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Interest Groups Influence on Public Policies

Various interest groups strive to influence public policies at various levels of
government. A lot of focus of the activities of these groups and individuals has been at the
federal level where lobbyists play a significant role in the development of public policies. There
is less focus on local and state governments because of the belief that perhaps policies of such
governments do not carry as much weight as those of the federal government. This is, however,
not the case.
Many interest groups also operate at state and local government levels where they seek to
influence public policies so that they favor their interests. Officials at state and local
governments make policies that have far-reaching consequences for various groups within the
affected state or municipality. These decisions include whether to allow various housing
complexes or not and whether to ban plastic bags. Regarding the former, real estate developers
may be interested in having a policy that suits their business needs while on the latter,
environmental organizations and environment activists may want the state or local government to
ban the plastic bags.
An example of a public policy that may have been influenced by interest groups is the
decision of the State of New York to ban plastic bags in March, 2019 (McKinley, 2019). The
Environmental Advocate of New York, an environment conservation group, had for long lobbied
the state government to ban plastic and paper bags and permit only use of reusable bags
(McKinley, 2019). The banning of plastic bags represented a partial success for the group’s
efforts because they wanted both plastic and paper bags banned. Their failure to get everything

INTEREST GROUPS INFLUENCE ON PUBLIC POLICIES 3
that they wanted could have been a result of the state government seeking to balance the interests
of various groups that were involved in the development of the state’s plastic bag policy.

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References

McKinley, J. (2019, March 28). Plastic Bags to Be Banned in New York; Second Statewide Ban,
After California. New York Times. Retrieved on 12 th March, 2020 from
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/nyregion/plastic-bag-ban-
.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage