8 ms·

The perrenial misunderstanding about lobbying in the US is that it's about money. It's not. It's about access. The money spent by lobbying firms is almost alway

The perrenial misunderstanding about lobbying in the US is that it's about money. It's not. It's about access. The money spent by lobbying firms is almost always in pursuit of that access. AKA buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator. Not only do lobbyists get more accessible they get more credibility. The lobbyists are high paid lawyers at respected firms. They have degrees from respected schools. They have worked on the issue at discussion at lemgth. So when citizens are stacked up against these people they seem comparatively crankish. This provision isn't in the bill because Intuit bribed someone. It's because that 6.6 million bought a lot of sit downs with committee members. Sit downs in which lobbyists told a convincing story of how it would actually be better for everyone of the IRS couldn't do this. Honestly they probably made some process argument for this. Something like it would get challenged in court anyway and be a big waste of money. Or about how you should make it illegal so the Executive Branch won't do it on their own and they'll have to take congressional input. And the lobbyist almost certainly believes whatever line their feeding the politicians. It's like most broken things in life. No one is evil stuff just breaks.

hbosch 8y ago
I think this is a very level-headed view of lobbying and I want to say that I appreciate your comment. It’s enticing to imagine that Intuit is building a new pool on Chuck Schumer’s vacation property, and in a dark room somewhere a bunch of fat white guys are lighting this bill in fire with the ends of their cigars. One other factor is that in “government time” we’re not far removed from the Healthcare.gov fiasco and in the middle of a debate over the technical debt of our easily hacked voting machines. Along with that, Premera and Equifax have suffered attacks. I imagine there is nobody inside the actual government that is willing to try and “outdo” Turbotax.
- brianpgordon 8y ago
  This seems pretty in line with 18F's mission and skillset.
  - Something1234 8y ago
    Didn't they basically get lobotomized and declawed recently? Like they lost a couple people, but due to the hiring freeze couldn't replace them.
    - crazypyro 8y ago
      https://www.fedscoop.com/rise-fall-18f/ https://www.fedscoop.com/rise-fall-18f/
wwweston 8y ago
Seconding this. I wish more people understood that "lobbying" is largely making a case to congressional staff, not another word for bribery. And half the problem is that we need more lobbying, not less. Donor access is an issue, but I think the larger problem that no one knows how to address with campaign finance laws of any kind is that someone with enough money can simply use that money to hire an army of persuasive people, much as you described.
- incongruity 8y ago
  At the end of the day, if money buys access and money tends to accumulate in a power law distribution it means that access - and thus influence or even speech are not equally distributed. So, while it may not be a bribe, it’s hard to see it as fair. Moreover, if paid access is required and that payment goes to the politician - or their campaign which is just an extension of the process to keep them in power, I’m not sure how you can see it as anything other than a bribe that is legitimized by a few layers of well educated lawyers or other experts who do some work to make a case that is inevitably aligned with the best interests of the “donor”. That still sure sounds like pay to play politics to me.
  - wyattpeak 8y ago
    I don't think anyone here is arguing that it isn't deeply problematic, just that thinking of it as paying for a bill to get passed misses the point. It's an important distinction to make, because almost all reporting and outrage about bribery is about quid-pro-quo: newspaper reports about politicians spending time at five star resorts etc. etc. If we enact laws (or social pressure) to stop this, but the lobbyists remain in the ear of politicians by unpaid means (going to the right schools, having the right friends) then all that outrage has accomplished nothing.
  - wwweston 8y ago
    I definitely don't believe it's fair. Just that it's important to appreciate the problem that wealth can hire genuine persuasion, and that problem is distinct from bribery.
gowld 8y ago
Paying for access is a bribe. What confuses people is that yes it really is incredibly cheap to bribe Congress and get crazy high ROI, because Intuit can get organized (it's already a corporation with management) afford $6Million in bribes but Americans for sane tax policy can't. This is what "moneyed special interests" refers to.
- DubiousPusher 8y ago
  When I say it's not a bribe I mean in the classic "quid pro quo" sense. I certainly think it's not a great way to run a republic. My point is exactly that it's cheap because the representatives aren't looking to get rich off that money. It's cheap because they're just buying 20 minutes of time.
  - mindcandy 8y ago
