiasts, but also to persuade gunowners to vote gun rights instead of other issues. This was particularlyaimed at members of labor unions who also owned guns.

The NRA worked to build a voter contact list that extended beyond its

already considerable membership. It rented lists of hunting and fishingmagazine subscribers and built a list of licensed hunters, gun club members,and others who might be sympathetic to the NRA agenda. As the electionapproached, the NRA contacted these potential voters through mail and byphone. The content of the messages varied by state and district. In manycases, the NRA sought to convince union voters to support Republicancandidates. In several states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Missouri andIllinois, there is little evidence that the NRAs efforts did much to persuade


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union members, but in West Virginia the specially tailored messages maywell have had an effect. A letter mailed to 30,000 members of the UnitedMine Workers of America in that state focused not only on Vice President

Gores position on gun control but also on the environmental stances inGores book Earth in the Balance (1993), which the NRA argued would cost

West Virginia jobs in the coal industry. Many observers credit this campaignwith George W. Bushs narrow, surprising victory in the state. Gore andBush tied among union members there, whereas pro-gun Democraticgubernatorial candidate Bob Wise swept the union vote in an easy victory.

TAKING TO THE AIRWAVES

League of Conservation Voters

Although many groups moved away from advertising and

toward voter contacting in 2000, not all groups made thischange. Some, like the League of Conservation Voters (LCV)(www.lcv.org), stuck with their approach from the recentpast. Specifically, LCV continued using independentexpenditures without moving significantly into issueadvertising. In response to the GOP takeover in 1994, theLeague had adopted an independent expenditure strategytargeting the Dirty Dozen. It continued this effort in 2000,spending more than in past election cycles. The group addeda program to identify Environmental Champions of bothparties and to allow the candidates to use that label in theiradvertising. In general, LCV prefers independent

expenditures to issue ads because it takes a large budget torun enough media issue ads to have an effect on a race.Nevertheless, LCV has indicated that it may reevaluate itsstance in future elections. Because independent spendersmay not coordinate, or even talk to, the candidates aboutstrategy, LCV political staff members are beginning to wonderabout the effectiveness of their choice.

Planned Parenthood

LCVs tactical continuitywas not normal for thegroups in our study. Most

interesting was the significant change in Planned Parenthood(www.plannedparenthood.org), which had established its PACin the 1998 election cycle to go along with its 501(c)(4) tax-exempt nonprofit corporation. That year, the 501(c)(4)organization is political activity mostly consisted of telephone

Deb CallahanPresident,League ofConservationVoters

Gloria FeldtPresident, PlannedParenthood


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and direct mail communication with Planned Parenthood members on behalfof congressional candidates. In 2000, the group added a new focus to itsprevious activities, spending an estimated $12 million through its PAC,

501(c)(4) and 527 political committee, including $7 million on advertisingabout the presidential campaign in ten states. In late September through

early October 2000, Planned Parenthoods spending on advertising exceededthe Democratic National Committees, helping those who supported VicePresident Gore to match the level of pro-GOP spending. One advertisementfeatured Republican women decrying Gov. Bushs views on abortion; anotherfeatured a physician talking about the so-called gag rule.

Planned Parenthood was also active in ground war campaigns tosupport pro-choice House and Senate candidates in targeted districts.Among the key races were the Missouri Senate campaign, in which theorganization sent out 90,000 voter guides. A joint Planned Parenthood /NARAL phone bank made 15,000 calls in Missouri late in the campaign. Inthe California 27thHouse district race, Planned Parenthood spent $100,000

on direct mail, $20,000 on voter identification, and did four mailingsattacking the incumbent Republican, James Rogan. Nina Miller, PlannedParenthoods former political director, said that tracking polls showed that intargeted districts and states the ad campaigns worked effectively to moveRepublican and Independent women toward Gore and toward otherDemocratic candidates further down on the ticket. Planned Parenthoodactually was more successful at moving GOP women voters than was NARAL,which eventually switched to focus its effort on independent rather thanRepublican women.

