Examining the Association Between State Lobbying Regulations and Nonprofit Lobbying Expenditures
利用新发布的501(c)(3)非营利组织游说支出数据，研究发现更严格的州游说法规会促使非营利组织减少直接游说支出、增加间接或基层游说支出，这对理解法规如何影响非营利组织的倡导活动有重要意义。
Newly released data on 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations’ lobbying expenditures shows that these organizations have increasingly engaged in lobbying over the past several decades. However, over roughly the same period, states have adopted increasingly stringent lobbying regulations. While often promoted as a way to curb the influence of private interests in public policy, lobbying regulations apply equally to for-profit firms and nonprofit organizations. This article employs two measures of state-level lobbying stringency to examine how traditional direct legislative and grassroots lobbying vary in different regulatory environments. We find that nonprofits reduce expenditures on direct lobbying and increase those on indirect or grassroots lobbying in more stringent regulatory environments. These findings are important because nonprofit organizations typically advocate on behalf of their constituencies, and state regulations appear to influence their lobbying activity.