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Keeping score on congress: explaining variations in interest group ratings of US senators

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Daniel E. Chand  and
William D. Schreckhise
Daniel E. Chand*
Affiliation:
New Mexico State University – Government, Las Cruces, NM, USA
William D. Schreckhise
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA
*
∗ New Mexico State University – Government, Box 30001, Department 3BN Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA, Tel.: +575-646-4935, e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

We adopt a novel use for an old type of data – interest group scorecards – to explore the impact business organizations have on the political process. By aggregating congressional scorecards, we can develop a sense of how satisfied groups are with the US Congress as a whole. To do this, we generate interest group-level ratings of the US Senate derived from individual-level ratings of each senator. We find business groups tend to give higher aggregated scores relative to other types of groups, suggesting business organizations more often get what they want form Congress, which in turn, illuminates the importance of these groups in the political process. We also find that well-funded “niche” organizations tend to show higher levels of satisfaction with senators than larger groups with broad public missions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business and Politics , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , October 2013 , pp. 401 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © V.K. Aggarwal 2013 and published under exclusive license to Cambridge University Press 

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