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Politics: US Pressure Groups

This is the first quiz based on US Direct Democracy, which is covered in the AQA A-Level Politics Specification. Match these words with their definitions: National Rifle Association (NRA) US Chamber of Commerce Climate Direct Action Planned Parenthood American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) AFL-CIO National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Lockheed Martin Black Lives Matter League of Conservation Voters EMILY's List Ballard Partners
Quiz by billyn
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Last updated: January 14, 2024
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First submittedJanuary 14, 2024
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Climate Direct Action
This promotional outsider pressure group ran 'valve turner' protests in 2016 which members turned off the valves on 15% of US crude oil imports for nearly a day:
-Several members were convicted on felony charges and the group was subsequently classified as 'extremist' by the Department of Homeland Security.
League of Conservation Voters
In 2018, this pressure group spent $85 million on electoral campaigning, more than any other single-issue group:
-It was able to achieve its aim of winning the House of Representatives back for the Democrats, with nearly 60 of their new congressional candidates being elected.
-It releases a 'dirty dozen' list of politicians who have the worst environmental records. A total of 5 of the 12 candidates on the federal list were defeated in 2020, and 6 of the 12 candidates on the state 'dirty dozen' list lost their seats.
-The group's 'Dirtiest of all Time', President Donald Trump, was also defeated.
EMILY's List
This interest group aims to 'ignite change by getting pro-choice Democratic women elected to office':
-It goes further than most pressure groups by recruiting candidates for office, and then supports their campaign throughout the whole electoral process, including helping to 'get out the vote'.
-The group was set up in 1985 and its name and mission are based on the acronym, 'Early Money Is Like Yeast', a reference to the fact that campaigns which receive crucial early funding are more likely to grow successfully and attract further donations, in the same way that yeast makes bread rise.
-This group endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 but did not achieve a female president.
-However, its $37 million spend in the 2018 election cycle led to record numbers of female members of Congress.
-In 2020, the group spent $5.5 million on digital advertising for Kamala Harris, and celebrated her historic election as the first female vice president.
-7 new candidates from this group were also elected to the House of Representatives in 2020.
Lockheed Martin
This interest insider group, which is the largest US defence company, spends around $14 million a year on professional lobbyists:
-When bidding for the contract to build the US' most expensive weapons system, the F35 fighter jet, the group claimed the programme would create 125,000 jobs over 46 states, putting pressure on those states' members of Congress to support it.
-Senator Roy Blunt owned up to $100,000 of stock in this company, so was doubtless pleased by his subcommittee awarding a $1.85 billion contract to the company in 2020.
-Academic William Hartung described this company as 'too big to fail', arguing that the company had made itself essential to so many weapons systems that it was militarily and economically imperative for the government to continue to support it with large contracts.
National Rifle Association (NRA)
This promotional insider group, which has around 5 million members, is seen as one of the most powerful pressure groups in US Politics:
-This is largely because of its strategy of funding election campaigns.

Tactics:
-It uses scorecards to allocate each candidate a grade from A to F based on their voting record on gun rights.
-Its tactics have developed over time - in 1992, 37% of its congressional campaign spending went to Democrat candidates.
-As US politics has become more polarised, this group has increasingly focused its efforts on Republican candidates, who received 98% of its 2016 congressional campaign funding.
-It is not entirely partisan - it has spent money in primaries opposing moderate Republicans, as in 2012, when it spent more than $169,000 successfully opposing the reselection of Senator Richard Lugar, whose support of gun control had earned him an F rating from the group.
-The group has also made donations to Democrats from the 'Blue Dog' faction of the party, such as Texas congressman Henry Cuellar.
-However, this can be controversial, as not all 'Blue Dogs' support gun rights - in 2018, the Blue Dog PAC returned a donation from the group after criticism from members.

Funding:
-In the 2016 election season, this group spent $52.5 million on electoral campaigning - much of this funded television and radio adverts, including 1 in every 8 television adverts in Ohio that October.
-A total of 96% of its 2016 budget was spent on 6 Senate races and the presidential campaign.
-However, the NRA's valuable electoral interventions have not automatically increased its power - perhaps because of its success in electing a Republican president and Senate who supported gun ownership.
-Its revenue from membership fell from 2016 to 2018, leading to the group spending about half the amount on the 2018 midterm elections that it did in the previous 2014 midterms.
-Gun control groups such as Giffords and Everytown for Gun Safety outspent this group for the first time in the 2018 midterms.