The move toward heavily pro-Democratic behavior in the election wascontroversial for Planned Parenthood. Many in the organization werereluctant to become so strongly involved in partisan politics. Unlike NARAL,the group had a brand name that for much of the public suggested a non-partisan, public service type of organization. Some Republicans withdrewcontributions to the organization, although the precise magnitude of thiseffect is difficult to estimate.

Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence(Handgun Control)

Handgun Control (www.bradycampaign.org)dramatically increased its level of activity in2000. According to Joseph Dennison,director of state legislation, PAC spendingincreased from $180,000 in 1996 to more

than $2 million in 2000. Previously the group had focused ondirect contributions to candidates. In 2000, Handgun Controlspent most of its money on independent expenditures in

Sarah Brady,Chair of theBrady Campaignto Prevent GunViolence


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several targeted competitive Senate races as well as the presidentialcampaign. The other significant change was the decision to become involvedmuch earlier in the election year in the use of issue advocacy. As Greg

Macias, the associate director for political affairs, pointed out, the decision tofocus on the airwaves reflected the groups desire to promote its issue to a

target audience of suburban mothers who were not part of its existinggrassroots infrastructure. Interest groups evolve their electoral strategies inresponse to what they observe in the political environment. Handgun Controlinitially planned to run ads in May to establish the terms of the gun controldebate, and then to back off from this activity as the elections drew close.Yet after observing the extent of activity of other groups and the likelycloseness of the presidential and several Senate races, Handgun Controldecided to run additional ads in early September.

Business Issue Ads by Newly Created Groups --

Citizens for Better Medicare and Americans for Job Security

The business community did use the airwaves,although most companies were reluctant to air issueadvertising on their own. Peak associations such as

the Chamber of Commerce aired more than $15 million in issue advertising in2000, but the most interesting tactic of business appears to have been thecreation and funding of other groups that could air issue advertisementswithout directly linking them to individual companies. Two groups attractedconsiderable attention for their spending Citizens for Better Medicare,(www.bettermedicare.org) which was funded by the pharmaceutical industry

in an effort to shape the debate on prescription medication and cost control,and Americans for Job Security, founded with the aid of the AmericanInsurance Association. The precise identity of the donors to theseorganizations have not been revealed, but the Washington Postreported thatmajor high-tech companies contributed to American For Job Security in 2000at the strong behest of Trent Lott (Isikoff, 2000). Citizens for BetterMedicare reportedly spent $50 million or more on issue advertising during1999-2000, but much of that was spent for advertising early in the cycle thatdid not mention candidates (See CFI Issue Ad Report, A-8; Miller and Miller.)A CBM staff person estimated that perhaps $15 million was spent forcandidate-specific advertising, much of it in districts where the message wasmeant to counter the AFL-CIOs. Americans for Job Security spentapproximately $10 million, all on issue ads, most of which attackedDemocratic candidates and a few of which supported Republicans. Thecorporations who funded these groups apparently did not want their nameson the ads bylines, but by creating new organizations (often called shadowPACs) businesses have found a way to channel their resources into issueadvertising.


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INTERNET CAMPAIGNS

In 2000, many groups experimented with the use of the Internet ande-mail as part of their campaign efforts. Some groups established web sitesthat allowed visitors to contribute to the organization or its PAC, othersplaced voter guides and other persuasive materials on their web site foractivists to download and distribute to friends and neighbors. Some groupscontacted their members through e-mail, and several groups sought to builde-mail lists. The success of John McCains campaign in raising moneythrough the Internet suggested to many that the medium has potential, andthe low costs of Internet fundraising (especially compared with direct mailsolicitations) are attractive to many citizens groups.

The Sierra Club (www.sierraclub.org) made an extensiveeffort to communicate voter information through its ownwebsite as well as through banner ad spaces on voter.com andLycos. The Sierra Clubs website featured its voter guide and

the banner ads brought visitors directly to the website wherethey could easily access the guide. The voter education sectionon the website featured state-by-state voter charts so thatvisitors could click on their home states and accessenvironmental political information relevant to state and local

races. The organization also made available for the first time an e-mailversion of the Presidential Voter Guide that could be sent out on request.Sierra Club also used the Internet to facilitate some of its other activities.One of the new activities in 2000 was the use of broadcast voter guides taped commercials on particular environmental issues for targeted races.The ads featured a request for viewers to come to the Sierra Club website to

review in more detail the environmental records of the candidates.

