Wrapup 2020

Interest group politics is inevitable.

Madison again:

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves.

 ...

Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government. 

And the First Amendment specifically protects the right to petition government:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Summing up

Everybody has interests, both economic and cultural.

The ubiquity of business (Cigler 285) and the dominance of the top tier

• "Privileged position" of business

Much of interest-group influence is far upstream from high-profile votes and executive actions (Cigler 285-288)

Influence is not just "lobbying" campaign finance

• Influencing ideas and mass communication
• Mobilizing civil society
• Litigating

Three faces of power

• Decision
• Agenda
• Ideas about what constitutes an issue

Personnel

 From Politico:

BIDEN’S NATIONAL SECURITY TEAM: President-elect Joe Biden announced his first slate of Cabinet picks today, officially tapping his longtime aide (and WestExec Advisors co-founder) Tony Blinken for secretary of State. Avril Haines, who was a founding principal at WestExec, has been nominated for director of national intelligence. Biden also announced that Alejandro Mayorkas, a partner at the law firm WilmerHale and Obama-era deputy Department of Homeland Security secretary, will be nominated to lead DHS. Former Secretary of State John Kerry will bring his fight against climate change to the National Security Council, serving as Biden’s special envoy for climate. More on the picks, which include Jake Sullivan for national security adviser and Linda Thomas-Greenfield for UN ambassador here and here.

— Flashback, via the NYT: “[WestExec Advisors] does not name its clients. It has worked with the philanthropy started by Eric Schmidt, the former Google chairman, and with Google’s in-house incubation unit, Jigsaw. On its website, WestExec says its clients include a leading American pharmaceutical company and a multibillion-dollar American technology company that it helped with ‘safeguarding against trade tensions between the U.S. and China.’

— “‘Those kinds of consulting shops take advantage of weaknesses in current laws, so there is no transparency in their clients and how they are trying to influence public policy for them,’ said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the nonprofit watchdog group the Project on Government Oversight. ‘That’s exactly the kind of people who should not be in an administration.’”