The Buzz: Shaping Policy Is Not an Either/Or Proposition
November 2025
Apparently, The Washington Post and The New York Times can’t tell the difference between campaign contributions and lobbying, conflating the two in its political reporting and lumping them together under the vague notion of “money in politics.”
That’s really no surprise since Congress itself confuses the two, creating problems for organizations eager to shape policy and stay out of trouble with the feds. The 2007 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, for example, fails to make a distinction in its regulation of these activities, causing headaches for groups doing one or the other or both.
These are among the insights explored in a new study reported in a forthcoming issue of the scholarly journal Political Science & Politics. But significant as they are, these observations form only the backdrop of more worrisome findings based on data from 1998 to 2018 — worrisome at least for the organizations being studied. These groups seem to have an either/or approach to politicians and policy, often to their own disadvantage.
Most “politically active organizations focus exclusively on either lobbying or making campaign contributions,” the researchers report. “Only a small percentage of organizations engage in both activities.” The study confirms a number of assumptions that political activists and observers make — that groups with affiliated PACs tend to bypass first-term legislators, for example — but explores hitherto unexamined areas as well.
Working with data from the Center for Responsive Politics, the study finds that during the period being studied, “approximately 34,000 organizations lobbied but did not contribute; approximately 9,500 organizations contributed but did not lobby; approximately 7,500 organizations were registered as PACs or [lobbyists] but were not active; and only 3,427 organizations (6.3%) engaged in both lobbying and campaign contributions through their PACs.” There was “only a 10% to 15% overlap between interest groups registered to lobby and those making campaign contributions.” The share of PAC contributions from organizations that also lobby, meanwhile, has declined from more than 65% in 1998 to about 30% in 2018.
And here, perhaps, is the immediately actionable takeaway: While most politically active organizations “focus exclusively on either lobbying or making campaign contributions,” the most successful organizations do both. “The top lobbying groups spend the most money and almost always have affiliated political action committees (PACs). Most lobbying money is spent by a small number of big spenders — organizations that also have affiliated PACs.”
Maybe that’s why they are the most successful.
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Most “politically active organizations focus exclusively on either lobbying or making campaign contributions,” the researchers report.
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