The NEA (www.nea.org) developed an email list of actual andpotential supporters in twenty-seven targeted congressionaldistricts. This was mostly an effort to keep sympatheticincumbents in office. The organization would collect email

addresses of potential supporters (usually through direct mailings and phonecalls) and then use the email lists to send education policy updates,emphasizing the incumbent members activities. This activity started monthsbefore the election. Closer to Election Day, the NEA sent emails with video

clip attachments of the presidential candidates speaking on education issues.

BIPAC used the Internet as part of its outreach to business. Asmentioned earlier, BIPAC created web pages for individual businesses, withthe companys logo. This let the companies to provide information toemployees from BIPACs database of members roll call votes, after the eachcompany decided which roll calls was important to its business or location.The company would appear as the source of the information sent out to


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employees over the companys Intranet, but BIPAC established and maintainthe underlying database that made the whole effort possible.

Perhaps the most Internet-intensive organization in the2000 election cycle was MoveOn.Org, which grew out ofan Internet campaign urging the Congress to abandon its

effort to impeach and remove Bill Clinton from office. The organizationstarted with contributions from individuals and foundations, but now solicitsmoney on its web site. Move On regularly contacted its members via e-mail, and claims to have raised more than $2 million for Congressional racesin 2000.

The National Rifle Associations Web site also allowed that organizationto collect contributions, and included streaming videos of Charlton Hestonsexhortations. Research on Internet giving suggests that the NRA has doneespecially well in this medium (Powell, Powell, and Wilcox, 2001).

Internet and e-mail campaigning is still in its infancy, and manygroups are innovating in this area. They are monitoring the efforts of othergroups, tracking their successes and failures. For example, the Chamber ofCommerces Internet strategy in 2000 was entirely a research anddevelopment effort, as the organization tried to understand the potential andlimitations of this new tool. Many interest group leaders are skeptical of themedium, but they are also beginning to test its usefulness systematically.


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Donald Green and Alan Gerber at CFIseminar.

WHAT HAVE WE FOUND?

INNOVATION, DIFFUSION AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING IN 2000

The 2000 campaigns showed how quickly changes in tactics diffuse

through the interest group community. The AFL-CIOs focus on building itsgrassroots capabilities in 1998 was diffused, through a great deal of personalinteraction, to other unions in 2000. NARALs focus on voter mobilizationwas also inspired in part by the Labor model. On the business side, BIPACsGreg Casey said that, We came to the conclusion that organized labor hadrecognized before anyone else the changing nature of politics in this countryand reacted correctly and put together a grass roots effort. If business wasgoing to be successful, we had to do the same thing. Project 2000 wasborn.

The way that supportive networks operate is clearest in the case of theNAACP. As the NAACP built its new political arm, it relied on advice and

assistance from sympathetic organizations. Heather Booth, director of theNAACPs National Voter Fund, noted that Handgun Control was in the same

building and wed go upstairs and say, Okay, is this how you did it? Theorganization also consulted with the Letter Carriers to make maps to guidetheir contacting efforts, and partnered with the Sierra Club on some issueadvocacy.

Many of the organizations we studied also made an effort to learn from

their own experience, through formalevaluations. For example, the NAACPcommissioned Donald Green and Alan

Gerber two Yale University politicalscientists who have published importantexperimental studies of the impact ofvarious voter mobilization efforts todetermine which methods of contactingvoters worked best, and in whatcombination. It also commissioned polls,conducted focus groups, and received a precinct turnout analysis from theNational Committee for an Effective Congress.

A number of groups do polling to determine the effects of theircampaign efforts. The AFL-CIO, Club for Growth, Americans for Job Security,

NEA, NARAL, Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, National Association of LetterCarriers, and others, conducted some type of polling in some casestracking polls to determine the impact of issue ads, exit polls to determinewhich issues moved votes, and polls of their members. Focus groups werealso common, along with interviews of members, executives, and others.

