Interest Group Quotes

Lobbying is just another form of advocacy. It’s like trying a lawsuit.

When a business group tells us there is nothing wrong with the environment, naturally they may have good arguments, but we are also sceptical, because we know that they have an interest in these things.

Teacher unions are an interest group that acts in defense of their own interests, which means the union bosses' interests, not the members.

a self service interest group immeasurably aided be secrecy.

No class of Americans ... has ever objected ... to any amount of government meddling if it appeared to benefit that particular class.

It used to be that the working class, broadly speaking - Americans who worked with their hands, who worked in factories, who were not in management - were an interest group, a political interest group. And their main spokespersons were the Democrats. Their platform was the Democratic Party. And that began to change after the 1960s. Not for black or other working class Americans, but for white working class.

Christ was crucified because he would have nothing to do with the crowd (even though he addressed himself to all). He did not want to form a party, an interest group, a mass movement, but wanted to be what he was, the truth, which is related to the single individual. Therefore everyone who will genuinely serve the truth is by that very fact a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions. But no witness to the truth dares to get involved with the crowd.

When I see a man holding a fat office, sounding 'the horn on the borders' to call the people to support the man on whom he depends for his office. Well, thinks I, no wonder the man is zealous in the cause, he evidently has an axe to grind

The friends of domestic industry should meet annually to prepare the necessary legislation for Congress after discussing the measures and gathering the facts. [This was one of the earliest suggestions for a special interest legislative program.

A bureau that benefits a well organized interest group will fare better in getting the sinews for administration than a bureau whose benefits are diffused over unorganized consumers or whose function is to restrain rather than to confer benefits.