4 ms·

That’s pretty normal. My ex worked at congress and she said that most bills are reviewed and changed by lobbyists before they are submitted. And a lot of their

That’s pretty normal. My ex worked at congress and she said that most bills are reviewed and changed by lobbyists before they are submitted. And a lot of their changes get adopted almost verbatim. Same happens with regulations.

stcroixx 4y ago
It was my impression lobbyists usually write the bills themselves. I don't know if this is how it's always done, but my company recently worked with lobbyists and a senators assistant and the lobbyists wrote a paragraph that, once approved by this assistant, went straight into the appropriations bill. Perfect example of pay to play.
- GeekyBear 4y ago
  > It was my impression lobbyists usually write the bills themselves Here's a fairly recent example: > When the legislation that became known as "Obamacare" was first drafted, the key legislator was the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, whose committee took the lead in drafting the legislation. As Baucus himself repeatedly boasted, the architect of that legislation was Elizabeth Folwer, his chief health policy counsel; indeed, as Marcy Wheeler discovered, it was Fowler who actually drafted it. What was most amazing about all of that was that, before joining Baucus' office as the point person for the health care bill, Fowler was the Vice President for Public Policy and External Affairs (i.e. informal lobbying) at WellPoint, the nation's largest health insurance provider ...as Wheeler wrote at the time: "to the extent that Liz Fowler is the author of this document, we might as well consider WellPoint its author as well." To add insult to injury, the same lobbyist was later put in charge of drawing up the rules to implement the law. >More amazingly still, when the Obama White House needed someone to oversee implementation of Obamacare after the bill passed, it chose . . . Liz Fowler. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/05/obamacare-fowler-lobbyist-industry1 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/05/obamac... Once the implementation rules were set, she returned to lobbying for the health care industry, this time at Johnson and Johnson. Liberal icon Bill Moyers did a segment on this for his PBS show and it was as close to being openly pissed off on air as I'd ever seen him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ5tj4cN9Jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ5tj4cN9Jk
  - rqtwteye 4y ago
    I can’t think of any punishment harsh for what Baucus did to the country during Obamacare. He basically singlehandedly f..ked it up. The damage he did will be felt for decades in the form of bankruptcies and people dying because they can’t afford care.
  - stcroixx 4y ago
    Seems business as usual. Senators wouldn't even return our phone calls. So we had to resort to hiring a lobbyist who they would answer the phone for. Anytime we'd have a call with the senators assistant, we'd have a call with the lobbyist first. He'd coach us on how to behave, dress, and what to say. We'd then call the assistant and perform our rehearsed parts just like any other theater production. Access to our representative is gate-kept financially.
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    Even more recently, Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, West Virginia all passed laws within the last year or two that deny state contracts to any company who divests from oil/gas. Just insanely unconstitutional and vague, and a good reminder of why there's so much astroturfing around ESG, but those laws were adopted largely verbatim from "sample" text written by oil & gas lobbyists and energy companies; https://blog.ucsusa.org/elliott-negin/how-the-american-legislative-exchange-council-turns-disinformation-into-law/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/elliott-negin/how-the-american-legis... Center for Public Integrity did a whole series on the phenomenon they called "Copy, Paste, Legislate": https://publicintegrity.org/topics/federal-politics/state-politics/copy-paste-legislate/ https://publicintegrity.org/topics/federal-politics/state-po...
RajT88 4y ago
Lawmakers have started saying it pretty plainly: https://gizmodo.com/1850096865 https://gizmodo.com/1850096865 > “We had every environmental group walking supporting this bill,” Fahy told Grist. “What hurt this bill is Big Tech was opposed to it.” > A broad coalition of manufacturers opposed the bill in the spring, and its sponsors had to make significant compromises in order to pass it. “We made a lot of changes to get it over the finish line in the first day or two of June,” Fahy said. Corporations don't vote on legislation! But the legislators are speaking as though they do! This is where all the that money in politics has led us: the lobbyists are a proxy or litmus test for what is going to happen to legislator's campaign funding. Therefore, the lobbyists have to be pleased for legislation to go through. Effectively - corporations get to write legislation.
- rqtwteye 4y ago
  The whole process would be fine if the legislators listened to all lobbyists. But realistically they only listen to the lobbyists who bring in the most money.
  - nmeagent 4y ago
    I don't think the process will ever be fine until lobbyists have nothing to offer legislators besides the merits of their arguments. As long as corporations can make financial contributions to legislators' campaigns, the system is cursed.
    - rqtwteye 4y ago
      In theory a lobbyist is just somebody who raises an issue with a politician. It’s sad that it’s so dominated by money now.
croes 4y ago
But this time it was changed after the bill was signed

stcroixx 4y ago

It was my impression lobbyists usually write the bills themselves. I don't know if this is how it's always done, but my company recently worked with lobbyists and a senators assistant and the lobbyists wrote a paragraph that, once approved by this assistant, went straight into the appropriations bill. Perfect example of pay to play.

