10 ms·

Perhaps the least understood view of lobbying that really informs how perverse the system has become is that as a general rule people believe the lobbyists are

by entee 11y ago

Perhaps the least understood view of lobbying that really informs how perverse the system has become is that as a general rule people believe the lobbyists are calling the congresspeople to offer them money. In reality, it's the congresspeople, desperate for campaign cash, that are calling the lobbyists for money. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/27/145923803/the-friday-podcast-a-former-lobbyist-tells-all http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/27/145923803/the-f... The cost of congressional elections has increased so much that it has become essentially required for someone aspiring to political office to raise enormous amounts of money. As a result they're asking lobbyists to contribute. As a result they're more likely to take positions that are friendly to those interests. Effectively the polarity of the commonly stated narrative is backwards. It's not lobbyists giving money for special favors, it's congresspeople needing money who give special favors in the hopes of maybe getting money. This is even more perverse, and harder to fix than the former. Essentially, I wish my congressperson was more traditionally corrupt, that's an issue we know how to solve.

snowwrestler 11y ago
This is true for direct contributions to a candidate's campaign, for contributions to an member of Congress's "personal PAC", and for contributions to political parties. It's not true for contributions to "super PACs" and other independent expenditures, aka outside money--the stuff the Citizens United decision liberalized. The reason for that is that the law (even post-CU) prohibits coordination between a candidate and any group making independent expenditures. Ted Cruz cannot ask anyone to give money to his super PAC. And it's important to understand that there are still limits on the contributions in my first paragraph. A given person can only contribute a set amount of money per election cycle to each candidate, each PAC, and each party committee. That said, the aggregate numbers are still huge. CU did not outlaw limits on those types of contributions. I wish we could lower then farther and (especially) take away the privileged position that political parties have within elections and campaign finance laws.
- Spooky23 11y ago
  That arms length separation elevates the power of lobbyists and other political operators even more.
- entee 11y ago
  All true. Thing is though, it's not about Ted Cruz, or Obama or even the congress. Sure, it's a problem at those levels, but it's a REAL problem at the state and local level. As a super PAC you can have a much larger influence in these relatively less watched elections as you can in a national election. These smaller elections have candidates that aren't as well known and don't have the money to fight back.
- jrjr 11y ago
  tax the large contributions severely. up to 90% over threshold values.
BurningFrog 11y ago
The obvious solution to this is to make it easier for politicians to raise money. Instead everyone is demanding to make it harder. The lack of Economics instinct is costly for our society.
- jack9 11y ago
  That's not obvious at all. Political speech can be codified and regulated with channels and times (which is largely already is via the political "seasons" and campaign routes). The questions of how to structure it, are many and varied, but would result in a normalized process that is distinctly devoid of corruption. Take money out of the process.
- wfo 11y ago
  The obvious solution to gun violence is to give everyone nuclear weapons. The lack of military instinct is costly for our society.
- haberman 11y ago
  That's like saying that the obvious solution to foreign energy dependence is to make it easier to buy foreign oil. The problem isn't unmet demand, the problem is dependence and the power dynamic that creates.
- tomp 11y ago
  Advertising, in any market, is a race to the bottom (to the top, really, in terms of cost). If everyone spends 100% on advertising, only the advertising platforms benefit, not the advertisers themselves. It would be much better to ban all lobbying, so each candidate would only have a very small amount o fmoney to spend on elections, and people would be less manipulated into voting them.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    >It would be much better to ban all lobbying, so each candidate would only have a very small amount o fmoney to spend on elections, and people would be less manipulated into voting them. I can make up my own mind for who to vote for. I don't need or want anyone to protect me from persuasion. I can't think of an idea more insidious to a free society, that the government needs to control the expression of ideas to protect people from "manipulation".
markdown 11y ago
As soon on a recent Last Week Tonight episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk
Overtonwindow 11y ago
Can confirm. I was a lobbyist for several years in Washington. My job was to break through the bubble of Congress to educate members of Congress about my clients, a medium size nonprofit. The desperate crush for campaign donation requests was overwhelming.
danieltillett 11y ago
The solution is to actually increase the number of politicians so that each district is small enough that you don't need money to get elected (you need districts of about 25,000 voters). The crazy thing is it doesn't even cost anymore money because as you increase the politicians you take away their staff. If you want to know more about this idea see [1]. 1. http://www.thirty-thousand.org http://www.thirty-thousand.org
- mtgx 11y ago
