Reprints and permission:

How do interests respond to their opponents ’ lobbying activities in a policy venue? Do they seek to directly con-front and counter the advocacy efforts of the opposition, or do they allocate their resources to advocacy efforts tar-geting institutions in which opposing interests are not as active? Assuming that organized interests exert some influence over policy outcomes or at least provide rele-vant information to policy makers, the degree to which opposing interests compete in a given policy venue or instead sort themselves into relatively noncompetitive venues has significant implications for whether policy outputs will exhibit representational or informational bias. Despite the significance of these questions for the study of American politics, policy making, and represen