Shifting support

The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan, non-profit research group in Washington, DC that tracks the effects of money in politics. The Center's home page is located at http://www.opensecrets.org/. Use the Center's "Who's Giving" feature on the Center's web site to read about the patterns of political giving from the following industries: Defense, Health Professionals, and Telephone Utilities. What do you notice about the pattern of political giving in these three sectors before and after 1994? What do you think explains the pattern that you noticed?




Interest groups as service providers

Three of the largest and most significant interest groups in the United States are the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), the National Rifle Association (NRA), and the Sierra Club. While they engage in significant political activities, all three of these organizations do other things as well. Go to the web sites of these groups (http://www.aarp.org/, http://www.nra.org/, http://www.sierraclub.org/). For each group, identify three activities that the group engages in or sponsors that you would characterize as "non-political." Make a list of the activities that you have identified. How might these non-political activities actually help to serve the political interests of the organization and its members?