9 ms·

Lobbying is nothing more than legalized corruption. When companies lobby, they do so at the expense of the people and other, smaller, competitors who cannot aff

by Jerry2 8y ago

Lobbying is nothing more than legalized corruption. When companies lobby, they do so at the expense of the people and other, smaller, competitors who cannot afford to bribe politicians. Politicians should craft laws based on what's best for the country and not on what's best for the few corporations that manage to outbribe other companies. Also, remember when Google complained about lobbyists? Former Google CEO Erc Schmidt even admitted that most laws are written by lobbyists. >"The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists" to protect incumbent interests, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Atlantic editor James Bennet at the Washington Ideas Forum. "It's shocking how the system actually works." https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/googles-ceo-the-laws-are-written-by-lobbyists/63908/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/googl...

SamReidHughes 8y ago
Let's say I'm a congressman and I meet with a lobbyist. How am I getting bribed?
- temp231239 8y ago
  Post retirement, same congressman get hired as an executive for the company or congressman starts an startup which is brought by the lobbyist company or ... There are far more complex ways for congressmen to receive benefits for accepting lobbyist agenda. Any action by congressman that doesn't make sense to common mass is result of lobbying. Every human being possesses basic intellect to konw what's good/or not for us and its the greed that persuade them to act differently.
  - SamReidHughes 8y ago
    > Every human being possesses basic intellect to konw what's good/or not for us and its the greed that persuade them to act differently. This is obviously not true because then every voter would support the same policies. You can't even get everybody to agree on defunding public education!
    - CoryG89 8y ago
      Obviously you aren't going to be able to get everyone to agree on everything, but I think the vast majority of this is simply because people are easily manipulated, and are so prone to group think and jumping on the bandwagon. If it weren't for lobbying and political campaigns trying to tell you what to think, I believe that the vast majority of the public would be much more aligned.
      - jefftk 8y ago
        Have you tried to get a group to consensus in an area where there isn't any lobbying or manipulation? People have lots of different ideas about how to do things, informed by different life experiences. Political disagreement predates lobbying and campaigns by millennia.
  - kortilla 8y ago
    >Any action by congressman that doesn't make sense to common mass is result of lobbying. Every human being possesses basic intellect to konw what's good/or not for us and its the greed that persuade them to act differently. No, the entire reason we need new laws is to deal with new unforeseen situations and complex interactions. “Basic intellect” will very frequently be wrong when it comes to the implementation of health policies, tax policies, trade policies, economic policies, and so on.
- mrpopo 8y ago
  I'm not sure what you are asking. It can happen in many different forms. For instance, the lobbyist asks for measures profiting their business that go against your campaign promises, but you can't refuse, because otherwise they won't pay for your reelection campaign.
  - SamReidHughes 8y ago
    Supporting your election campaign isn't bribery. And it's pretty implausible. Individual campaign contributions are capped at a few thousand dollars.
    - rypskar 8y ago
      >Supporting your election campaign isn't bribery. How is that not bribery? It is directly: do this for me and I will give money to you (or something you care about)
      - SamReidHughes 8y ago
        All supporters' contributions are conditional that way.
        lordnacho 8y ago
        No they're not. Honest contributors think a candidate will be conscientious in making decisions for the common good, not "will he do this one thing that benefits me". In all likelihood whoever you voted for did something that wasn't to your benefit (they vote on many things), but you voted for him anyway. Ditto with money.
      - kortilla 8y ago
        You’ve described all political fundraising. People only donate to Bernie because of his views. If he decided to change views to suddenly support free market solutions, his donator base would dry up. “Support socialism and I’ll donate” is the same thing as “support solar industry and I’ll donate”.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  - If you've received campaign contributions from the corporation said lobbyist works for, I think it's apparent to everyone how, (you scratch my back...). - You're giving a citizen which may not even live in your constituency and works for a corporation the kind of access to yourself that you'd never grant a regular constituent. - Over the decades, an understanding has been built of 'the revolving door', how former government workers switch to the private sector and then come back as lobbyists, utilizing their contacts and friendships to get what their employer wants. Or they come back into government with a massive exit package, while still being loyal to their former employer and vote for wars etc, when then conveniently their 'former' employer can send equipment for etc. Then they switch to the private sector again, collecting millions annually for a position that has no real responsibility. The notion that there's corruption only when filmed passing banknotes is absurd, there's a reason the notion of intention exists in criminal law.
  - wil421 8y ago
    Let’s say some environmental committee is headed by a Representative from New York. An Environmentalist organization from California wants new legislation to improve air quality across the US. Let’s assume no representatives from California are on the committee. Does this mean it’s not right for the California organization to lobby the New York rep? I highly doubt every issue a house rep deals with is about their own constituents.
    - AsyncAwait 8y ago
