Religious Advocacy

In a paper at the annual conference of the American Political Science Association, Allen Hertzke reports on a forthcoming Pew Forum study that confirms a major theme of our textbook: the significant role of religion in American public life:

Beginning in 1950, periodic studies reported on aspects of the ―growing‖ church lobby in Washington (Ebersole 1951), (Adams 1970), (Hertzke 1988), (Weber and Jones (1994), (Hofrenning 1995). The Pew Forum study builds on these works by providing the first systematic documentation of the growth over time in the number of groups, and amassing a data base on the characteristics, size, and issue concerns of the current advocacy organizations. This investigation revealed an advocacy explosion that began in the 1970s and accelerated through this decade. Today, over 200 national religious groups maintain offices in the Washington DC metro area and engage in public policy advocacy, at least part of the time. This number represents a five-fold increase since 1970. While secular lobbying activity in Washington has exploded during this time period, especially in the sheer number of registered lobbyists and amount of money spent, the growth in the number of religious groups has even outpaced the growth in the number of other lobbying organizations (Berry and Wilcox 2007, Chapter 2). Religious interests appear to have disproportionately established Washington offices as the means of public policy advocacy, rather than rely on the lobby firms that have grown and proliferated.