    Politicians don’t put the bribes in their pockets. They put them in their re-election campaigns because without those bribes they will get voted out of office by The People in favor of an opponent with a larger, bribe-based ad budget. They don’t want the bribes, they need them just to stay in power. In return, the real goal of “access” is to hear what the bribing company wants written into law or else the bribes will cease and the politician will be booted out. Competition for this ad budget is so fierce that Congresspeople spend more than half of their working hours reaching out to groups they need bribes from. This skews the laws not always in favor of the groups, but really in favor of whatever motivates the groups to bribe harder. Ex: if simplifying the laws would make everything easier for everyone, we can’t have it. We need the existing complexity to fight and have bidding wars over. No matter what you want Congress to do, they can’t do it until we fix campaign finance. Doesn’t matter what issues you care about. They’ll only be worked on incidentally if they don’t get in the way of the bribes. You don’t like it. Congress doesn’t like it. They’re trapped and can’t move against it without getting cut off and booted out. We’re all fucked until we find a catch-22-escape for them.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > Politicians don’t put the bribes in their pockets. Yes, they do. All the time. > They put them in their re-election campaigns because without those bribes they will get voted out of office by The People in favor of an opponent with a larger, bribe-based ad budget. You kind of fail at corruption if you are getting bribes many times the annual salary of a job per year and are feeding them into nothing more than keeping that job. Most corrupt politicians do not fail at corruption that badly.
csharpminor 8y ago
Reported donations also don't capture that lobbyists can threaten to contribute to an opposing campaign. A candidate receiving a $10k donation may also have received a $70k threat (in the form of a donation to an opponent) had they decided otherwise on an issue.
blindwatchmaker 8y ago
I'm sure it's just coincidental that senators and their family/friends frequently get lucrative positions on the boards of various companies, investment sweeteners, and actual positions in these companies for family. For example Joe Biden, a leading Democrat, has been in bed with the credit card industry for most of his career and supported/written legislation in their interest. MBNA was one of his biggest donors and hired one of his sons at an executive level, no doubt with very high pay. The campaign contributions are just window dressing for the rest of it. It absolutely is bribery.
- DubiousPusher 8y ago
  There's no coincidence about the revolving door and corporate nepotism. But it's not as simple as I give you money, you employ my kid. I kind of wish it were because that would be much easier to do something about. Those things are just the long term effects of paying for access. The frequent close work between lobbyists, politicians and career servants lead to friendships and strong network effects. I'm not defending the system. I'm pointing out why $6.6 million is more than enough to influence a bill. It's because they're not buying a vote. They're buying time to discuss an issue that will probably never get argued any other way to the representative.
  - blindwatchmaker 8y ago
    Sorry, but it is that simple. We live in a second gilded age with near total regulatory and legislative capture and trying to soft pedal it by using euphemisms like 'strong networks' does not obfuscate the fact that this is a commercial relationship between bought politicians and the corporations that buy them. In the face of overwhelming pieces of evidence, year after year after year like the article being discussed here, doing so is just pointless sophistry and contrarianism for the sake of it.
    - DubiousPusher 8y ago
      I absolutely disagree. There is a difference between quid-pro-quo corruption and what we have now. And there are important differences in the way you architect a system to prevent one vs. the other.
malloryerik 8y ago
> No one is evil stuff just breaks. Are you implying here that the problem can't be fixed or ameliorated? > buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator What if there were no donor dinners because campaigns were limited to a set amount of public funds?
- DubiousPusher 8y ago
  >> No one is evil stuff just breaks. >Are you implying here that the problem can't be fixed or ameliorated? I sure hope we can find a way to fix it. >> buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator >What if there were no donor dinners because campaigns were limited to a set amount of public funds? I think that would be a pretty good start. Enough so that I spent several years working on getting my state to join the call for a constitutional convention to overturn Citizens United and establish more fairly funded elections.
  - malloryerik 8y ago
    Thanks, I hope you keep working toward those goals!
SilasX 8y ago
I'd like to see a readout of these oh-so-convincing arguments. I think we caught a glimpse of what lobbyists are telling senators when Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens sloppily repeated the explanation of the internet he was fed. (To head off the argument: I agree that the "series of tubes" part itself was correct; the problem was the lacking understanding of the relationship between "data transfer has a cost" and "why net neutrality is bad". Also the dubious anecdote about intern emails. "Series of tubes" is just the label for cluster of confusions, not the part he got wrong.)