  Even better, do multi-winner districts (3-9 per district) with a ranked choice voting system that would greatly increase how well people are represented in Congress through proportional representation. http://www.fairvote.org/proportional_representation http://www.fairvote.org/proportional_representation
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    The problem with having large electorates is you still need a lot of money for advertising. By making the electorates small you basically can campaign by visiting and speaking to every person in the electorate. Get rid of the need for expensive advertising and you get rid of the need to raise money. I do agree that there are much better voting systems then simple majorities - I like instant runoffs.
- newjersey 11y ago
  Smaller congressional districts could also help decrease the effect of gerrymandering. This is interesting. On the other hand, will we make ourselves even more vulnerable to "grassroots campaigns" like the tea party and lobbies like Alec? I'm not an expert but there are mathematically and sociologically sound alternatives that are better than what you and I can prescribe. I'd prefer one of those.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    There are defiantly better voting systems than first past the post (I have a soft spot for instant run offs), but having smaller congressional districts should make the system more resistant to lobby groups. The campaign process would move to a more personal reputation based system where the representatives know most of the voters in their district. You might get extreme candidates in some districts, but they would be a small minority without much power at the congress level.
Alphasite_ 11y ago
Why not do what is done in the UK and put spending limits in place?
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  Because ultimately a spending limit boils down to "you're not allowed to air this film" because you already spent too much. In fact, that's exactly what the Citizens United case was. We have a Bill of Rights which guarantees that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, the right of the people to peaceably assemble, or the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
  - ta0967 11y ago
    have public tv "air this film"? of course, you need strong democratic institutions like said public tv.
    - bmelton 11y ago
      What this amounts to is Michael Moore now has to make his movies for $2700 (assuming that's the limit) instead of the $20 million he's making them for now. The reason Citizens United was decided the way it was is because it costs money to make movies, and even if you somehow allocate public money towards the distribution of the film on PBS or whatever, you're still insisting that the movie makers aren't allowed to spend more of their money to make the movie to their own standards.
  - whiddershins 11y ago
    This. It drives me crazy that people don't understand Citizens United was about free speech. And most people who say they don't like the ruling reverse positions once I explain exactly what it was about. Stopping a film maker from making or airing a political film seems horrible to me.
johnchristopher 11y ago
In France and Belgium the total amount of money you can spend on your campaign is regulated and financed by the state. Which of course leads to another kind of problems.
- emn13 11y ago
  Such as? I'd say that's the bare minimum starting point for something that deserves the name democracy. That doesn't mean it's a panacea.
  - johnchristopher 11y ago
    On the top of my head: - Some parties/candidates spend more than they are allowed and try to hide the difference and that can only be done illegally (See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10858124/Marine-Le-Pen-wins-record-victory-in-French-elections.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1085...). - Also there can be some voting(?) threshold you have to reach to be eligible for the reimbursement of campaign costs (5% for the french presidential I believe) so small parties are gambling a lot by throwing themselves into the pit with other well established big parties and sometimes they simply decide to make a coalition in order to have the guarantee to survive financially. But then they are forced to reframe their political agenda and this usually weakens the ideological stances of everyone. - I think you have to submit every spending and justify the origin of the money private donors give you. Except when they can't because that money was obtained in shady places (See the Gaddafi-Sarkozy affair http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22220272 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22220272 or the Sarkozy-Bettencourt affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettencourt_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettencourt_affair). Of course I am not blaming the system. But at the moment the implementation lacks several error catching checks to make sure the whole thing runs as intended (eg: the official/national organ that is supposed to investigate these campaigns and make sure everything stays legal is largely under funded). I gave some notorious examples from right parties but it doesn't mean the left doesn't dabble into those waters (in France and in Belgium).
    - 11y ago
nxzero 11y ago
Irony is that Congress could just pass a law providing the funds to run a campaign and ban lobbying.
- shwouchk 11y ago
  Right, and who says who is eligible to run a campaign?
  - nxzero 11y ago
    Are you asking how it who be decided who gets the money? I would suggest opening it up to both public debate and research; meaning we would need to learn what works best, and very possible there maybe no single right solution; for examples, cities and non-city area are different in my opinion.
- bmelton 11y ago