Its influence on Donald Trump:
-After spending $30 million promoting Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, the group did not enjoy his unconditional support as it might have expected.
-After the 2018 high school shooting at Parkland, Florida, the president accused a Republican Senator of not including an age limit on his bill for background checks on guns because he was 'afraid of the [group]'.
-Trump also told state governors: 'Half of you are so afraid of the [group]. There's nothing to be afraid of...if they're not with you, we have to fight them every once in a while, that's okay.'.
-In March 2019, the group said that it was 'disappointed' that Trump's administration had introduced a national ban on bump stocks, devices that can be attached to semi-automatic rifles to make them fire much faster.
-The evidence from the group is that big spending does not guarantee influence, even with politicians who have benefited directly.
-The group faced legal challenges relating to alleged financial impropriety in 2020, meaning that it was unable to match its 2016 spending as many of its funds were tied up with court cases.
-However, it still spent more than $16 million supporting Trump, of a total $23 million spending pot.
AFL-CIO
This interest group is a union focused on improving the rights, pay and working conditions of its members.
Answer
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Planned Parenthood
This promotional group is a health provider and non-profit organisation, which has brought many cases together to defend the abortion provisions of Roe v. Wade (1973):
-In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the organisation filed a suit against the governor of Pennsylvania for enacting abortion restrictions based on legislation passed by the state legislature. The right to abortion was upheld and one of the restrictions was struck down, although the rest were allowed to stand.
-In 2019, the organisation brought legal cases against highly restrictive laws passed in states including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and Ohio.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
This promotional group:
-Brought the legal case Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). The Supreme Court's ruling on the case legalised same-sex marriage across the United States.
-Mounted 56 legal challenges against Trump's administration from 2017 to 2018.
-One of these cases was Trump's ban on immigrants from a number of Muslim-majority countries, which was halted by a federal court in 2017. As a result, he modified his ban to include several non-Muslim countries, and it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
-Another of these cases was when they challenged Trump's 2017 ban on transgender people in the military. This was initially halted by a federal court, but the Supreme Court allowed it to proceed in 2019 while further legal challenges took place.
-This group has specialist legal expertise and extensive experience in preparing, 'amicus curiae briefs' ('friend of the court' briefs, also known as green briefs for non-governmental briefs), which set out specific evidence or research that the pressure group hopes will influence justices in court cases.
Black Lives Matter
This promotional outsider group largely took off as a 'start-up' social movement due to activists using social media to mobilise large numbers of people and thus dominate the political agenda, within months of being founded:
-This process would have previously taken years or decades of painstaking campaigning and fundraising.
-This group has particularly used direct action, specifically having large marches and demonstrations across the US to get their message across.
-Since 2013, the group has organised huge demonstrations and street protests against systemic racism and police killings of Black people.
-The 2020 murder of George Floyd, an African-American, by Derek Chauvin, a White police officer who knelt on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, led protestors to defy the risk of contracting COVID-19 to join large demonstrations in at least 140 cities across the United States.
-Some protestors were peaceful while others were marred by rioting, looting, arson and violence against the police.
-These spontaneous outbreaks of violence could have alienated public opinion against the movement. However, the authorities responded with curfews, tear gas, smoke grenades and rubber bullets, and even arrested a journalist covering the riots.
-President Trump tweeted, 'when the looting starts, the shooting starts', and threatened to send in the military to end riots.
-The authorities' response appeared to make publicly visible many of the same attitudes that the group condemned as racist.
-Celebrities and the public continued to express support, and a top US Air Force general released a clip about the difficulties he experienced as an African-American in the military.
-A series of statues of Confederate figures were defaced or pulled down, generating international debate about the role of statues in glorifying racist individuals.
US Chamber of Commerce
This interest insider group is a business and trade group:
-It releases a 'How they Voted' scorecard for each member of Congress to allow voters to easily analyse candidates' records in advancing pro-business policies.
-It generally spends more on lobbying than any other organisation ($77 million in 2019).
-One of its aims was to convince Congress to pass the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which it achieved after meeting with 36 members of Congress.
-However, high spending does not automatically guarantee results. It could not convince Trump's administration to reverse tariffs on goods from China and the EU, and steel and aluminium imports, despite the negative impact of tariffs on US businesses.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
This interest group represents individuals from the same social group, in this case African-Americans:
-It funded Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), in which the Supreme Court decided that the doctrine of 'separate but equal' was unconstitutional.
Ballard Partners
Brian Ballard, the founder of this lobbying firm, was named by Politico magazine as 'the most powerful lobbyist in Trump's Washington':
-The firm spent years lobbying the Florida state government on behalf of The Trump Organisation (a group of around 500 business entities of which Trump is the owner) and raised millions of dollars for Trump's presidential campaigns.
-Once Trump became president, the firm gained 100 clients in less than 2 years, earning more than $28 million.
-Top US companies Amazon, American Airlines and General Motors have all used the firm.
-This lobbying firm is a good example of the 'revolving door syndrome', as many of its lobbyists have worked for previous government administrations or within Congress.
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