The magnitude of these efforts varied from a few focus groups and asmall survey to a series of surveys in various regions and at various points


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during the campaign. Groups that run issue ads test them and gauge theirresults in the same way as do party committees and candidates. More recentefforts at grassroots mobilization are sometimes studied by focusing on

turnout in particular races or districts, and these studies vary in their level ofsophistication. Yet it is clear that actual research informs the decisions of

many groups, and that these organizations have formal mechanisms in placethat enable them to learn from past successes and failures.

PARTISANSHIP AND STRATEGY FUTURE RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Everything we have discussed so far has been about the decisionsgroups make to increase the level of their activities and shift the modalities.Our initial impression was that the newactivities were associated with aheightened degree of partisanship

within the active groups, stimulated bythe stakes involved in the close battlefor majority control of the Senate andHouse. At this stage of our research,we want to look further at whether theindividual groups in fact have become

more partisan. An alternative possibility is that individual groups have notbecome more partisan, but the system has, by increasing the importance ofgroups and activities that used to be less significant than they are now.

We plan to examine this issue in subsequent stages of this research.For now, we share some preliminary ideas. Many groups that seek policies

most commonly associated with one political party have historically made aneffort to give to candidates of both parties. Pro-choice and pro-life groups,groups that sought to protect the environment, to promote gun control orgun rights all have sought out candidates of the other party to support, insome cases practicing affirmative action to find those candidates (Rozelland Wilcox, 1996). In an election with close partisan divisions, with partiesincreasingly polarized on many issues and perhaps group membership lessbipartisan than in the past, it seems likely that many groups would decreasetheir bipartisanship. No matter how given members might vote on abortionor clean air or gun control, they vote their partisanship to organize thechamber, and that organizing vote has important consequences for each of

the groups focal issues.

The overall allocation of PAC contributions and soft money by thesegroups does not show increased partisanship. NARAL directed 92% of itsmoney in 1992 toward Democrats, and 94% in 2000. The National Right toLife Committee channeled 86% of its funds to Republicans in 1992,compared with 83% in 2000. Sierra Club gave Democrats 97% of its moneyin both election cycles, and League of Conservation Voters went from 93% to

A n a l t e r n a t i v e p o s s ib i l i t y i s t h a t

i n d i v i d u a l g r o u p s h a v e n o t b e c om e

m o r e p a r t i s a n , b u t t h e s y s t e m h a s ,b y i n c r e a si n g t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f

g r o u p s a n d a c t i v i t i e s t h a t u s e d t o

b e l e s s s i g n i f ic a n t t h a n t h e y a r e

n o w .


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Democrats in 1992 to 87% in 2000. The NRA is the exception to thisgeneralization, increasing from 64% to Republicans in 1992 to 92% in 2000.

Yet these PAC totals understate thechange in two ways. First, many of thesePACs occasionally supported vulnerablecandidates from the other party in 1992 but in2000 gave nearly all of their cross-partymoney to safe incumbents. More importantly,in many cases the only effort on behalf ofcandidates of the other party was a cash

contribution from the PAC, whereas voter contacting, issueadvocacy, and other efforts were heavily partisan. It doesnot appear that the close margins and party polarization ledthese groups to abandon their token bipartisanship in 2000,but it does appear that the more partisan side of their activity was conductedat a far more intense level in 2000 than in years past. Of course, some single

issue and ideological groups will tend to pursue a single-party strategy nomatter how competitive the electoral environment. In some cases, such asU.S. Term Limits, groups will focus much of their effort on party primarynomination battles to try to help the more ideologically compatiblecandidates. Paul Jacob of U.S. Term Limits noted that the organizationmoved heavily in 2000 in spending on primaries (about 70% of all groupspending) and plans to increase its primary nominations activity again in2002.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

In the 2000 campaign, a number of organizations dramaticallychanged the nature and level of their activity. A great deal was at stake, andmany groups perceived that a small increase in turnout, or a shift inpreferences among undecided voters, could decide party control of theHouse, Senate, and the presidency. Many groups, perhaps inspired byorganized labors tactics in 1998, shifted from a focus on advertising to oneof grassroots mobilization and networking. Others favored large issueadvertising campaigns. Some also experimented with the Internet and othernew technologies, although the future of these tools remains unclear.