  Well, no, they probably can't. Under Citizens United and FEC v McCutcheon, the idea of banning lobbying (at least via SuperPac) is a non-starter with the courts. That may have changed with Scalia's passage, but under current precedent, you can't ban it, whether or not you replace it with something else for the party insiders.
cm3 11y ago
And they all hate it if this video is any proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk Why do countries like Germany make do without these huge fundraising campaigns, while a having a more balanced parliament, and the US is just Rep or Dem (binary) plus a huge show on a tour bus across the country, instead of doing real politics? I mean, what's the cultural difference in the US population that facilitates the circus?
- nhaehnle 11y ago
  I can't speak much for other countries, but for the Germany I suspect that a big part of the difference ultimately derives from a different voting and representation system that is much less focused on individual politicians, and therefore has a much lower tendency to devolve into a popularity contest. (It's still a popularity contest, but much less so.) The unit that really matters in Germany is the party, and the most important vote in all elections at the state and federal levels is a party vote rather than a vote for an individual. Something like a Sanders candidacy would be completely unthinkable in Germany simply because of how the elections work. (There is a secondary vote in elections in which you vote for an individual, but that can only marginally affect the final composition of parliament in terms of number of seats per party. The details are complicated, and for the purpose of this discussion it's best to pretend that this secondary vote doesn't exist.) At its most extreme, neither the chancellor nor the state prime ministers are elected by direct vote. Then there's an admittedly somewhat random element of political culture in that there are no open primaries. The selection of candidates within each party is done by vote among delegates internal to the parties, and is almost completely devoid of public spectacle. (The news media typically reports once on these internal elections on the day that they happen, and that's it.) To top it all off, parties are subsidized by the state. Once a party wins a number of votes in an election - the threshold is fairly low, and lower than the number of votes required to enter parliament - they receive money proportional to their electoral success. This reduces the need to create a huge fundraising apparatus in the first place. I'd say Lessig is right in that campaign financing reform is probably the best path forward for the US, since changing the other aspects I mentioned would require much deeper constitutional changes.
yolesaber 11y ago
One solution is to replace elections altogether and instead institute a lottery system pooled from the general population with term limits at various levels of government.
Gravityloss 11y ago
There's going to be problems as long as money gives such a big boost towards being elected. Could candidates have standardized, free/fixed low price advertisement? At least some portion of it? There they would get to state their goals and views, and people could make an informed decision on who to vote. There are "voting advice applications" where a voter can answer a web quiz and then see which candidate answered closest to them, with explanations, comes closest. We have a few of those, by broadcasting companies, newspapers and magazines here, and I believe they have some effect at least on candidate discovery. Then they can go to the candidate's web site to learn more. I'm from a country that has a multi party system though. As far as I know, it doesn't cost anything for the candidate to participate (answering the quiz), and the money comes from ads / general visibility to the quiz host. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_advice_application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_advice_application
studentrob 11y ago
> it's congresspeople needing money who give special favors in the hopes of maybe getting money "Special favors" are only given when the public does not speak out or vote. If the public is largely silent on an issue, the politician's perspective is his constituents don't care about that issue. Barney Frank: "If the voters have a position, the votes will kick money's rear end any time. I've never met a politician-- I've been in the legislative bodies for 40 years now-- who, choosing between a significant opinion in his or her district and a number of campaign contributors, doesn't go with the district." [1] We need to discuss and debate the issues more with each other. Techies may also help provide better tools for representatives to gauge public interest. [1] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/transcript http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/t...
RachelF 11y ago
Lobbying is still a form of corruption. That congressmen need money to buy votes via advertising does not make it non-corrupt.
developer2 11y ago
Ah yes, the old "I do it because everyone else does it" excuse. It's not the system that's broken, it's every individual politician who chooses to follow that path. "You won't make it in industry X unless you do Y" is pure self-serving bullshit.
- mahranch 11y ago
  Lobbying was made legal because it was (and will) happen regardless of legality. With legality, it can be documented and the details publicly released. If we made it illegal, it will just go back to being an "under the table" thing and we won't know who has been bought by whom. Do I think lobbying (as a system) needs to be fixed/changed/altered/tweaked? Most definitely. But making it outright illegal is like making drug use illegal, people are still going to do it regardless. At least with it being legal, we can keep tabs and utilize harm reduction when necessary.

