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Two provisions that protect individuals that try to influence politics are the first and tenth amendment. The first amendment gives people freedom of speech and freedom of press, two very important things when trying to impact politics. The tenth amendment states "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." and also protect individuals.

Different interest groups use various methods for getting what they want. Through litigation; grassroots lobbying, and campaign contributions, interest groups will do whatever it take to pass a bill or get a certain official elected.

Litigation is an interest groups way of getting what they want. They use the law as there secret weapon. Sometimes, they use portions of various laws to further their cause, while other times they use it as a threat against their opponents. In the 1940s and 1950s, the NAACP sued several segregated school districts. This ended in the Brown v Board of Education decision in 1954. Apart from this particular example, many other special intrest groups used litigation to get what they wanted.

Yet another method is through campaign contributions. This method is faster than grassroots lobbying or litigation, but equally as effective. When a special interest group donates to a certain official, they are in a sense, buying there way into the campaign. When they want something passed or not, they can play the "I donated lots of money to your campaign" card. This forces the leader to make influenced decisions in fear of losing funding. This form of "bribery" is also illegal to some extent. As the federal government wants all of its elected officials to be there own person rather than puppets of major corporations.

Grassroots lobbying is the final way intrest groups. This technique only works on certain issues that the majority of people are concerned about. It does not work on issues that are too complicated for the majority to understand, or on issues that few people care about. Grassroots lobbying is a face to face form of lobbying. Special interest groups send out "foot soldiers" to spread the word and make more people vote. When it comes to the time where the decision is to be made, the pressure of the masses force a decision.

One specific governmental regulation of interest groups is through PACs, or political action committees. They place regulations on how much a pac can give to an interest group, controlling how much one person can donate.

http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap10_us_govt_politics_q1.pdf