The move toward grassroots networking and voter contact appears tohave been due to several factors. Many activists believed that advertisingwas costly and that the payoff for their scarce resources would be better atthe grassroots. The elections of 1994, 1996, and 1998 showed that turnoutwas critical to party fortunes. Voter mobilization was therefore especiallyattractive in an election that was forecast to be close. Yet other groupsincreased their issue advocacy, in part because this tool helps to mold thepublic debate, and persuade undecided voters.

Paul Jacob,Senior Fellow,U.S. Term Limts


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Little in the political science literature can help us understand whysimilar groups might choose different tactics. In general, organizations thatemphasized grassroots operations had strong membership bases, while some

that focused on issue advertising had members who essentially werecontributors. But there is more to the story. The contrast between NARAL

(which did some independent spending but focused on voter contacting) andPlanned Parenthood (which moved from voter contacting to issue advocacy)is interesting. The explanation for these different strategic decisions is notimmediately obvious. It may be that this reflects only the preferences, skills,or idiosyncratic characteristics of group strategists. But it is also possiblethat these decisions reflect the difference between NARALs and PlannedParenthoods resource bases. NARAL has a long history of politicalinvolvement. It therefore perhaps has less of a non-partisan brand nameand therefore may be less effective in mass advertising to convinceRepublican pro-choice voters to defect. Planned Parenthood may well havespent some of its reputation resource in the 2000 campaigns, and may beperceived as more partisan in future elections.

A more important lesson from these cases is that campaign financerules and interpretations alter the types of resources that can be brought tobear in electoral campaigns. The PAC system advantaged corporations,which could more readily surmount the collective action dilemma than issuegroups, but it also limited the ability of companies and unions to use treasuryfunds in politics. Soft money allows wealthy organizations to give to theparties, either to gain access to policymakers or to bolster party fortunes, butit does not allow ideological groups to define the debate. Issue advocacyallows ideological groups to gather money from foundations or wealthydonors, and to channel that money into messages that shape the policy

debate. This helps citizen groups avoid the free rider problem, because afew important members can make a difference in the policy outcome andthus have an incentive to participate (Olson, 1965).

Now, the legal framework has changed once again. The election of2004 will be conducted under new rules for political party contributions andissue advocacy. This Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act was the biggestchange to federal campaign finance law in more than twenty-eight years.The law is bound to have a powerful effect on interest group campaignstrategies and tactics. The Campaign Finance Institute intends to study theway groups react to the new law, as well as how they react to otherimportant changes as they occur.

Our guess is that the effect of the law will vary with different types ofgroups.

Pragmatic groups will probably put less money into federal racesthan they have in the past. Executives will face some pressureto increase their hard money contributions. However, to theextent that corporate treasury money was being given in


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response to requests, to preserve access, at least some of thatmoney will stay on the sidelines. Contrary to the hydraulictheory, this is a place where the law is likely to make a

difference.

In contrast, we expect groups with partisan or intense policyagendas to stay involved. The BCRA appears on first reading tobe pushing those groups away from broadcast electioneering,but many of the larger groups in our study were moving in thatdirection anyway. The big question is about groups that wereusing broadcast advertising to a significant degree. The affectswill vary, depending on a groups characteristics.

o Groups that have small membership bases cannot readilyconvert to voter mobilization activities. If they rely oncorporate or labor union money, they will have to shiftfrom radio and television to direct mail or telephone.