by entee 11y ago

snowwrestler 11y ago

This is true for direct contributions to a candidate's campaign, for contributions to an member of Congress's "personal PAC", and for contributions to political parties. It's not true for contributions to "super PACs" and other independent expenditures, aka outside money--the stuff the Citizens United decision liberalized. The reason for that is that the law (even post-CU) prohibits coordination between a candidate and any group making independent expenditures. Ted Cruz cannot ask anyone to give money to his super PAC. And it's important to understand that there are still limits on the contributions in my first paragraph. A given person can only contribute a set amount of money per election cycle to each candidate, each PAC, and each party committee. That said, the aggregate numbers are still huge. CU did not outlaw limits on those types of contributions. I wish we could lower then farther and (especially) take away the privileged position that political parties have within elections and campaign finance laws.

Spooky23 11y ago
That arms length separation elevates the power of lobbyists and other political operators even more.
entee 11y ago
All true. Thing is though, it's not about Ted Cruz, or Obama or even the congress. Sure, it's a problem at those levels, but it's a REAL problem at the state and local level. As a super PAC you can have a much larger influence in these relatively less watched elections as you can in a national election. These smaller elections have candidates that aren't as well known and don't have the money to fight back.
jrjr 11y ago
tax the large contributions severely. up to 90% over threshold values.

BurningFrog 11y ago

The obvious solution to this is to make it easier for politicians to raise money. Instead everyone is demanding to make it harder. The lack of Economics instinct is costly for our society.

jack9 11y ago
That's not obvious at all. Political speech can be codified and regulated with channels and times (which is largely already is via the political "seasons" and campaign routes). The questions of how to structure it, are many and varied, but would result in a normalized process that is distinctly devoid of corruption. Take money out of the process.
wfo 11y ago
The obvious solution to gun violence is to give everyone nuclear weapons. The lack of military instinct is costly for our society.
haberman 11y ago
That's like saying that the obvious solution to foreign energy dependence is to make it easier to buy foreign oil. The problem isn't unmet demand, the problem is dependence and the power dynamic that creates.
tomp 11y ago
Advertising, in any market, is a race to the bottom (to the top, really, in terms of cost). If everyone spends 100% on advertising, only the advertising platforms benefit, not the advertisers themselves. It would be much better to ban all lobbying, so each candidate would only have a very small amount o fmoney to spend on elections, and people would be less manipulated into voting them.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  >It would be much better to ban all lobbying, so each candidate would only have a very small amount o fmoney to spend on elections, and people would be less manipulated into voting them. I can make up my own mind for who to vote for. I don't need or want anyone to protect me from persuasion. I can't think of an idea more insidious to a free society, that the government needs to control the expression of ideas to protect people from "manipulation".

markdown 11y ago

As soon on a recent Last Week Tonight episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk

Overtonwindow 11y ago

Can confirm. I was a lobbyist for several years in Washington. My job was to break through the bubble of Congress to educate members of Congress about my clients, a medium size nonprofit. The desperate crush for campaign donation requests was overwhelming.

