Lobbyists And Interest Groups

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Gaurav Sharma Professor Sherry Sharifian Texas Government 2306 SLO#2 April 23,2017 Lobbyists and Interest Groups in Texas Lobbyists and Interest groups are generally significant in the country as they have the ability to influence decision making. Lobbyists are hired to specifically influence he decision makers in order to pass laws that are considerate depending with the interests of their employers. However, Lobbyists and Interest groups spend a lot when they arrange meetings with law makers in a bid to persuade them (Ramsey: 1).
1 According to the information provided in the articles, there should be tougher restriction as well as oversight of the interest groups who influence policy making. This is because the Interest groups are …show more content…

Mostly, the interest groups provide information that could rather not benefit the citizens since they might not be aware. 1 Gun policies for example, is one of the policies influenced by Interest groups whereby a group like TSRPAC is important as it ensure that all the government official and other state officers (TSRAPAC: 1), as well as media and public are trained and informed about handling riffles (TSRAPAC: 1), and through this privileges, they influence the policy making about gun use as the second Amendment of gun law (TSRAPAC: 1). This interest group is important in that they ensure that people are protected by the law through the constitutional rights to possess and use riffles.
However, the activities of these interest groups should be highly monitored and specific limitations put by the government. Although the interest groups might influence the policy making while fully interested with the well-being of citizens, others are self-oriented and aims at convincing the policy makers to pass laws that favors a certain group of individual with common agenda hence impacting negatively the lives of other helpless …show more content…

The interest groups are said use a lot of funds annually especially for food and entertainment so that they can spend significant time convincing these legislature on the policy making systems (Ramsey: 1). Over a period of 2 years, Lobbyists have reported usage of $4.8 million (Ramsey: 1) of food and beverages alone hence this shows that they actually take part in influencing the decision. The names of policy makers are mostly not disclosed although they should only be included in the Lobbyists reports when the expenses by the legislature exceeded $114, the names of those legislatures should be reported (Ramsey: 1). Therefore, the Lobbyists can ensure that they do not expose the beneficially of these special treatment through splitting their expenditures among several lobbyist so as to control anyone spending over $114 on a single law maker official (Ramsey: 1). Limitation of this usage can be done through limiting the number of Lobbyists that an Interest group can employ on a simultaneously. This will drastically reduce the expenditure since some groups hire more than 1 lobbyist (Ramsey: 1).
1 Examples of Interest groups in the 21st century include Texas NAACP which deals with civil liberties as well as Civil rights, Texas Moratorium Network that deals

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