8 ms·
The answer is to outlaw lobbyists, it would fix a lot of problems. That, and enact term limits for Congress. That will fix even more.
by chanandler_bong 8y ago
The answer is to outlaw lobbyists, it would fix a lot of problems. That, and enact term limits for Congress. That will fix even more.
- macintux 8y agoThe world is a crazy complex place. Like them or not, lobbyists are useful for helping lawmakers understand the implications of laws, and eliminating lobbyists (setting aside the impracticality of such a task) and imposing term limits (thus reducing the level of institutional knowledge in Congress) would mean that lawmakers would often be flying completely blind.
- throw_away2 8y agoSo let them get bought off instead? I refuse to believe that the only two options are widespread graft or poor ignorant lawmakers who have no other way of obtaining information.
- macintux 8y agoWe could also elect people with integrity, as unlikely as that seems in our current environment. My point is that hard problems rarely have simple solutions, as much as populist politicians might like to pretend otherwise. “Ban lobbyists” is a great soundbite but would introduce all sorts of negative consequences (like driving them underground and introducing more potential for corruption).
- lostapathy 8y agoThere is of course a middle ground between no terms limits and super short term limits. The longest serving member of congress made it over 59 years - I think most everyone would agree that's excessive.
- smt88 8y agoI'd love it if we outlawed lobbyists, but that'll never happen. It's a clear-cut 1st Amendment issue. Imagine, for example, that all the fast-food workers unionized and wanted to get the minimum wage raised. How would they do that when most live outside DC and have to work 1-2 shifts per day to keep their jobs? They hire professionals -- lobbyists. Unfortunately any unregulated system benefits the powerful, and we have the heavily abused lobbying system of today.
- citilife 8y agoNot siding one way or the other, that will definitely limit the amount of expertise that comes with a Congressman/Congresswoman. Think about it, it takes at least six months for us to learn our jobs, they have to learn about hundreds of things ongoing in the government before they can make informed decisions. You then even rely more on lobbyists (or "experts") who at least generally know what they are talking about. Point being, I think this issue is a hell of a lot more complex than it seems.
- tfandango 8y agoI think it is, like most problems. I tend to favor the idea of term limits but while discussing this with a friend who used to work in politics, he made a good point I thought. His experience is that the staff change is the real problem in a political change. The ramp up time for a new staff is very long, the politician would not be able to get much done until the staff figures everything out, then it would be time to change again depending on the limit.
- xienze 8y ago> that will definitely limit the amount of expertise that comes with a Congressman/Congresswoman. The expertise they have is in glad-handing, personally enriching themselves, and playing political games. They're certainly not subject matter experts in anything outside that realm. Term limits don't have to mean that we're losing out on this valuable "expertise", it could be something as simple as "retire at 65", you know, like everyone else in every other industry aspires to do.
- theevilsharpie 8y ago> That, and enact term limits for Congress. That will fix even more. Do you have a citation for this? Because term limits would mean that elected officials need to plan for what to do after they hit their limit. That could make them even more beholden to corporate lobbyists, who have the resources to offer termed-out lawmakers jobs or other benefits after they leave office.
- baseten 8y agoWe have term limits in my state. One unintended consequence in my district is that we have two guys who trade seats back and forth between state senate and state house. They're totally interchangeable and neither one ever talks to their constituents (well, the ones who don't write big checks anyhow)
- Charlaxy 8y agoOr we could elect people who can't be bought by lobbyists because they have principles. I was taught in poli-sci classes that the single biggest issue wasn't so much the principles of law makers as it was their capabilities and their staff. Most law-makers are incapable of doing the (sometimes overwhelming amount of) work, and rely on hiring professionals to work as a team to review law and then tell the law-makers how to vote. If none of them are savvy about lobbyists, they can easily be fooled by groups that come to them to push an agenda. We need smart congresspeople who can do the work and also can hire a competent and principled staff.
- xienze 8y ago> Or we could elect people who can't be bought by lobbyists because they have principles. Yeah except they all say they can't be bought and paid for. And they probably believe it for a while. Decades in an environment where graft runs rampant will change a person though.
- tomnipotent 8y ago> Or we could elect people who can't be bought by lobbyists because they have principles Don't see how idealism and fantasies of heroes is going to make our government better. How about we stop expecting mythical people to exist and come save us from the bad guys.
- Charlaxy 8y agoMythical people are the only ones who have made systemic change. They overcame all of the people who said, "Get real, that'll never happen."
- bproven 8y agoBetter yet - campaign finance reform: https://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Version-Lawrence-Lessig/dp/1455537012 https://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Version-Lawrence-Lessig... I think there are good people that want to serve, but they have to play the money game to survive (costs millions/billions to get elected?? What?!). Which eventually corrupts them ... Term limits might be nice too.
- justapassenger 8y agoOutlawing lobbyists will be as successful as outlawing drugs to fight drug problems.
- danso 8y agoThe First Amendment protects the right to petition the government. Outlawing lobbying would require a significant campaign to amend the Constitution.
- rchaud 8y agoLobbying would be toothless without campaign contributions. Money on the table is the only reason why lobbyists get meetings and average citizens get a full voicemail inbox and templated auto-response.