GeekyBear 4y ago
> It was my impression lobbyists usually write the bills themselves Here's a fairly recent example: > When the legislation that became known as "Obamacare" was first drafted, the key legislator was the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, whose committee took the lead in drafting the legislation. As Baucus himself repeatedly boasted, the architect of that legislation was Elizabeth Folwer, his chief health policy counsel; indeed, as Marcy Wheeler discovered, it was Fowler who actually drafted it. What was most amazing about all of that was that, before joining Baucus' office as the point person for the health care bill, Fowler was the Vice President for Public Policy and External Affairs (i.e. informal lobbying) at WellPoint, the nation's largest health insurance provider ...as Wheeler wrote at the time: "to the extent that Liz Fowler is the author of this document, we might as well consider WellPoint its author as well." To add insult to injury, the same lobbyist was later put in charge of drawing up the rules to implement the law. >More amazingly still, when the Obama White House needed someone to oversee implementation of Obamacare after the bill passed, it chose . . . Liz Fowler. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/05/obamacare-fowler-lobbyist-industry1 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/05/obamac... Once the implementation rules were set, she returned to lobbying for the health care industry, this time at Johnson and Johnson. Liberal icon Bill Moyers did a segment on this for his PBS show and it was as close to being openly pissed off on air as I'd ever seen him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ5tj4cN9Jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ5tj4cN9Jk
- rqtwteye 4y ago
  I can’t think of any punishment harsh for what Baucus did to the country during Obamacare. He basically singlehandedly f..ked it up. The damage he did will be felt for decades in the form of bankruptcies and people dying because they can’t afford care.
- stcroixx 4y ago
  Seems business as usual. Senators wouldn't even return our phone calls. So we had to resort to hiring a lobbyist who they would answer the phone for. Anytime we'd have a call with the senators assistant, we'd have a call with the lobbyist first. He'd coach us on how to behave, dress, and what to say. We'd then call the assistant and perform our rehearsed parts just like any other theater production. Access to our representative is gate-kept financially.
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  Even more recently, Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, West Virginia all passed laws within the last year or two that deny state contracts to any company who divests from oil/gas. Just insanely unconstitutional and vague, and a good reminder of why there's so much astroturfing around ESG, but those laws were adopted largely verbatim from "sample" text written by oil & gas lobbyists and energy companies; https://blog.ucsusa.org/elliott-negin/how-the-american-legislative-exchange-council-turns-disinformation-into-law/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/elliott-negin/how-the-american-legis... Center for Public Integrity did a whole series on the phenomenon they called "Copy, Paste, Legislate": https://publicintegrity.org/topics/federal-politics/state-politics/copy-paste-legislate/ https://publicintegrity.org/topics/federal-politics/state-po...

RajT88 4y ago

Lawmakers have started saying it pretty plainly: https://gizmodo.com/1850096865 https://gizmodo.com/1850096865 > “We had every environmental group walking supporting this bill,” Fahy told Grist. “What hurt this bill is Big Tech was opposed to it.” > A broad coalition of manufacturers opposed the bill in the spring, and its sponsors had to make significant compromises in order to pass it. “We made a lot of changes to get it over the finish line in the first day or two of June,” Fahy said. Corporations don't vote on legislation! But the legislators are speaking as though they do! This is where all the that money in politics has led us: the lobbyists are a proxy or litmus test for what is going to happen to legislator's campaign funding. Therefore, the lobbyists have to be pleased for legislation to go through. Effectively - corporations get to write legislation.

rqtwteye 4y ago
The whole process would be fine if the legislators listened to all lobbyists. But realistically they only listen to the lobbyists who bring in the most money.
- nmeagent 4y ago
  I don't think the process will ever be fine until lobbyists have nothing to offer legislators besides the merits of their arguments. As long as corporations can make financial contributions to legislators' campaigns, the system is cursed.
  - rqtwteye 4y ago
    In theory a lobbyist is just somebody who raises an issue with a politician. It’s sad that it’s so dominated by money now.

croes 4y ago

But this time it was changed after the bill was signed