      There's a difference between an organization representing the public interest, (air quality), and some for-profit megacorp looking to maximize profits, often at the expense of public interest. Pretending there isn't is just dumb. Also, unless they gave him campaign cash, I doubt they'd even be able to get the same kind of a hearing a corporate donor would, but my solution to this is to not allow any campaign contributions at all and to have public financing of elections, so that there's a greater chance politicians will actually represent what the people want.
      - 8y ago
- swebs 8y ago
  It depends. Who are you on this list? https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/members-list https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/members-list For example, the top recipient of donations, Beto O'Rourke, received $224,463 from Alphabet Inc (AKA Google) in 2018.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    The reporting of sources is potentially misleading: none of the identified organizations gave any money. The amount attributed to them aggregates donations by the organizations PACs (which presumably align with the organization's interests) and their “individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families”, including subordinate and affiliate organizations. Now, I don't know about you, but I find that the interests of labor and capital in the same firm are often not aligned, but this list list both as donations by the firm.
  - UncleMeat 8y ago
    That list includes donations from people who work at Google.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
jammygit 8y ago
In parts of Canada, up until recently mayor candidates were free to pocket any leftover campaign contributions. One could be forgiven for confusing this with blatant, but legal, bribery. The rules were only changed about 10 years ago: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/province-cuts-off-pocketing-leftover-civic-campaign-funds-1.800617 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/province-cuts-off-poc...
- masonic 8y ago
  In US elections, wealthy candidates can loan money to their campaigns and then later pay themselves back from future contributions.
T2_t2 8y ago
That's cool but where are the lines? The problem is that a LOT of lobbying goes on, and we don't know how to allow what, when or why - and no country does it well. Examples: protests - are they ok? What if they are funded by some group? What about a concerned citizenry meeting a politician? Is that OK? What if their funding comes from Iran? It gets real complicated real quickly. > Politicians should craft laws based on what's best for the country That seems so simple, but man, that is SOOO complicated. Imagine a law that made life better for 80% of people, but made 20% worse off - should it be implemented? What about 2% better off, 98% worse off, but the worst off 2% amongst us benefited? That simple sentence fragment is why lobbying, and groups like the NRA and teachers unions, exist and hold so much sway. Many laws affect groups disproportionately, and how we decide who to hurt and why is what politics is, in part, about. There just aren't any magical, mystical policies where everyone wins, not even things like free trade which has been great for almost everyone on the entire planet.
- opportune 8y ago
  so is this just a slippery slope argument saying we should let super-corporations/billionaires write laws just in case a teachers union tries to pass legislation? >Imagine a law that made life better for 80% of people, but made 20% worse off - should it be implemented? What about 2% better off, 98% worse off, but the worst off 2% amongst us benefited? Wow it's almost like this is what politics is about. We might as well give up completely because it's way too hard to do math or let people make decisions
  - kortilla 8y ago
    Nope, it’s not a slippery slope argument if op is pointing out that there is no rational demarcation between the NRA, a teachers union, a women’s rights organization, and an industry group. You can counter with a proposed solution if you can think of one. So far nobody has managed to do it.
    - CoryG89 8y ago
      I understand the point, but I don't accept that no one has a better solution. How about we just making it illegal to bribe politicians with money, regardless of what group is doing it? Why is it that bribery laws we already have on the books should not apply to lobbyists?
profalseidol 8y ago
> Politicians should craft laws based on what's best for the country and not on what's best for the few corporations that manage to outbribe other companies. That would be Socialism. Can't have that, gotta have Free Market! Free market anyone?
humanrebar 8y ago
> Lobbying is nothing more than legalized corruption. Lobbying is talking to your representatives. It's the "petition of Government for a redress of grievances" in the first amendment, often combined with the "right of people peaceably to assemble". Bribery is a problem with actual laws against it, laws that probably need revision given the quid pro quo is probably too narrow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States But I don't see lawmakers or voters taking it all too seriously considering they have a habit of supporting politicians with open cases and even convictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Jefferson#Corruption_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Jefferson#Corruptio...
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Lobbying is nothing more than legalized corruption I’ve lobbied. I took a train to Albany to teach my representatives about an issue. I went with a few other people from an interest group, some of whom couldn’t afford the trip and so had their tickets and hotel stays subsidised by others. This is lobbying. Representative democracy necessitates lobbying. Representatives with incomplete knowledge must legislate over issues they have no clue about. Outside experts have a clue. The process by which these parties are brought together is lobbying. It can go wrong, and the pool of experts selected will be biased by each group. Ensuring fairness and transparency is paramount. But expecting lobbying to go away is naïve and betrays a misunderstanding of republican democracy.
rayiner 8y ago
Making PowerPoint presentations to lobbyists and suggesting draft language is “legalized corruption?” Would you prefer that laws regulating technology were drafted without input from technology companies? What exactly do you think lobbying entails?