danieltillett 11y ago

The solution is to actually increase the number of politicians so that each district is small enough that you don't need money to get elected (you need districts of about 25,000 voters). The crazy thing is it doesn't even cost anymore money because as you increase the politicians you take away their staff. If you want to know more about this idea see [1]. 1. http://www.thirty-thousand.org http://www.thirty-thousand.org

mtgx 11y ago
Even better, do multi-winner districts (3-9 per district) with a ranked choice voting system that would greatly increase how well people are represented in Congress through proportional representation. http://www.fairvote.org/proportional_representation http://www.fairvote.org/proportional_representation
- danieltillett 11y ago
  The problem with having large electorates is you still need a lot of money for advertising. By making the electorates small you basically can campaign by visiting and speaking to every person in the electorate. Get rid of the need for expensive advertising and you get rid of the need to raise money. I do agree that there are much better voting systems then simple majorities - I like instant runoffs.
newjersey 11y ago
Smaller congressional districts could also help decrease the effect of gerrymandering. This is interesting. On the other hand, will we make ourselves even more vulnerable to "grassroots campaigns" like the tea party and lobbies like Alec? I'm not an expert but there are mathematically and sociologically sound alternatives that are better than what you and I can prescribe. I'd prefer one of those.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  There are defiantly better voting systems than first past the post (I have a soft spot for instant run offs), but having smaller congressional districts should make the system more resistant to lobby groups. The campaign process would move to a more personal reputation based system where the representatives know most of the voters in their district. You might get extreme candidates in some districts, but they would be a small minority without much power at the congress level.

Alphasite_ 11y ago

Why not do what is done in the UK and put spending limits in place?

marcoperaza 11y ago
Because ultimately a spending limit boils down to "you're not allowed to air this film" because you already spent too much. In fact, that's exactly what the Citizens United case was. We have a Bill of Rights which guarantees that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, the right of the people to peaceably assemble, or the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
- ta0967 11y ago
  have public tv "air this film"? of course, you need strong democratic institutions like said public tv.
  - bmelton 11y ago
    What this amounts to is Michael Moore now has to make his movies for $2700 (assuming that's the limit) instead of the $20 million he's making them for now. The reason Citizens United was decided the way it was is because it costs money to make movies, and even if you somehow allocate public money towards the distribution of the film on PBS or whatever, you're still insisting that the movie makers aren't allowed to spend more of their money to make the movie to their own standards.
- whiddershins 11y ago
  This. It drives me crazy that people don't understand Citizens United was about free speech. And most people who say they don't like the ruling reverse positions once I explain exactly what it was about. Stopping a film maker from making or airing a political film seems horrible to me.

johnchristopher 11y ago

In France and Belgium the total amount of money you can spend on your campaign is regulated and financed by the state. Which of course leads to another kind of problems.

emn13 11y ago
Such as? I'd say that's the bare minimum starting point for something that deserves the name democracy. That doesn't mean it's a panacea.
- johnchristopher 11y ago
  On the top of my head: - Some parties/candidates spend more than they are allowed and try to hide the difference and that can only be done illegally (See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10858124/Marine-Le-Pen-wins-record-victory-in-French-elections.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1085...). - Also there can be some voting(?) threshold you have to reach to be eligible for the reimbursement of campaign costs (5% for the french presidential I believe) so small parties are gambling a lot by throwing themselves into the pit with other well established big parties and sometimes they simply decide to make a coalition in order to have the guarantee to survive financially. But then they are forced to reframe their political agenda and this usually weakens the ideological stances of everyone. - I think you have to submit every spending and justify the origin of the money private donors give you. Except when they can't because that money was obtained in shady places (See the Gaddafi-Sarkozy affair http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22220272 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22220272 or the Sarkozy-Bettencourt affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettencourt_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettencourt_affair). Of course I am not blaming the system. But at the moment the implementation lacks several error catching checks to make sure the whole thing runs as intended (eg: the official/national organ that is supposed to investigate these campaigns and make sure everything stays legal is largely under funded). I gave some notorious examples from right parties but it doesn't mean the left doesn't dabble into those waters (in France and in Belgium).
  - 11y ago

nxzero 11y ago

Irony is that Congress could just pass a law providing the funds to run a campaign and ban lobbying.

shwouchk 11y ago
Right, and who says who is eligible to run a campaign?
- nxzero 11y ago
  Are you asking how it who be decided who gets the money? I would suggest opening it up to both public debate and research; meaning we would need to learn what works best, and very possible there maybe no single right solution; for examples, cities and non-city area are different in my opinion.
bmelton 11y ago
Well, no, they probably can't. Under Citizens United and FEC v McCutcheon, the idea of banning lobbying (at least via SuperPac) is a non-starter with the courts. That may have changed with Scalia's passage, but under current precedent, you can't ban it, whether or not you replace it with something else for the party insiders.

