3.5.3 – Interest Groups
3.5.4 – Interpretations and Debates
3.2.2.2 – Legislative Function
The Make America Healthy Again movement, or MAHA, helped get Donald Trump back into the White House in 2024 after Robert F Kennedy Jr ended his own presidential run and threw his weight behind him. Kennedy now runs the Department of Health and Human Services, and his big ideas, banning artificial food dyes, stopping food stamps being spent on soda and sweets, and tightening the rules on farm chemicals, are meant to be central to what the Trump administration does at home. But Congress is not playing along. In late April the House threw out a plan to stop food stamps being used to buy soda by 238 votes to 186, with 55 Republicans crossing the aisle to kill it. Dozens of bills on dyes, labels and school meals have not moved at all.
A big part of the reason sits in the lobbying figures. Since Trump came back to power last January, the food and drink industry has poured a record $113 million into lobbying in Washington, up more than 30 per cent on the year before. In the first three months of this year alone, Coca-Cola spent over $2 million and PepsiCo another $1.8 million, while the American Beverage Association added nearly $1 million on top. Mars and Hershey together put in $430,000, and the National Confectioners Association another $250,000. A new alliance called Americans for Ingredient Transparency, backed by Coca-Cola, Kraft Heinz and Nestlé, is also pushing for soft national rules on food labels that would knock out stricter ones some states are bringing in.
In one sense, this is Congress doing what the Founders meant it to do: arguing, slowing the president down and listening to organised groups. But House members face the voters every two years and lean heavily on private donors to pay for their campaigns, which hands real power to industry. Even when a policy is popular, a well-funded lobby can kill it by burying it in committee, voting down amendments or threatening to back a rival at the next primary.
Counter-MAHA lobbying is becoming a clear example of how interest groups shape policy in a pluralist democracy. Big industries are using lobbying, donations and alliances to outgun a popular grassroots movement, which raises the old worry about whether American democracy listens to voters, or only to those who can afford to be heard.