I question the relevance and the likely non sequitur. As such, Turkewitz has linked the wrong post, and should have linked my Point of Law post discussing the problem of stretching trivial data to conclusions it does not support.

It would’ve been easy to perform a basic test: are states where the NFIB’s building is closer to the capitol than that of the trial lawyers states that have more tort reform passed by the legislature, and vice versa? That wouldn’t prove anything by itself (there are likely confounding factors), but it would have been a good reality check.

1) There are plenty of factors that might influence where a lobby group has its office – did this idiot control for rent, lease terms, layout, parking, accessability, other tenants? How about when a group was established – perhaps the best locations belong to the groups which have been around the longest. How about which party is more often in power in a particular state? There might be a pattern related to whether a lobby group is oppositional to the party in power or not. There might be a pattern relating to whether or not the state capitol is the largest city in the state (some groups might want offices in both, which would presumably affect how much they could pay for each one).

2) What is the difference in average distance from the legislature of the closest vs. the second, third and fourth closest? My bet would be that lobby groups tend to huddle around the legislature and the difference in proximity is minor. How about some stats showing the average distance from the legislature for various groups, rather than just ordinal status. What other activities besides lobbying does a group engage in? That could affect their choice of location.

3) Who knows, let alone is impressed by, the proximity of a lobby group’s offices to the legislature? Lobbyists visit legislators as a rule, not the other way around. If anything about a lobby group’s office was going to impress a legislator, I would expect fanciness of the office, as an indication of the resources of the organization.

4) Why would teachers’ unions be so much more interested than any other interest group in making a “visible statement of their importance”? Is the NRA or the AARP likely to be shy about advertising their importance, if proximity to the legislature is an effective advertisement?

5) How do we know that the scoring system is the best representation of the data? Maybe actual distance matters more than relative distance. Maybe being the closest is useful, but after that it doesn’t matter if you’re second or sixth. How do we know that being closest (4 points) is twice as good as being third closest (2 points) and four times as good as being fourth closest (1 point)? Note that the results would have been significantly different if the opposite scoring system had been used – i.e., 1 point for the closest group, 2 points for the second closest, etc. With that system, being closest would be twice as good as being second closest (1 point vs. 2 points), rather than closest being twice as good as third closest under the original scoring system (4 points vs. 2 points).

6) So what if teachers’ unions have (on average) offices closer to legislatures than other groups? So what if they are trying to making a visual statement of their importance? This pseudo-researcher is obviously trying to imply that teachers’ unions have nefariously acquired some unfair advantage over other lobby groups. We have NO evidence that being closest actually makes any difference in a lobby group’s influence. Even if it is an advantage, why is it an unfair advantage? What have teachers’ unions done that any other group couldn’t do? Presumably any organization which could pay the rent could have acquired the the office occupied by the teachers’ union. Granted, not all organizations are equally wealthy, but I doubt that this particular researcher is in favour of such an anti-capitalist idea as equalizing the income of lobby groups in order to equalize their influence. (I might go for that idea.) I think it’s safe to say that there are plenty of lobby groups which could manage to pay the same rent as the teachers’ union does. Perhaps lobby groups make trade-offs between paying more rent vs. spending the money on other things. In that case, every group has made a voluntary choice and has spent their money on what they value most. What is wrong with that?

https://www.overlawyered.com/2008/04/4-of-doctors-responsible-for-5.html