cm3 11y ago

And they all hate it if this video is any proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk Why do countries like Germany make do without these huge fundraising campaigns, while a having a more balanced parliament, and the US is just Rep or Dem (binary) plus a huge show on a tour bus across the country, instead of doing real politics? I mean, what's the cultural difference in the US population that facilitates the circus?

nhaehnle 11y ago
I can't speak much for other countries, but for the Germany I suspect that a big part of the difference ultimately derives from a different voting and representation system that is much less focused on individual politicians, and therefore has a much lower tendency to devolve into a popularity contest. (It's still a popularity contest, but much less so.) The unit that really matters in Germany is the party, and the most important vote in all elections at the state and federal levels is a party vote rather than a vote for an individual. Something like a Sanders candidacy would be completely unthinkable in Germany simply because of how the elections work. (There is a secondary vote in elections in which you vote for an individual, but that can only marginally affect the final composition of parliament in terms of number of seats per party. The details are complicated, and for the purpose of this discussion it's best to pretend that this secondary vote doesn't exist.) At its most extreme, neither the chancellor nor the state prime ministers are elected by direct vote. Then there's an admittedly somewhat random element of political culture in that there are no open primaries. The selection of candidates within each party is done by vote among delegates internal to the parties, and is almost completely devoid of public spectacle. (The news media typically reports once on these internal elections on the day that they happen, and that's it.) To top it all off, parties are subsidized by the state. Once a party wins a number of votes in an election - the threshold is fairly low, and lower than the number of votes required to enter parliament - they receive money proportional to their electoral success. This reduces the need to create a huge fundraising apparatus in the first place. I'd say Lessig is right in that campaign financing reform is probably the best path forward for the US, since changing the other aspects I mentioned would require much deeper constitutional changes.

yolesaber 11y ago

One solution is to replace elections altogether and instead institute a lottery system pooled from the general population with term limits at various levels of government.

Gravityloss 11y ago

There's going to be problems as long as money gives such a big boost towards being elected. Could candidates have standardized, free/fixed low price advertisement? At least some portion of it? There they would get to state their goals and views, and people could make an informed decision on who to vote. There are "voting advice applications" where a voter can answer a web quiz and then see which candidate answered closest to them, with explanations, comes closest. We have a few of those, by broadcasting companies, newspapers and magazines here, and I believe they have some effect at least on candidate discovery. Then they can go to the candidate's web site to learn more. I'm from a country that has a multi party system though. As far as I know, it doesn't cost anything for the candidate to participate (answering the quiz), and the money comes from ads / general visibility to the quiz host. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_advice_application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_advice_application

studentrob 11y ago

> it's congresspeople needing money who give special favors in the hopes of maybe getting money "Special favors" are only given when the public does not speak out or vote. If the public is largely silent on an issue, the politician's perspective is his constituents don't care about that issue. Barney Frank: "If the voters have a position, the votes will kick money's rear end any time. I've never met a politician-- I've been in the legislative bodies for 40 years now-- who, choosing between a significant opinion in his or her district and a number of campaign contributors, doesn't go with the district." [1] We need to discuss and debate the issues more with each other. Techies may also help provide better tools for representatives to gauge public interest. [1] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/transcript http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/t...

RachelF 11y ago

Lobbying is still a form of corruption. That congressmen need money to buy votes via advertising does not make it non-corrupt.

developer2 11y ago

Ah yes, the old "I do it because everyone else does it" excuse. It's not the system that's broken, it's every individual politician who chooses to follow that path. "You won't make it in industry X unless you do Y" is pure self-serving bullshit.

mahranch 11y ago
Lobbying was made legal because it was (and will) happen regardless of legality. With legality, it can be documented and the details publicly released. If we made it illegal, it will just go back to being an "under the table" thing and we won't know who has been bought by whom. Do I think lobbying (as a system) needs to be fixed/changed/altered/tweaked? Most definitely. But making it outright illegal is like making drug use illegal, people are still going to do it regardless. At least with it being legal, we can keep tabs and utilize harm reduction when necessary.