The nature of lobbying has changed throughout history, making only recent lobbying

relevant to the question of whether it does more harm than good. The Christian Science
Monitor1 writes in 2009.

In the beginning, lobbyists were hunters and gatherers, he says. They’d haunt Capitol Hill watering holes and the halls of Congress for insider tips on
legislation. They were regular visitors to clerk offices, where they photocopied legislation

and mailed it to clients. Who you knew was paramount, and almost all of them were generalists.

Then came the agricultural era, when lobbyists began to figure out how to grow information. Rather than just sending a copy of
legislation to a client, lobbyists began using their contacts and experience to provide more

analysis about how an issue might play out in Washington and how it was perceived by insiders.

It continues:

The rise of the Internet transformed the industry again, moving it into today’s information age. With
such a vast array of material now available instantaneously, some of the lobbying
tasks of old have become passé. Legislation is often posted online, and committee hearings drone on throughout the day live on C-SPAN.

1
Christian Science Monitor, The. "The lobbyist through history: villainy and virtue." 09/28/2009. Web. <http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2009/0928/the-lobbyist-
through-history-villainy-and-virtue/%28page%29/2>
Grassroots campaigns are incredibly effective. Daniel Bergan2 of Michigan State
University writes in a 2009 article:

The results here suggest that the effect of email campaigns on legislators is
substantial. Other methods of contacting legislators, such as phone campaigns, may
be more effective. This is suggested by polls that show that legislators pay more attention to phone calls and personal visits than emails (e.g. Cornfield 1999-
2000). Such a result would also be consistent with research on vote drives (e.g. Green and Gerber 2004)

that has shown that more personal contacts with individuals, such as face-to-face contact, is far
more effective than less personal contacts, such as email.

2
Does Grassroots Lobbying Work?: A Field Experiment Measuring the Effects of an e-Mail..., Bergan American Politics Research.2009; 37: 327-352
Grassroots campaigns are always at risk of losing focus of their issues and falling apart
due to fragmentation. The American Sociological Assocation3 writes in 2007:
Changes in the structuring of advocacy organizations have had noteworthy consequences for the culture of civic engagement. In recent years, commentators have noted that an
increasing proportion of the third sector is composed of professionalized advocacy organizations that lobby in manner similar to institutions rather than voluntary associations.
Thus, in a context in which public interest groups increasingly rely on public support from conscience constituents and check-writing patrons, the next logical step would be for
such groups to rely on outside organizations such as grassroots lobbying firms to help coordinate their political campaigns. I employ data from the 1995 Encyclopedia of
Organizations, and check to see which of these organizations is listed as the client of a grassroots lobbying firm. I find that although memberless groups are, in fact, significantly

more likely to rely on support from a [as] grassroots firm, there are also strong effects of membership size, as very large organizations are also likely to rely on a
firm to coordinate their efforts. The effect of being a memberless organization, however, disappears when a group’s issue focus is controlled. In sum, these analyses suggest that as

organizations rely less upon the own internal structures for membership
mobilization, these groups run the risk of becoming increasingly disconnected from
their members, employing them only as a force for political action and doing less to
promote their capacity for developing social capital, learning political skills, and
feeling a sense of cultural identification with the organization.

This is empirically proven by the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment groups, the
Journal of Policy History4 writes in 2008:
Scholars have offered many explanations as to why ERA failed. Early literature maintained that it failed ratification for what might be described as internal and external factors.

The major internal factor included organization failure on the part of ERA
supporters. Scholars argued that by relying on centralized organizations based in Washington, D.C., ERA proponents failed to
organize their supporters at the grassroots [since].5 Furthermore, factionalism within the
pro-ERA movement reflected deep divisions within the principal pro-ERA
organization over strategy and tactics. Specifically, ERAmerica, an umbrella organization representing more than a hundred
organizations, pursued a strategy of traditional lobbying on the state level to enact ratification, while the leading feminist organization, the National Organization for Women
(NOW), used a civil rights protest model to pressure state legislators through mass rallies to ratify the amendment.6 External factors are found in the origins of the New Right. This
explanation maintains that outside political organizations and corporate interests funded Phyllis Schlafly's STOP ERA organization and other antiratification groups. The external
argument claimed that Schlafly and her allies persuaded a minority of anxious housewives to pressure their state legislators to vote against ERA.7 Both the internal and the external
explanations assumed that the general will of the people was thwarted in the defeat of the equal rights amendment. In addition, scholars found procedural obstacles in winning
ratification by three-quarters of the state legislatures, especially in the state of Illinois, which required a supermajority vote of three-fifths of its members of both houses to ratify a
constitutional amendment.

3
Walker, Edward. "The Hiring of Grassroots Lobbying Firms by Public Interest Groups: Membership Structure and the Outsourcing of Political Activism" Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, TBA, New York, New York City, Aug 10, 2007 <Not Available>. 2010-01-24
<http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p183691_index.html>
4
Donald T. Critchlow and Cynthia L. Stachecki. "The Equal Rights Amendment Reconsidered: Politics, Policy, and Social Mobilization in a Democracy." Journal of Policy
History 20.1 (2008): 157-176. Project MUSE. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 28 Dec. 2009 <http://muse.jhu.edu/>.
A/T Grassroots (analytics)

(__) Not as organized as corporate lobbyists…[use ev from reform fails].

Lobbying has been the same for almost over a century. The journal of Public Affairs
writes 2007:

By the beginning of the twentieth Century, Washington lobbying bore a close

resemblance to that found today. The growth of powerful new media such as the
radio and telegraph revolutionised grassroots campaigning, and collective action
became increasingly popular.