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from the article, Daniel Newman sums it up nicely: “How can we trust legislators to vote in the public interest when they are dependent on industry campaign fun
by tswartz 13y ago
from the article, Daniel Newman sums it up nicely: “How can we trust legislators to vote in the public interest when they are dependent on industry campaign funding to get elected? Our broken money and politics system forces lawmakers into a conflict of interest between lawmakers’ voters and their donors”
- detcader 13y agoPeople and organizations like Lawrence Lessig and Democracy Matters have been on this issue forever. It's the root issue. The revolving door too. Pass Fair Elections in NY state this year, and then every other state. That's a start.
- rayiner 13y agoThe only problem with that narrative is that it doesn't agree with the evidence. The article begs the question that defunding the NSA is what voters want. But the polls, while they're pretty much all over the map, don't support that conclusion. E.g. the latest Pew poll of whether people "approve" of the NSA program basically matches the margin by which the Amash bill lost: http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-limits-on-nsa-surveillance-program http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-limi.... How can you conjure up this narrative of politicians choosing between their donors and their voters, when the evidence suggests that the politicians are voting the way their voters want? Especially considering that because of gerrymandering, conservative rural voters have a substantially greater representation in the House than they do in public polling.
- andy_ppp 13y agoThis is brilliantly put and has actually made me feel better, for a second. Then I realised that private defence firms and the NSA are, clearly, one and the same organisation at this point. This idea chilled me to my core.