hbosch 8y ago

I think this is a very level-headed view of lobbying and I want to say that I appreciate your comment. It’s enticing to imagine that Intuit is building a new pool on Chuck Schumer’s vacation property, and in a dark room somewhere a bunch of fat white guys are lighting this bill in fire with the ends of their cigars. One other factor is that in “government time” we’re not far removed from the Healthcare.gov fiasco and in the middle of a debate over the technical debt of our easily hacked voting machines. Along with that, Premera and Equifax have suffered attacks. I imagine there is nobody inside the actual government that is willing to try and “outdo” Turbotax.

brianpgordon 8y ago
This seems pretty in line with 18F's mission and skillset.
- Something1234 8y ago
  Didn't they basically get lobotomized and declawed recently? Like they lost a couple people, but due to the hiring freeze couldn't replace them.
  - crazypyro 8y ago
    https://www.fedscoop.com/rise-fall-18f/ https://www.fedscoop.com/rise-fall-18f/

wwweston 8y ago

Seconding this. I wish more people understood that "lobbying" is largely making a case to congressional staff, not another word for bribery. And half the problem is that we need more lobbying, not less. Donor access is an issue, but I think the larger problem that no one knows how to address with campaign finance laws of any kind is that someone with enough money can simply use that money to hire an army of persuasive people, much as you described.

incongruity 8y ago
At the end of the day, if money buys access and money tends to accumulate in a power law distribution it means that access - and thus influence or even speech are not equally distributed. So, while it may not be a bribe, it’s hard to see it as fair. Moreover, if paid access is required and that payment goes to the politician - or their campaign which is just an extension of the process to keep them in power, I’m not sure how you can see it as anything other than a bribe that is legitimized by a few layers of well educated lawyers or other experts who do some work to make a case that is inevitably aligned with the best interests of the “donor”. That still sure sounds like pay to play politics to me.
- wyattpeak 8y ago
  I don't think anyone here is arguing that it isn't deeply problematic, just that thinking of it as paying for a bill to get passed misses the point. It's an important distinction to make, because almost all reporting and outrage about bribery is about quid-pro-quo: newspaper reports about politicians spending time at five star resorts etc. etc. If we enact laws (or social pressure) to stop this, but the lobbyists remain in the ear of politicians by unpaid means (going to the right schools, having the right friends) then all that outrage has accomplished nothing.
- wwweston 8y ago
  I definitely don't believe it's fair. Just that it's important to appreciate the problem that wealth can hire genuine persuasion, and that problem is distinct from bribery.

gowld 8y ago

Paying for access is a bribe. What confuses people is that yes it really is incredibly cheap to bribe Congress and get crazy high ROI, because Intuit can get organized (it's already a corporation with management) afford $6Million in bribes but Americans for sane tax policy can't. This is what "moneyed special interests" refers to.

