Toward a New Measure of State-Level LGBT Interest Group Strength

Abstract

Attempts to assess the influence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) groups on LGBT-related policy are hampered by imprecise measurement of LGBT group strength and activity. This research note examines the problems with existing measures of state-level LGBT advocacy strength and it develops an alternative measure of LGBT advocacy group strength. We utilize revenue and asset data available from the National Center for Charitable Statistics to develop better and reproducible state-level measures of LGBT interest group strength on an annual basis. We compare our measures to existing measures and demonstrate their utility for the ongoing study of LGBT politics. The approach used in construction of our measure can be extended over time, is replicable in other issue areas, and thus has broad utility for the study of interest groups at the subnational level.