This is crazy. Bribing is illegal, but lobbying is legal. How many laws are created for the convenience of corporations and select people at the cost of ordinary because of lobbying?
Why no one in the US brings up this to the political agenda?
Why no one in the US brings up this to the political agenda?
Because the term "lobbying" is overinclusive to the point of being useless. 90% of lobbying is not only benign, it's necessary to the functioning of a republic. It involves people likely to be affected by the law telling lawmakers their thoughts. These people can be companies. They are also, very frequently, interest groups, nonprofits and individual voters.
This is why "let's ban lobbying" is a siren call. If you have representative democracy, you will have influence peddling, i.e. lobbying. "Let's ban corporate lobbying" becomes more tangible, but keep in mind this means you're basically banning every business that can't fly its employees to D.C. from being able to fully communicate with lawmakers. (It also leaves untouched the community organizing side of lobbying, arguably its most potent part, and would probably fall afoul of the First Amendment.)
The unfortunate effect of this overinclusiveness is it papers over the bad stuff. The lack of enforcement around campaigns coördinating with PACs. Board seats and cushy jobs offered to former lawmakers. Campaign donations from non-natural persons. This is the stuff I think people are actually offended by. But it's currently too technical for the base that wants to "ban lobbying."
TL; DR If you want to push the needle on this issue, drop the idea that lobbying is bad. If you've donated to the EFF, you've hired a lobbyist. If you've called your Congressperson, you've lobbied.
This message was brought to you by the Organization For the Promotion of Ethical Lobbying.
Don't know if it's a felony to violate. But this sounds consistent with the Ethics in Government Act of 1978's reporting requirements [1].
> All communication must be publicly available
This is a bad idea. It privileges those with physical access to lawmakers. It will also crowd out a good amount of honest communication in favor of theatre for public consumption.
That said, there might be a way to thread the needle such that substantial communications around actual legislation get captured. Mark-ups on drafts, suggested language, official policy memos, et cetera.
[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances/disclosure
Unless you're younger than 20, you've seen a Congress pass such reforms [1]. If you were around in the late 70s, you may also recall the Ethics in Government Act of '78.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipartisan_Campaign_Reform_Act
Look at the dollars involved in Amazon or other corporations vs. the EFF and you'll see enough of a disparity that EFF and you calling your congresscritter are a rounding error in comparison.
I agree with you. But people observing that disparity in influence and access and concluding that the solution is to call for banning lobbying is part of the problem. (There is a host of problems, ranging from campaign finance laws to disclosure rules. They each need a solution that, unfortunately, hasn't yet found a compelling banner.)
Some politicians do (especially progressives, like Sanders, the Squad, etc.), but they are in the political minority compared to politicians who are swayed by corporate money. The fact is, your average voter singularly cares more about other things (2A, abortion, taxes) than their own privacy. The average media outlet is also very pro-corporation, which, in turn leads to your average voter being pro-corporation as well.
As far as I can tell: Bernie doesn't want to be run out of town like Ralph Nader -- he will do nothing to actually buck the establishment DNC. The squad feigns protest to the establishment DNC (Pelosi et al) only when it's already certain that their voice/vote won't actually effect the outcome of the issue in the direction the establishment wants. It's a scam to keep people voting for Democrats even when they can see the party is corrupt.
When we're talking about more coercive lobbying, it's often done on influence rather than money. A good example is the NRA. There are a significant number of voters for whom gun rights are very important, and will vote for or against a particular candidate based entirely on what the NRA says to do. The NRA thus has a lot of power, and I'd argue more so than could be achieved simply with money.
Businesses can lobby based on influence too. If a particular company or industry employs a significant number of your constituents, as a congressperson it is in your best interests to cater to that company or industry. If legislation is passed that helps that industry, they may expand and you can come back to your voters at election time showing you created jobs. If you pass legislation that hurts that industry and people are laid off, on the other hand, people may blame you for it. Even the thought that you might pass a law that might help or hurt an industry can change votes.
Don't get me wrong, we need to reform campaign financing. But lobbying in general is a perfectly reasonable and necessary function.