DubiousPusher 8y ago
When I say it's not a bribe I mean in the classic "quid pro quo" sense. I certainly think it's not a great way to run a republic. My point is exactly that it's cheap because the representatives aren't looking to get rich off that money. It's cheap because they're just buying 20 minutes of time.
- mindcandy 8y ago
  Politicians don’t put the bribes in their pockets. They put them in their re-election campaigns because without those bribes they will get voted out of office by The People in favor of an opponent with a larger, bribe-based ad budget. They don’t want the bribes, they need them just to stay in power. In return, the real goal of “access” is to hear what the bribing company wants written into law or else the bribes will cease and the politician will be booted out. Competition for this ad budget is so fierce that Congresspeople spend more than half of their working hours reaching out to groups they need bribes from. This skews the laws not always in favor of the groups, but really in favor of whatever motivates the groups to bribe harder. Ex: if simplifying the laws would make everything easier for everyone, we can’t have it. We need the existing complexity to fight and have bidding wars over. No matter what you want Congress to do, they can’t do it until we fix campaign finance. Doesn’t matter what issues you care about. They’ll only be worked on incidentally if they don’t get in the way of the bribes. You don’t like it. Congress doesn’t like it. They’re trapped and can’t move against it without getting cut off and booted out. We’re all fucked until we find a catch-22-escape for them.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Politicians don’t put the bribes in their pockets. Yes, they do. All the time. > They put them in their re-election campaigns because without those bribes they will get voted out of office by The People in favor of an opponent with a larger, bribe-based ad budget. You kind of fail at corruption if you are getting bribes many times the annual salary of a job per year and are feeding them into nothing more than keeping that job. Most corrupt politicians do not fail at corruption that badly.

csharpminor 8y ago

Reported donations also don't capture that lobbyists can threaten to contribute to an opposing campaign. A candidate receiving a $10k donation may also have received a $70k threat (in the form of a donation to an opponent) had they decided otherwise on an issue.

blindwatchmaker 8y ago

I'm sure it's just coincidental that senators and their family/friends frequently get lucrative positions on the boards of various companies, investment sweeteners, and actual positions in these companies for family. For example Joe Biden, a leading Democrat, has been in bed with the credit card industry for most of his career and supported/written legislation in their interest. MBNA was one of his biggest donors and hired one of his sons at an executive level, no doubt with very high pay. The campaign contributions are just window dressing for the rest of it. It absolutely is bribery.

DubiousPusher 8y ago
There's no coincidence about the revolving door and corporate nepotism. But it's not as simple as I give you money, you employ my kid. I kind of wish it were because that would be much easier to do something about. Those things are just the long term effects of paying for access. The frequent close work between lobbyists, politicians and career servants lead to friendships and strong network effects. I'm not defending the system. I'm pointing out why $6.6 million is more than enough to influence a bill. It's because they're not buying a vote. They're buying time to discuss an issue that will probably never get argued any other way to the representative.
- blindwatchmaker 8y ago
  Sorry, but it is that simple. We live in a second gilded age with near total regulatory and legislative capture and trying to soft pedal it by using euphemisms like 'strong networks' does not obfuscate the fact that this is a commercial relationship between bought politicians and the corporations that buy them. In the face of overwhelming pieces of evidence, year after year after year like the article being discussed here, doing so is just pointless sophistry and contrarianism for the sake of it.
  - DubiousPusher 8y ago
    I absolutely disagree. There is a difference between quid-pro-quo corruption and what we have now. And there are important differences in the way you architect a system to prevent one vs. the other.

malloryerik 8y ago

> No one is evil stuff just breaks. Are you implying here that the problem can't be fixed or ameliorated? > buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator What if there were no donor dinners because campaigns were limited to a set amount of public funds?

DubiousPusher 8y ago
>> No one is evil stuff just breaks. >Are you implying here that the problem can't be fixed or ameliorated? I sure hope we can find a way to fix it. >> buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator >What if there were no donor dinners because campaigns were limited to a set amount of public funds? I think that would be a pretty good start. Enough so that I spent several years working on getting my state to join the call for a constitutional convention to overturn Citizens United and establish more fairly funded elections.
- malloryerik 8y ago
  Thanks, I hope you keep working toward those goals!

SilasX 8y ago

I'd like to see a readout of these oh-so-convincing arguments. I think we caught a glimpse of what lobbyists are telling senators when Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens sloppily repeated the explanation of the internet he was fed. (To head off the argument: I agree that the "series of tubes" part itself was correct; the problem was the lacking understanding of the relationship between "data transfer has a cost" and "why net neutrality is bad". Also the dubious anecdote about intern emails. "Series of tubes" is just the label for cluster of confusions, not the part he got wrong.)