Reverse Revolving Doors: The Influence of Interest Groups on Legislative Voting

This paper studies how former interest groups’ employees turned politicians (who we label as lobbyist legislators) influence the voting behavior of their colleague legislators. Using the alphabetic allocation of seats in the European Parliament and detailed individual résumé information, we find that legislators connected to lobbyist legislators are 7% more likely to coincide in their ballot with that of the lobbyist legislator only when the subject of the vote is deemed of importance to the interest group’s economic activity. Lobbyist legislators are influencing their connections’ ballots by achieving a 44% reduction in voting abstention. Lobbyist legislators substantially increase the likelihood of their connections casting their same ballot during high-stakes votes, however legislators slowly learn from their connections’ leanings and preferences, and tend to deviate overtime. All the effects are similar in size to that of being connected to lead legislators responsible for calling the party’s position in each motion.