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We all like spending time with people who share in the same things that fascinate us. That might be playing a sport, playing video games, listening to the same genre of music, drawing, or any number of activities. Who doesn’t love talking about a favorite topic? It’s certainly easy to build friendships that way.
Shared interests also foster greater enthusiasm and motivate us to expand our knowledge. That’s why interest-based groups make so much sense for kids. When you get older, you're going to meet people who share in the same ideas on improving our country and you may join a political party or get involved with a special interest group.
3. As you learned in prior lessons, a political party is an organized group of people who share similar political views and work to influence the government in support of those views. Political Parties work to get their candidates elected, try to get laws passed that reflect their ideas of how government should be run, and run the government through their elected members. Similar to political parties are special interest groups.
Interest Groups
4. A special interest group, or interest group, is a group of people that share common goals and who actively try to influence lawmakers. Special interest groups, unlike political parties, do not attempt to run the government or try to get their members elected. However, special interest groups do support political candidates who they think will promote their interests.
5. Interest groups tend to focus on specific issue or issues and try to influence government officials to vote for certain laws. Sometimes these groups are called "political interest groups" or "advocacy groups."
How are political parties and interest groups similar?
How are they different?
Lobbyists
6. One of the main ways that interest groups try to influence elected officials is through lobbying. The term "lobbying" comes from a time when citizens would wait in the lobby outside the Congress to talk to the representatives. Today the people doing the lobbying are called lobbyists.
7. Many lobbyists are highly paid members of the interest group. They work full time trying to convince elected officials to help their group. In order to influence the public officials, lobbyist have meetings, offer legal advice, help to draft laws, and entertain the officials by taking them out to dinner or a show. According to the Center for Public Integrity more than 22,000 companies and organizations (special interest groups) have employed 3,500 lobbying firms and more than 27,000 lobbyists since 1998.
Return of the Interest Group
8. Interest groups raise money to support their efforts to influence the government. Some people worry that interests groups can “buy” candidates by contributing lots of money to the candidate’s election campaign through lobbyists. Once in office, such a candidate might be more concerned about pleasing the interest group than representing the voters. The government addresses this concern with strict rules about how interest groups may collect and donate money to political campaigns. Those that do must form a political action committee (PAC) that follows strict government rules about giving money to political candidates.
9. Not everyone agrees about what kinds of rules interest groups should have to follow. Some people fear that campaign financing laws limit the ability of people to support the causes they care about. Others fear that interest groups have grown to have more influence on government than the public at large. They believe the groups should be controlled. The debate continues as some interest groups and wealthy individuals who support them find loopholes, or ways around, the campaign finance laws.
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