Alternatively, they could use ads to try to define anelection early, before the 60 day window, or else runadvertisements later that do not use a candidates nameor likeness.

o Labor and business organizations funded from treasurymoney will face the same media restrictions andopportunities, but they can do electioneering throughPACs and are also well positioned to continue working onvoter mobilization.

o Larger issue groups will have a range of choices. One

option, not stressed but well known to the laws sponsorsand to election attorneys, is that a group might spin offan unincorporated association. As long as this associationcan raise money (in any amount, without limit) fromindividuals who are willing to accept disclosure, and avoidany indirect corporate or labor support, it will be able tobuy exactly the same messages (naming candidateswithin 60 days of an election) as it could under the oldlaw. That is because all of the electioneering prohibitionsin the BCRA build on the basic corporate and laborrestrictions in current law.

Predicting the tactical choice specific groups will make is difficult,particularly if the groups have a large membership bases, such as NARAL orthe NRA. They could continue electioneering by setting up unincorporatedentities, funded entirely by individual contributors, to buy TV ads. The sameorganizations could, however, decide they wanted to emphasize targetedcommunications, as the NRA does. (Corporate and labor contributions arepermitted for these, as they are for broadcast ads that do not meet the laws


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definition of electioneering.) We predict that any specific groups choiceswill be based on its assessment of the political environment and itsresources, including its ability to shift individual contributions into a new

association. The law will not be a major impediment for these kinds oforganizations.

Of course, predictions may go wrong. We cannot be sure what willhappen, or why, until it does. That is why we are engaged in this project.The current paper may therefore be seen as a baseline study. It is meant todocument some groups decisions to change during one of the last twoelections before the new law takes effect. The full project will take at leasttwo more elections to finish one final election under the old system and thefirst election under a new one. CFI will report regularly on the results fromthis ongoing study, as they become available.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, Greg. 1997. "Abortion: Evidence of Issue Evolution." American

Journal of Political Science. 41: 718-737.

Aldrich, John H. and David W. Rohde, 2001. The Logic of Conditional PartyGovernment: Revisiting the Electoral Connection. In Lawrence C. Dodd andBruce I. Oppenheimer (eds.), Congress Reconsidered, 7thed. Washington,DC: CQ Press.

Baumgartner, Frank R., and Beth L. Leech. 1998. Basic Interests: TheImportance of Groups in Politics and Political Science. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press.

Bedlington, Anne. 1999. The Realtors Political Action Committee: Covering

All Contingencies. In Robert Biersack, Paul S. Herrnson, and Clyde Wilcox(eds.)After the Revolution. New York: Allyn & Bacon.

Biersack, Robert S. and Marianne Holt . Forthcoming. "Interest Groups andFederal Campaign Finance: Choices and Consequences in a new Era." in PaulS. Herrnson, Ronald G. Shaiko, and Clyde Wilcox (eds.), The Interest GroupConnection(2nd edition). Chatham House.

Biersack, Robert, Paul S. Herrnson, and Clyde Wilcox. 1994. RiskyBusiness? PAC Decisionmaking in Congressional Elections. Armonk, NY:M.E. Sharpe.

Biersack, Robert, Paul S. Herrnson, and Clyde Wilcox. After the Revolution:PACs, Lobbies and the Republican Congress. New York: Allyn & Bacon.

Brownstein, Ronald. 1985. On Paper, Conservative PACs Were Tigers in1984 But Look Again. National Journal, June 29, 1985.

Campaign Finance Institute. 2001. Issue Ad Disclosure: Recommendationsfor a New Approach. Report of the Campaign Finance Institutes Task Forceon Disclosure. www.CFInst.org/disclosure/index.html

Cantor, Joseph E. 1986. Political Action Committees: Their Evolution,Growth and Implications for the Political System. Washington, DC: U.S.Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service. (Earlier editionspublished 1981, 1984).,

Cantor, David. 1999. The Sierra Club Political Committee. In RobertBiersack, Paul S. Herrnson, and Clyde Wilcox (eds.) After the Revolution.New York: Allyn & Bacon.


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Clawson, Dan, Alan Neustadtl, and Denise Scott, 1992. Money Talks:Corporate PACs and Political Influence. New York: Basic Books.

Cyert, Richard M., and James M. March. 1963. A Behavioral Theory of theFirm. Englewo

Documents

Scholarly paper about McCain Finegold legislation