Changes

This paper analyzes a simple spatial voting model that includes lobbyists who are able to buy votes on bills to change the status q u o quo . T h e The key results a r e are: (i) if lobbyists can discriminate across legislators when buying votes, then they will pay the largest bribes to legislators wh o a r e who are slightly opposed t o to the proposed change, rather than t o legislators who strongly support o r or strongly oppose the change; (ii) equilibrium policies exist, and with q u a d r a t i c quadratic preferences these equilibria always lie between t h e average of t h e lobbyists’ ideal points a n d the median of the legislators’ ideal points; a n d and (iii) “moderate” lobbyists, whose positions on a policy issue a r e are close t o to the median of the legislators’ ideal points, will prefer the issue t o to be salient, while more extreme lobbyists will generally prefer the issue t o to be obscure.