Jay P. Greene's Blog

7 Responses to More on Proximity and Power

1. Lisa Snell says:

   April 22, 2008 at 10:58 am

   This really hits home when you repeatedly observe hordes of union members surrounding the witnesses in Sacramento, anytime there is testimony on “any” education bill that might disturb the unions–from allowing contracting for food service to multiple authorizers for charter schools. Its no wonder that bills never ever make it out of committees. Proximity is a startegy that works.

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2. plum grenville says:

   April 23, 2008 at 8:27 pm

   This is a completely asinine study.

   1) There are plenty of factors that might influence where a lobby group has its office – did this idiot control for rent, lease terms, layout, parking, accessability, other tenants? How about when a group was established – perhaps the best locations belong to the groups which have been around the longest. How about which party is more often in power in a particular state? There might be a pattern related to whether a lobby group is oppositional to the party in power or not. There might be a pattern relating to whether or not the state capitol is the largest city in the state (some groups might want offices in both, which would presumably affect how much they could pay for each one).

   2) What is the difference in average distance from the legislature of the closest vs. the second, third and fourth closest? My bet would be that lobby groups tend to huddle around the legislature and the difference in proximity is minor. How about some stats showing the average distance from the legislature for various groups, rather than just ordinal status. What other activities besides lobbying does a group engage in? That could affect their choice of location.

   3) Who knows, let alone is impressed by, the proximity of a lobby group’s offices to the legislature? Lobbyists visit legislators as a rule, not the other way around. If anything about a lobby group’s office was going to impress a legislator, I would expect fanciness of the office, as an indication of the resources of the organization.

   4) Why would teachers’ unions be so much more interested than any other interest group in making a “visible statement of their importance”? Is the NRA or the AARP likely to be shy about advertising their importance, if proximity to the legislature is an effective advertisement?

   5) How do we know that the scoring system is the best representation of the data? Maybe actual distance matters more than relative distance. Maybe being the closest is useful, but after that it doesn’t matter if you’re second or sixth. How do we know that being closest (4 points) is twice as good as being third closest (2 points) and four times as good as being fourth closest (1 point)? Note that the results would have been significantly different if the opposite scoring system had been used – i.e., 1 point for the closest group, 2 points for the second closest, etc. With that system, being closest would be twice as good as being second closest (1 point vs. 2 points), rather than closest being twice as good as third closest under the original scoring system (4 points vs. 2 points).

   6) So what if teachers’ unions have (on average) offices closer to legislatures than other groups? So what if they are trying to making a visual statement of their importance? This pseudo-researcher is obviously trying to imply that teachers’ unions have nefariously acquired some unfair advantage over other lobby groups. We have NO evidence that being closest actually makes any difference in a lobby group’s influence. Even if it is an advantage, why is it an unfair advantage? What have teachers’ unions done that any other group couldn’t do? Presumably any organization which could pay the rent could have acquired the the office occupied by the teachers’ union. Granted, not all organizations are equally wealthy, but I doubt that this particular researcher is in favour of such an anti-capitalist idea as equalizing the income of lobby groups in order to equalize their influence. (I might go for that idea.) I think it’s safe to say that there are plenty of lobby groups which could manage to pay the same rent as the teachers’ union does. Perhaps lobby groups make trade-offs between paying more rent vs. spending the money on other things. In that case, every group has made a voluntary choice and has spent their money on what they value most. What is wrong with that?

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3. plum grenville says:

   April 24, 2008 at 12:11 am

   Why do the numbers in your Rank column vary from state to state? The Fortune 500 ranking is national. It’s based on influence in Washington (which incidentally may or may not be related to influence at the state level),

   If your methodology has any validity, why does it produce completely different results than the Fortune ranking?

   Your ranking of the top 5 groups based on the number of states in which the organization is the closest to the legislature:

   NEA (closest in 14 states)
   AFL-CIO (closest in 7 states)
   AARP and NFIB (closest in 5 states each)
   Trial Lawyers (closest in 4 states)

   Fortune rankings for 2001 (the only year for which I found a complete list):

   AARP (#2)
   Trial Lawyers (#5)
   AFL-CIO (#6)
   NEA (#14)

   (I didn’t note the NFIB ranking, but it was higher than the NEA’s.)

   What’s your justification for excluding the distance data when the organization has its office in another city? Isn’t that data highly relevant, since you’re testing the hypothesis that power is related to proximity? A group with an office in another city should be much less powerful. Including that data should make the trend even more apparent, if your hypothesis is valid.

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4. Assman says:

   April 24, 2008 at 2:56 pm

   Looks like someone touched a nerve. Tell us, Plum, what special interest group are you a member of? Teachers union? Trial lawyer? Old fart?

   Reply
5. Hobart Milton says:

   April 25, 2008 at 2:39 pm

   There is nothing significant about this report. One could just as eaily do something similar about fast food restaurants near high schools, or churches near neighborhoods, so on, ad nauseum.
   As to my special interest group? Sensible humans who don’t try to make a mountain out of a molehill.
   Anyone familiar with politics and education, know that it often comes up in those state legislatures because of our U.S. Constitution. Since education is so often the subject of laws from these chambers, it is simply expedient to be on hand for the discussion/vote. We are often told to speak out to our representatives and to make our concerns known to them. Disparaging such is bad for our nation, our society, our schools, and our children.
   Children – now there’s a special interest group we should really look after.

   Reply
6. plum grenville says:

   April 25, 2008 at 3:41 pm

   I don’t belong to any of the top 25 lobbying groups. The nerve that Mr. Greene’s sophomoric, rightwing-slanted pseudoresearch touched was my intolerance for utter stoopidity. Not that I think Mr. Greene is guilty of stoopidity, just his study. I think Mr. Greene is intelligent enough to be well aware of how inane his “research” was. He did it anyway in order to indulge in a little union-bashing. He expected to hoodwink readers who don’t have the background because he thought he could hoodwink those of his readers who don’t have the background to distinguish valid research from a bad imitation.

   Reply
7. plum grenville says:

   April 26, 2008 at 10:23 am

   Very interesting that Jay P. Greene hasn’t responded.

   Reply

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