Lobby Spending and Campaign Spending Are Different

Many posts have discussed lobbying, "shadow lobbying," "unlobbying," and "non-lobbying lobbying."

Furnas AC, LaPira TM, Brock C. Conflating Lobbying and PACs: The Surprisingly Low Overlap in Organizational Lobbying and Campaign Expenditures. PS: Political Science & Politics. 2025;58(4):597-605. doi:10.1017/S1049096525100929

Abstract

This article investigates whether campaign contributions and lobbying are complementary, substitutive, or distinct forms of organizational political engagement. Our study reveals minimal overlap between organizations that engage in lobbying and those that make campaign contributions despite the perception that these activities are interchangeable forms of “money in politics.” Using comprehensive contribution and lobbying report data from 1998 to 2018, we find that most politically active organizations focus exclusively on either lobbying or making campaign contributions. Only a small percentage of organizations engage in both activities. This finding challenges the assumption that these forms of political activity are inherently linked. The majority of organizations engaged in political activity do so exclusively through lobbying. However, the top lobbying groups spend the most money and almost always have affiliated political action committees (PACs). Most lobbying money is spent by a small number of big spenders—organizations that also have affiliated PACs. Organizations that both lobby and make campaign contributions tend to be well resourced and rare.

Bruice Mehlman offers a caveat:

Lobbyists are a fraction of influence professionals & the only ones who publicly disclose clients & revenue. Influence campaigns regularly tap the talents of lawyers, PR professionals, grassroots organizers, fundraisers, online influencers and countless others, most of whose activities remain undisclosed. Some estimate the size of the “shadow lobbying” community as equal to the number of registered lobbyists, while others argue it is at least 13x as large. Only those who spend at least 20% of their time on federal lobbying activity need to register as official “lobbyists,” with a great many “19%’ers” carefully monitoring their time allocations to remain unregistered / under the RADAR.

 

Anecdote About Knowledge and the 2025 Elections

Many posts have discussed what Americans do and do not know about their government.

Robin Abcarian at LAT:

“We’re getting calls about polls being closed,” Kentucky’s Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams posted Tuesday on X. “They are closed because we do not have elections today. Kentucky votes next year. You cannot vote today in Kentucky for the mayor of New York City or the Governor of Virginia. Sorry.” (In a subsequent post, he mused about the importance of civics education.)

AI and Reporting

Artificial intelligence is an increasingly important topic in politics, policy, and law.

Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson at NYT:

Ryan Sabalow, a reporter for the newsroom CalMatters, noticed something peculiar when he began covering California lawmakers in 2023. Politicians would often give impassioned speeches against a bill, then refrain from voting entirely.

He began to wonder how often legislators were ducking tough votes — and how that influenced California’s laws....

He and his team turned to an A.I. tool, Digital Democracy, which tracks every word uttered in California legislative sessions, every donation and every vote taken. It led to an article, and an Emmy-winning segment on CBS, that revealed that Democratic lawmakers had killed a popular fentanyl bill by not voting at all.

...

Artificial intelligence is sweeping through newsrooms, transforming the way journalists around the world gather and disseminate information. Traditional news organizations increasingly use tools from companies like OpenAI and Google to streamline work that used to take hours: sifting through reams of information, tracking down sources and suggesting headlines.

... 

The Associated Press used A.I. tools this year to quickly sort through tens of thousands of pages of documents relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. The tools made the documents searchable and summarized them, while also allowing journalists to see which parts of the files had been unredacted for the first time.

Nondelegation

Many posts have dealt with tariffs and trade. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act gave Trump the power to impose tariffs.

 JUSTICE GORSUCH:  You're saying there's inherent authority in foreign affairs, all foreign affairs, so regulate commerce, duties and --and --and --and tariffs and war. It's inherent authority all the way down, you say.  Fine. Congress decides tomorrow, well, we're tired of this legislating business.  We're just going to hand it all off to the President. What would stop Congress from doing that? 

GENERAL SAUER:  That would be different than a situation where there are metes and bounds, so to speak. It would be a wholesale abdication.

 JUSTICE GORSUCH:  You say we --we -- we are not here to judge metes and bounds when the foreign affairs.  That's what I'm struggling with. You'd have to have some test. And if it isn't the intelligible principle test or something more --with more bite than that, you're saying it's something less.  Well, what is that less? 

