Question

How can indirect lobbying be influential

Answer 1

Direct face-to-face lobbying is "the gold standard" of lobbying. Everything else is done to support the basic form. Face-to-face lobbying is considered to be the most effective because it allows the interest to directly communicate its concerns, needs, and demands directly to those who possess the power to do something politically. The lobbyist and the public official exist in a mutually symbiotic relationship. Each has something the other desperately needs. The interest seeks governmental assistance and the public official seeks political support for future elections or political issue campaigns. The environment for such lobbying discussions is usually the spaces outside the legislative chambers or perhaps the offices of the legislators. The legislative arena has characteristics that facilitate the lobbying process. It is complex and chaotic. Out of the thousands of bills that might be introduced in a legislative session, sometimes fewer than a hundred are actually passed. There is never enough time to complete the work on the agenda—not even a fraction of the work. The political process tends to be a winner-takes-all game—often a zero-sum game given the limited resources available and seemingly endless lists of demands that request some allocation of resources. Everyone in the process desperately needs information and the most frequent (and most useful) source of information is the lobbyist. The exchange is simple: the lobbyist helps out the governmental officials by providing them with information and the government official reciprocates by helping the interests gain their objectives. There is a cycle of every governmental decision-making site. At crucial times in those cycles, the needs of the officials or the lobbyists may dominate. For lobbyists in a legislative site, the crucial moments are as the session goes down to its final hours. For legislators, the closer they are to the next election, the more responsive they are to lobbyists who possess resources that may help.