News Journal: Special-interest groups are as American as apple pie

“Liberty is to faction what air is to fire,” James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers. A faction back then meant exactly what a special-interest group means today – a cohesive group espousing policies that are beneficial to its members, if not always to the country as a whole.
Just as air provides the necessary environment for fire, democracy is an inevitable breeding ground for special-interest groups. If you belong to a union or a trade or professional association, own a small business or have an AARP or National Rifle Association membership, you are part of a special-interest group. In other words, just about everybody belongs to one or more of them.
Special-interest groups lobby legislators and officials at all levels of government. They are often a useful source of information. When you change the building code in your county, the input of the volunteer firefighters’ lobby is a good thing. Before you write new federal laws about health care, doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, insurers, the AARP and hundreds of other special-interest groups have a right to be heard.
What has changed in the past few years is not that special-interest groups try to influence legislation, but the amount of money they have and the ways they are allowed to spend it. Special-interest groups no longer just lobby and make contributions to congressional candidates. The most powerful groups now have extensive operations back in the home districts of those members of Congress they particularly want to influence. They use “grass-roots” efforts to get voters on their side – TV, radio and Internet ads; phone calls; mail and even billboards. They also use “grass-tops” campaigns, which focus on the opinion leaders in a congressional district.
Very often, the special-interest group will disguise its involvement in such campaigns by funding them through a new entity, using a name like “Americans for Freedom and Justice.” Who could be against that? The group will often set up its own “think tank,” or sign up with a like-minded one, to produce “studies” that show their special-interest’s cause will help the country. Given enough money, a special-interest group can usually find an academic at some university who will write articles in support of its cause, even when a vast majority of academics disagree.
The huge amounts of money being spent by special-interest groups, and the way that money is now being spent, have greatly complicated the governing process in Washington. The vast majority of Americans believe that special interests have more influence in Congress than voters, and they are right.
I’ll close with just one example of how special-interest money has contributed to congressional gridlock. Talk privately to just about anyone, Democrat or Republican, who has actually done the hard work that until recently always led to agreement on the federal budget. They will tell you that what must be done is to put everything on the table – budget cuts, revenue increases, changes in tax policy – and then go through a process in which everyone at the table compromises.
That is what President George H.W. Bush did in 1990 when he invited the congressional leadership to meet with him at Andrews Air Force Base. They came up with an agreement on tax increase and spending cuts that started us on the road to the budget surpluses of the late 1990s. Then, in 1993, President Clinton led the way to what his opponents described as “the largest tax increase in history.” By 2000, the Congressional Budget Office was forecasting not only future surpluses but also the elimination of most of the federal debt by 2010.
Both presidents paid a price for their leadership. Bush lost his bid for a second term, and in 1994, Clinton lost a Democratic House for the first time in 40 years. But it was Bush’s broken campaign promise – “read my lips, no new taxes” – that led to the formation of Grover Norquist’s powerful special-interest group, Americans for Tax Reform. Using all the techniques described above, ATR was able to sign up the vast majority of Republicans in Congress to oppose any and all revenue increases under any and all circumstances.
You can’t sit around that table and reach agreement when one side is stuck with a position that doesn’t allow for compromise. If you wonder why there has not been a federal budget for the past five years, look no further than one special-interest group – Americans for Tax Reform.
Ted Kaufman is a former U.S. senator from Delaware.