A Pressure Group and the Pressured: A Case Report

The organized interest group does not make the laws of the land. It must devise means for gaining access to and influencing those who are constitutionally empowered to make, administer, or otherwise define the law. This study deals with the efforts of one organized group, the Associated Industries of Vermont, to secure its objectives in the 1951 session of the Vermont legislature. The study is correlatively concerned with the legislator's view of the AIV activities and, more broadly, of the legislative process.The Associated Industries of Vermont is a “peak” association; an organized business group which acts as spokesman for many diverse business interests in the state. The membership, which ranges from small manufacturers to the National Life Insurance Company, totaled some 450 concerns in 1951, the year in which the events to be described took place. Membership is by individuals, firms, and a few trade associations. Included were almost all the textile, the granite and marble, and the machine-tool companies in the state—representing three of the state's important industries. A rough estimate of the total payroll of the member concerns was about half of the total payroll of the state. A few retailing and other non-manufacturing members had recently been added.