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representative of his or her constituents. Lobbyists need to please legislators in order to
gain access and thereby have influence, but if this comes at the cost of faithful
representation the legitimacy of interest groups as a means of connecting the views of the
electorate to policymakers is called into question. Lobbyists may attempt to reduce
damage done to the group by misleading members as to what was said or what their
preferences on the issues truly are, but this does not serve the electorate in a democratic
process. Nor is it particularly advantageous to legislators from an electoral point of view.
If legislators are pushing lobbyists to tell them what they want to hear than what they
need to hear, then legislators might end up taking actions that result in the alienation of
voters and will suffer for it at the voting booth.
But legislators themselves, at least those serving on outlier committees, may also
be engaging in deception. Concerned more with influencing committee jurisdictions or
the fate of legislation on the floor, outlier committees may be deliberately presenting
inaccurate information when they emphasize unity in the interest group community that
does not really exist. Apart from having electoral consequences, interest groups who
support the committee position at the expense of their members may find later that they
need to change their positions, especially if members find out and become angry at what
the lobbyist has done. The wheels could fall of legislation initially appears to have
unified support when it hits the floor as the real competition among groups on the issue
erupts in full scale lobbying campaigns, taking non-committee legislators by surprise.
Such mis-representation of the true feelings of the electorate by outlier committees is
hard to justify in a democratic society.
Convention