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Aaron Carpenter (902) Mr. Scherer AP American Government Period 9 15 January 2013 FRQ There are numerous techniques that various interest groups choose to use to achieve their goals using their given resources. Litigation is one of these methods, which is politically defined as the process in which interest groups seek innocent parties and sue them for the sole purpose of creating enough court costs, which are used to cause bankruptcy on the behalf of the party being sued. Interest groups find a lot of benefit through litigation as litigation can be used to increase an interest group's power. By effectively choosing parties to sue, the interest group doing the suing is potentially able to nullify the power of an opposing party, which is good for the suing interest group because that group would gain money and power while simultaneously nullifying the power of another party and decreasing its expenditures. Another method used by interest groups to seek individual benefits is through campaign contributions, which is politically defined as the process in which interest groups donate money or resources to an election campaign in exchange for political loyalty and support from the candidate. An interest group would likely choose this technique as it is very powerful and manipulative in the political process. If an interest group donates funds to an incumbent, the

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incumbent will have increased loyalty and favor for the interest groups that support him or her; if the incumbent succeeds, the interest group will have influenced the political process in their favor. The incumbent would legislate or act in the favor of his or her followers, and this in turn leads to the political gains which the interest group ultimately sought. A third technique in which interest groups achieve political objectives is by the use of grassroots lobbying (mass mobilization), which is politically defined as a form of lobbying that interest groups use designed to persuade political officials that an interest group's policy position has a significant and strong support from a large group of people. Interest groups perform grassroots lobbying by encouraging the group members to participate in contacting their legislating officials and share ideals on policy and legislation with the officials. By informing the members of an interest group that they should contact their legislating officials, there would be increases in officials awareness of public concerns. Interest groups choose this technique because it is relatively inexpensive and can very easily and gradually lead to mass mobilization, in which an interest group gathers a lot of its followers together in effort to both raise awareness of their concerns or ideas and also to influence legislation or policy.