Because bribing is paying someone to breach their public duty, whereas lobbying only theoretically involves you trying to persuade your representative. Sure, it can involve "bad" stuff (eg. relaxing environmental regulations), but can also involve "good" stuff (eg. relaxing zoning regulations). Citizens, or groups of citizens (eg. corporations) engaging with their representatives is part of the democratic process.
That's the pretty way to present it.
In practice, "Citizens, or groups of citizens" is true but unfortunately vague, sort of similar to "Mammals, or groups of mammals, are known to sometimes build buildings out of prefabricated concrete."
Lobbying is a heavily professionalized activity, mostly undertaken by specialist lawyers employed full-time for the job.
This is also backdoor bribery: "help us out, you got a cushy job waiting for you in the future."
So you only object to the fact that lobbying is done by specialists rather than laypersons?
2. is your argument that lobbying should be banned because almost exclusively enjoyed by the well-resourced and/or powerful? I'm not sure that's a very persuasive argument. We ban speeding because it's harmful, not because the rich are well-resourced and/or powerful to afford fast cars.
The entire content of what I want to convey here is contained in the comment you're replying to.
I think the difference is quid pro quo plus the transfer of things of value that does not conform to existing rules.
I didn't intend to say "well it could also be used for good so we should keep it legal", but yeah this is probably the better take. A better analogy might be: it's totally legal to persuade a judge of your case (ie. what the prosecution/plaintiff/defense does), and totally part of the legal process, but persuading a judge via bribes is illegal.
If taxpayers need President, then let their campaign funded only by taxpayer money. Same applies to Senate and everyone who is elected. Limited and equal amount to all sides and let them be as creative as possible. But never take corporation money
Remember that laws are hard to create and usually incredibly complex. Even something as simple as Net Neutrality isn't black and white in terms of winners and losers. What you perceive as "laws created for the convenience of corporations and select people at the cost of ordinary people" may not be as numerous as you may think.
Meta-comment but this is how all HN threads on topics like this turn out:
- Topic: Perpetual rights to all clean drinking water in Nigeria put up for auction
- Half the thread: It’s nuts that rich people are able to just buy something that should be a basic human right
- The other half: Excuse me, but who said that only rich people can buy these rights? There’s no law that is stopping them from buying this right. Regular people can crowdfund those $20B if they really want. Another option is for the citizens of Nigeria to vote with their feet and move to another country if access to clean drinking water is so important to them. And should clean drinking water be a human right anyway? What if we lived in the vacuum of space and there was no drinking water, huh? Didn’t think of that, did you. And human rights are basically tantamount to slavery since ...
I realize engagement is difficult for many people but other countries have higher standards and riot when those are threatened. I loved the French firefighters lighting themselves on fire and rushing the police during the riots a year or two ago. People in the US generally don't care that much. At least not enough to organize and vote.
"you're free to form a non-profit and have the government subsidize your quest to have them listen to you" This is a common fallacy. You have to be elites etc for such thing to happen.
Yes laws, reforms etc are hard to create but this doesn't mean any one can bribe and create law in their favor? We should always complain about wrong law that is created for skulduggery.
Net Neutrality is good for consumers bad for few corporation so we are clear its mostly good.
Rational people talk about it enough that eventually all their friends beg them to stop talking about it. Perhaps you meant to ask why this is never mentioned on popular commercial news media? Or perhaps you meant to ask why no politician affiliated with Democrat or Republican ever mention it? Those would have been perceptive questions.
What do you think "lobbying" actually means?
It’s also not clear what would happen if you somehow were able to make all campaign spending derived from public funds and make lobbying illegal. It would likely just increase direct corruption, but perhaps it would be less than you see now.
On the other hand, while only available to the wealthy, lobbying allows for a kind of direct democracy.
All of these other topics you see on either side of the political spectrum are convenient distractions for things like the Panama Papers, lobbying, and corporate welfare.
How do we keep topics that matter across the political spectrum at the forefront of public view?
Reversing that Supreme Court decision is about as likely as admitting Puerto Rico as the 51st state, it won’t happen.
Nobody has started killing any of the ultra rich involved in it yet so nothing is going to happen.