by Jerry2 8y ago

SamReidHughes 8y ago

Let's say I'm a congressman and I meet with a lobbyist. How am I getting bribed?

temp231239 8y ago
Post retirement, same congressman get hired as an executive for the company or congressman starts an startup which is brought by the lobbyist company or ... There are far more complex ways for congressmen to receive benefits for accepting lobbyist agenda. Any action by congressman that doesn't make sense to common mass is result of lobbying. Every human being possesses basic intellect to konw what's good/or not for us and its the greed that persuade them to act differently.
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  > Every human being possesses basic intellect to konw what's good/or not for us and its the greed that persuade them to act differently. This is obviously not true because then every voter would support the same policies. You can't even get everybody to agree on defunding public education!
  - CoryG89 8y ago
    Obviously you aren't going to be able to get everyone to agree on everything, but I think the vast majority of this is simply because people are easily manipulated, and are so prone to group think and jumping on the bandwagon. If it weren't for lobbying and political campaigns trying to tell you what to think, I believe that the vast majority of the public would be much more aligned.
    - jefftk 8y ago
      Have you tried to get a group to consensus in an area where there isn't any lobbying or manipulation? People have lots of different ideas about how to do things, informed by different life experiences. Political disagreement predates lobbying and campaigns by millennia.
- kortilla 8y ago
  >Any action by congressman that doesn't make sense to common mass is result of lobbying. Every human being possesses basic intellect to konw what's good/or not for us and its the greed that persuade them to act differently. No, the entire reason we need new laws is to deal with new unforeseen situations and complex interactions. “Basic intellect” will very frequently be wrong when it comes to the implementation of health policies, tax policies, trade policies, economic policies, and so on.
mrpopo 8y ago
I'm not sure what you are asking. It can happen in many different forms. For instance, the lobbyist asks for measures profiting their business that go against your campaign promises, but you can't refuse, because otherwise they won't pay for your reelection campaign.
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  Supporting your election campaign isn't bribery. And it's pretty implausible. Individual campaign contributions are capped at a few thousand dollars.
  - rypskar 8y ago
    >Supporting your election campaign isn't bribery. How is that not bribery? It is directly: do this for me and I will give money to you (or something you care about)
    - SamReidHughes 8y ago
      All supporters' contributions are conditional that way.
      - lordnacho 8y ago
        No they're not. Honest contributors think a candidate will be conscientious in making decisions for the common good, not "will he do this one thing that benefits me". In all likelihood whoever you voted for did something that wasn't to your benefit (they vote on many things), but you voted for him anyway. Ditto with money.
    - kortilla 8y ago
      You’ve described all political fundraising. People only donate to Bernie because of his views. If he decided to change views to suddenly support free market solutions, his donator base would dry up. “Support socialism and I’ll donate” is the same thing as “support solar industry and I’ll donate”.
AsyncAwait 8y ago
- If you've received campaign contributions from the corporation said lobbyist works for, I think it's apparent to everyone how, (you scratch my back...). - You're giving a citizen which may not even live in your constituency and works for a corporation the kind of access to yourself that you'd never grant a regular constituent. - Over the decades, an understanding has been built of 'the revolving door', how former government workers switch to the private sector and then come back as lobbyists, utilizing their contacts and friendships to get what their employer wants. Or they come back into government with a massive exit package, while still being loyal to their former employer and vote for wars etc, when then conveniently their 'former' employer can send equipment for etc. Then they switch to the private sector again, collecting millions annually for a position that has no real responsibility. The notion that there's corruption only when filmed passing banknotes is absurd, there's a reason the notion of intention exists in criminal law.
- wil421 8y ago
  Let’s say some environmental committee is headed by a Representative from New York. An Environmentalist organization from California wants new legislation to improve air quality across the US. Let’s assume no representatives from California are on the committee. Does this mean it’s not right for the California organization to lobby the New York rep? I highly doubt every issue a house rep deals with is about their own constituents.
  - AsyncAwait 8y ago
    There's a difference between an organization representing the public interest, (air quality), and some for-profit megacorp looking to maximize profits, often at the expense of public interest. Pretending there isn't is just dumb. Also, unless they gave him campaign cash, I doubt they'd even be able to get the same kind of a hearing a corporate donor would, but my solution to this is to not allow any campaign contributions at all and to have public financing of elections, so that there's a greater chance politicians will actually represent what the people want.
    - 8y ago
swebs 8y ago
It depends. Who are you on this list? https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/members-list https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/members-list For example, the top recipient of donations, Beto O'Rourke, received $224,463 from Alphabet Inc (AKA Google) in 2018.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  The reporting of sources is potentially misleading: none of the identified organizations gave any money. The amount attributed to them aggregates donations by the organizations PACs (which presumably align with the organization's interests) and their “individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families”, including subordinate and affiliate organizations. Now, I don't know about you, but I find that the interests of labor and capital in the same firm are often not aligned, but this list list both as donations by the firm.
- UncleMeat 8y ago
  That list includes donations from people who work at Google.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