- andrewla 8y agoI don't know how pedantic you're intending to be here; what do you consider a "campaign contribution". If you use the traditional definition of a "campaign contribution", that is, money given to the candidate to be spent on election campaigns, then this is completely false; lobbyists cannot give any more money to campaigns than regular people can. The power of large lobbies is more closely related to the fact that they represent a large number of constituents who donate and vote (approximately) as a block.
- Consultant32452 8y agoWhen The Young Turks spent millions of dollars in air time endorsing Hillary, was that a campaign contribution?
- rchaud 8y agoNo, for the same reason that astroturfing online about sending the troops into south side Chicago isn't a campaign contribution; it's not exchanging money for influence. With your example, Hillary Clinton would be a billionaire for doing that inane dance on Ellen.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- danso 8y ago
- AlexB138 8y ago> The answer is to outlaw lobbyists, it would fix a lot of problems. That, and enact term limits for Congress. That will fix even more. When you think there are simple answers to big problems it's generally because you don't actually understand the problem. How would you outlaw lobbyists? Setting aside the fact that it would be unconstitutional, do you think it should be illegal for you to air your grievances to elected officials? That seems to fly directly in the face of democracy. Or should it only be that businesses aren't allowed to lobby? What about a small business that is being unfairly impacted by regulations, or being run out of business by a large company abusing a loophole in the law? Seems like them not having a voice in government would be a path to oligopoly or monopoly. If that's ok, where's the line in which business is allowed to lobby, and how do you keep a large business from simply hiring a small business to lobby on their behalf?
- norswap 8y agoWould it really be unconstitutional? The right of petition cannot abrogated, but surely one can outlaw the exchange of political favors for money or other forms of compensations. Yes, actually showing that political favors were exchanged for money is tricky, but still, it's better than nothing and it changes the whole discussion from "it's the system" to "who's doing something bad and hiding it?".
- wool_gather 8y ago> outlaw the exchange of political favors for money or other forms of compensations ? This is already illegal. It's generally termed "corruption".
- norswap 8y agoI guess you could say lobbying legalizes a portion of what is understood as corruption. (Not everything, obviously.) Under the guise of "defending special interests", or something similar. You shouldn't be allowed to finance people whose decision you stand to profit from. I guess the only "simple" way to solve this is to outlaw the private financing of politicians and their campaign. It should all be public money. Not that easy to operationalize (almost nothing of interest is), but feasible, desirable and fair I reckon.
- ahoy 8y agoThe intent here is good, but I don't think you can do that? Can you define "lobbying" in a way that encompasses all (or at least most) of the bad activity but doesn't encompass acceptable activity? What even is lobbying? A broad definition would include most any communication with a policymaker, a narrow one would exclude lots of activity that is obviously meant to influence policy. If you want to reduce the influence that moneyed interests have over politics there's only one answer: take their money away.
- com2kid 8y ago> The answer is to outlaw lobbyists, it would fix a lot of problems. T So, no one is allowed to write their senators anymore? People can't request to meet with their elected representatives? Subject matter experts aren't allowed to express their opinions within earshot of a member of congress? Lobbying is just people with a shared interest expressing their views to elected representatives. Now, the concept has gotten a bit overly... complex, but outlawing lobbying all together would be a huge infringement on freedom of speech.
- devonkim 8y agoI’ve heard of an interesting argument against term limits and that it would strengthen political parties as they try to keep the pipeline of successors full. I do not know if there is any research to back it but the intuition makes sense at least and may be testable. We saw regulatory capture as a concept with almost no evidence until they looked at hockey referees and the calls they make over their careers, so something comparable would be worth looking at for term limits.
- naasking 8y ago> That, and enact term limits for Congress. That will fix even more. Doubtful. Then they are incentivized to secure a lucrative position after their term. Guess who can provide lucrative jobs for some consideration?
- lurker458 8y agoDon't outlaw lobbyists, outlaw accepting handouts of any form during, after or shortly before being in the senate or congress. They are already compensated for this by getting a generous retirement package.
- a-priori 8y agoIn theory lobbyists perform a public good: they create legislation that someone wants. The problem is that we only have them for groups that have the money to pay lobbyists, so the only lobbyist-originated bills that cross legislators' desks are the ones representing a narrow set of interests. So rather than outlaw lobbyists, one alternative would be to balance this out by hiring public lobbyists. They would craft the legislation on behalf of the state. The analogy I'm thinking of is that this would work in much the same way that we hire public prosecutors to represent the public interests in the courts by prosecuting criminal cases on behalf of the state. Otherwise the only criminal cases would be if someone hired a private prosecutor, as it was until the 18th century. Currently the bill-writing is the responsibility of legislators and parties. This would make it a non-political, non-partisan role in the bureaucracy.
- standardUser 8y agoAround half of Americans reliably vote for candidates that support lower taxes for businesses. Add in term limits, and they'll just vote for a different candidate that supports lower taxes for businesses.
- prostoalex 8y agoThis happened in California, and now every state senator sees the State Senate as a rotating door and a launchpad for the next career. Get in, introduce some populist bill with your name attached to it, disregard any long-term consequences, get positive press headlines, use the momentum to get hired for the next job.