GENERAL SAUER:  I think what the Court has said in its opinions is just that it applies with much less force, more limited application in this context. So perhaps the right way to approach it is a very, very deferential application of the intelligible --intelligible principle test, that --that sort of wholesale abdication of --don't like to -- 

JUSTICE GORSUCH:  All right.  So now you're admitting that there is some nondelegation principle at play here and, therefore, major questions as well, is that right?

 GENERAL SAUER:  If so, very limited, you know, very, very deferential -- 

JUSTICE GORSUCH:  Okay. 

GENERAL SAUER:  --and limited is what --and, again, the phrase that Justice Jackson used is it just does not apply, at least --

 JUSTICE GORSUCH:  I know, but that's where you started off, and now you've retreated from that as I understand it. 

GENERAL SAUER:  Well, I think we would as our frontline position assert a stronger position, but if the Court doesn't accept it, then, if there is a highly deferential version --

 JUSTICE GORSUCH:  Can you give me a reason to accept it, though? That's what I'm struggling and waiting for.  What's the reason to accept the notion that Congress can hand off the power to declare war to the President? 

GENERAL SAUER:  Well, we don't contend that. Again, that would be --

JUSTICE GORSUCH:  Well, you do.  You say it's unreviewable, that there's no manageable standard, nothing to be done.  And now you're --I think you --tell me if I'm wrong. You've backed off that position. 

GENERAL SAUER:  Maybe that's fair to say.

 JUSTICE GORSUCH:  Okay. All right. Thank you. (Laughter.)

Thermostatic Activism

A number of posts have discussed the politics of protest

Bruce Mehlman:

Out-party voters are energized, active and loud. In-power voters are often frustrated that their teams’ promises prove harder to accomplish, take too long or require compromises they don’t like.

 

Influencers

Many posts have discussed social media. 

Pew:

About one-in-five U.S. adults (21%) say they regularly get news from news influencers on social media, identical to when we first asked this in 2024.

The term news influencers was defined in the survey as “individuals who have a large following on social media and often post about news or political or social issues.”

Younger adults are especially likely to get news from news influencers, with 38% of those ages 18 to 29 saying they regularly do this – more than four times the share of those 65 and older (8%). There is virtually no difference between Republicans and Democrats in the share who say they regularly get news from news influencers (21% and 22%, respectively, including those who lean to each party).

Dick Cheney in Congress

 Former Vice President Dick Cheney died last night.  In 2004, Bill Connelly and I reflected on our experiences with him as Congressional Fellows in his House Republican leadership office.

Some of the literature tries to reduce legislative leadership to institutional context. That is, leaders are purportedly just the creatures of procedures, colleagues, and parties in the electorate. Watching Cheney reminded us that there is more to leadership than followership. When Cheney spoke, people listened. What the press now calls his “gravitas” caused other House Republicans to heed him. He was both a creature and creator of his context. 

The Civil War historian Douglas Southall Freeman once explained a source of gravitas: “First, know your stuff. Know your stuff, just that. Know -- know your own branch, know the related arms of the service; you can't know too much if you are going to be a successful leader. And know the yesterdays” (Freeman 1979, 4). Colleagues deferred to Cheney because he knew his stuff. His executive experience gave him a profound understanding of “the related arms of the service.” He knew policy. And from his academic background and research on the speakership, he knew “the yesterdays.” Cheney’s example offers evidence that knowledge is power on Capitol Hill. 

...

Cheney was no “pander bear.” At different times, we both traveled with him to Wyoming, and heard him tell constituents what they did not want to hear. Pitney watched him explain to people in the small town of Rawlins that he opposed federal subsidies for rail service to southern Wyoming. Connelly saw him take on a bunch of angry ranchers who were losing grazing land to DOD needs. In a conversation with Connelly, Cheney manifested his familiarity with political science, explaining why he was not acting as a single-minded seeker of re-election. He said he did not want the job if it entailed pandering. 

He also noted that Wyomingites respect independence, something both of us witnessed. They respected him even when -- and perhaps because -- he did not pander to them. Clearly Congressman Cheney was a “trustee,” not merely an “agent” for constituent interests. He was more than willing to engage in blunt talk with constituents and colleagues alike. Economic theories of legislative behavior fail to capture such leadership. As James Q. Wilson noted, “whereas economics is based on the assumption that preferences are given, politics must take into account the efforts made to change preferences” (Wilson 1980, 363).