Pros And Cons Of Interest Groups

The United states of America has been built upon freedom of speech and criticizing the Government. As a matter fact, these freedoms have been the reason for the people to gather and announce their ideas to the public and the government. These group were with America from its origin, and even James Madison in the Federalist number 10 had mentioned about these factions. He believed that these factions are not good, but they are inevitable and necessary for the democracy (Federalist 10). Likewise, at this time we know those factions as interest groups, and there are many of them in the state of Texas that are daily changing or affecting a law that is getting passed by the representatives. Obviously, these effects have its pros and cons in the legislative branch of the state of Texas.
The factions or interest groups are the important for the democracy, and just like James Madison have stated, the factions are like an air for fire but they are also important for living. He believed that factions could be useful if they put some restrictions and have control on them. Interest groups are spending about 7 billion dollars to get the representatives to vote in their favor (Ramsey). Thus, government should put tougher restrictions on the spending of the interest groups, and it should have stricter oversight on them. They might be important for the democracy, but
thee amount that they pay for food, gifts, and entertainment for the senators or representatives is extremely high and unnecessary.
Interest groups should have the same limit as we the people have because those who are working in the Texas’ Congress are the representative of the people that have voted for him, and their vote is their votes therefore none should change or influence that with significant amount of money.
Giving more power to the interest group is dangerous for democracy, and it will give the ability to them to even change some laws that the majority of Texans do not want it to change. Thus, Government should either put lots of limits on the strong interest groups or help the weaker interest groups to compete with the stronger
ones.
In the state of Texas, we have lots of interest groups that are working with our representative in the state of Texas. Some of the examples of these interest groups are NARAL pro-Choice Texas for abortion, Environment Texas for the Environmental purposes, and the TSRA to protect the right of Texas to own handguns (The Voter's). The TSRA is one of the strongest interest group that has endorsed most of the senators and the representatives in the state of Texas. This interest group has 40,000 members in the state of Texas, and they have a strong lobby presence and reputation in Austin (TSRA-PAC). As they mentioned, membership in this group means power and influence, and this statement can be seen in the Pro-Gun Bills that have been passed into law during the 2013 session. “Rep. Kleinschmidt allow college student with a concealed handgun license to store their handgun in their personal locked vehicle on college property without sanctions.” (LEGISLATION) is an example of one of those laws that has passed by this interest group. Also the new open carry law that let the students with official gun license to carry gun in the Public Universities shows the influence of this interest group on our representatives that could change this law.
In conclusion, the factions and the interest groups can be dangerous but they are necessary for the democracy. The factions are like air for the fire and they are necessary for breathing as have Madison stated in his federalist paper. Thus, government should put restrictions on these factions so they do not have much power to be dangerous for the government and democracy. In the 21st century, there are lots of interest groups that are affecting the laws that are being passed by the Congress of the state of Texas. One of the most powerful one of those interest groups is the TSRA or the Texas State Rifle Association that is one of the sub branches of the NRA in the state level. This interest group have much power that has endorsed lots of new senators and representatives and currently is supporting many of those representatives. TSRA causes most of the laws to get passed in his favor like the SB864, HB47, and HB333 bills. Hence, Government should put lots of restrictions on these powerful interest groups, so they cannot change every single law in their favor.