jammygit 8y ago

In parts of Canada, up until recently mayor candidates were free to pocket any leftover campaign contributions. One could be forgiven for confusing this with blatant, but legal, bribery. The rules were only changed about 10 years ago: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/province-cuts-off-pocketing-leftover-civic-campaign-funds-1.800617 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/province-cuts-off-poc...

masonic 8y ago
In US elections, wealthy candidates can loan money to their campaigns and then later pay themselves back from future contributions.

T2_t2 8y ago

That's cool but where are the lines? The problem is that a LOT of lobbying goes on, and we don't know how to allow what, when or why - and no country does it well. Examples: protests - are they ok? What if they are funded by some group? What about a concerned citizenry meeting a politician? Is that OK? What if their funding comes from Iran? It gets real complicated real quickly. > Politicians should craft laws based on what's best for the country That seems so simple, but man, that is SOOO complicated. Imagine a law that made life better for 80% of people, but made 20% worse off - should it be implemented? What about 2% better off, 98% worse off, but the worst off 2% amongst us benefited? That simple sentence fragment is why lobbying, and groups like the NRA and teachers unions, exist and hold so much sway. Many laws affect groups disproportionately, and how we decide who to hurt and why is what politics is, in part, about. There just aren't any magical, mystical policies where everyone wins, not even things like free trade which has been great for almost everyone on the entire planet.

opportune 8y ago
so is this just a slippery slope argument saying we should let super-corporations/billionaires write laws just in case a teachers union tries to pass legislation? >Imagine a law that made life better for 80% of people, but made 20% worse off - should it be implemented? What about 2% better off, 98% worse off, but the worst off 2% amongst us benefited? Wow it's almost like this is what politics is about. We might as well give up completely because it's way too hard to do math or let people make decisions
- kortilla 8y ago
  Nope, it’s not a slippery slope argument if op is pointing out that there is no rational demarcation between the NRA, a teachers union, a women’s rights organization, and an industry group. You can counter with a proposed solution if you can think of one. So far nobody has managed to do it.
  - CoryG89 8y ago
    I understand the point, but I don't accept that no one has a better solution. How about we just making it illegal to bribe politicians with money, regardless of what group is doing it? Why is it that bribery laws we already have on the books should not apply to lobbyists?

profalseidol 8y ago

> Politicians should craft laws based on what's best for the country and not on what's best for the few corporations that manage to outbribe other companies. That would be Socialism. Can't have that, gotta have Free Market! Free market anyone?

humanrebar 8y ago

> Lobbying is nothing more than legalized corruption. Lobbying is talking to your representatives. It's the "petition of Government for a redress of grievances" in the first amendment, often combined with the "right of people peaceably to assemble". Bribery is a problem with actual laws against it, laws that probably need revision given the quid pro quo is probably too narrow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States But I don't see lawmakers or voters taking it all too seriously considering they have a habit of supporting politicians with open cases and even convictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Jefferson#Corruption_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Jefferson#Corruptio...

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> Lobbying is nothing more than legalized corruption I’ve lobbied. I took a train to Albany to teach my representatives about an issue. I went with a few other people from an interest group, some of whom couldn’t afford the trip and so had their tickets and hotel stays subsidised by others. This is lobbying. Representative democracy necessitates lobbying. Representatives with incomplete knowledge must legislate over issues they have no clue about. Outside experts have a clue. The process by which these parties are brought together is lobbying. It can go wrong, and the pool of experts selected will be biased by each group. Ensuring fairness and transparency is paramount. But expecting lobbying to go away is naïve and betrays a misunderstanding of republican democracy.

rayiner 8y ago

Making PowerPoint presentations to lobbyists and suggesting draft language is “legalized corruption?” Would you prefer that laws regulating technology were drafted without input from technology companies? What exactly do you think lobbying entails?