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Assessing the Impact of Legislative Lobbying Regulations on Interest Group Influence in U.S. State Legislatures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Joshua Ozymy
Joshua Ozymy*
Affiliation:
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
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Abstract

All 50 U.S. states currently regulate lobbying. Data restrictions, however, limit our understanding of the relationship between legislative lobbying laws and interest group influence within the legislative process over time. A comparable measure of these laws published in the summer 2005 issue of State Politics and Policy Quarterly suggests a dynamic analysis. The early 1990s witnessed a marked increase in the stringency of state legislative lobbying regulations. This article examines how lobbying regulation impacted interest group influence across all 50 state legislatures in 1995. I then determine whether changes in a state's regulations affected interest group influence over time from 1990 to 1995. Evidence suggests that increased regulation reduces influence both across and within states over time.

Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , Winter 2010 , pp. 397 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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