Do lobbyists have a negative influence on U.S. legislative process?

I'm just wondering what you all think about lobbies, and lobbyists. Are they corrupt? Is money, which powers lobbies, corrupt? If so, are lobbies not corrupt??

Do they slow down legislation? Should they be more restricted or let to have a little more freedom? Do they negatively influence legislation in the United States?

 

In my opinion, yes, and definitively so. According to my understanding, Often lobbyists are used by senators and representatives as their own staff, asking or assigning them to do research. The lobbyist then presents the research, but skewed towards whatever side is best for the lobbyist’s constituency.

 

This is a yes, without any doubt.

Lobbyists lobby for their own corporate motives. Most of the time at the expensive of the general public.

All they want to do is advertise junk food to your kids

 

I don't agree all lobbyists are bad (though my opinions are skewed by my parents having lobbied).. some of them work for non-profit associations. My mother for example helped lobby for a historical theatre in my hometown.

Then again I think lobbying is rather strange its a different kind of job. A large part of lobbying is becoming *friends* with the members of each party. The only way to get rid of lobbyists (to a degree) would be to totally exclude officials from gaining campaign contributions which would lead to an increase in taxes.

Lobbying generally does skew whats really going on, I don't think elected officials need to worry about their contributors when making decisions. This kind of defeats the purpose of a democracy. Anyhow not all lobbyists are bad, but we could likely do without them.

 

I am sorry, you are right. Not all lobbyists have a negative effect.

As a side note, any time a small group needs to be heard, but they do not already have a large amount of influence, they send a representative of their group. This could be a small number of people who have fallen through the cracks, and DO need to be heard to get their problem fixed. However, their representative, by nature, is a lobbyist. So if we remove lobbyists from the system, some small groups will loose one of their recourses, and get lost in the party system. *sigh* There is no perfect system.

However, the -majority- of lobbyists do have a negative effect on the political system.

 

My above post was only referring to corporate lobbyists.

I wouldn't really refer to charities and non-profit organisations at lobbyists. Trying to influence the government is part of the general work of charities and NGOs.

Some charities and organisations that work on taboo issues could be deemed as having a negative effect on society by some people. Taboo issues like religion, abortion, gay rights etc.

Nice thread

 

Aye, definitely thought provoking.

As for not calling the representatives of non-profit orgs lobbyists, that's like not calling phone survey people or people seeking donations for charitable organizations telemarketers... a distinction without a difference is no distinction at all.

 

Well a charity is a charity. I take lobbyist to mean an organisation set up especially to influence the government.

Part of a charities role is to influence people and governments, it has many more roles too.

Anyway, its just semantics. I will use the phrase corporate lobbyists for more clarity.

 

In DC an enormous amount of legislation is dramatically influenced by lobbying.

Under Tom Delay, he essentially traded power over legislation for campaign money for members of congress. Talk about money buying power and a corrupt system which was essentially hidden from public view.

 

Good point... the problem is that while lobbies are required to be registered, that doesn't stop them from taking bribes, etc.

 

Isn't that the accusation? Or has a trial found him guilty? I was under the impression Ronnie Earle, a partisan democrat hack, is the one who alleged the charges (rehashed charges).

Has there been any new developments?

 

Lobbying has nothing to do w/ his court case, which has to do with Texas stuff. Congress has virtually no laws about lobbying so it is well known.

Delay simply exaggerated existing conditions to make them even more outrageous. Essentially lobbyists were in control of various types of legislation. Isn't that contrary to ideas about elected officials making laws on our behalf?

check w/ the statements of retired members of congress. Its amazing how consistently they find the system degrading.

 

Is it a trick question?
"Is bribery bad?"

 

In Hong Kong they distribute political power among the citizens and businesses.

In America, we do it a little differently. We are at war with each other, internally. Trying to impose either the people's will or the business will. Instead of realizing that both interests are equally important. While I can't say that Hong Kong is doing it perfectly, I don't like the idea of completely nudging businesses opinions out of political power.

I think there should be a moderate level of influence given, and no more. Although such a debate doesn't exist.

 

I think smaller city/countries like hong kong have a hard time comparing to a country with the size and diversity of america..

Lobbyists have a lot of power, my dad worked for a non profit, but that non-profit was an association for used car dealers. One year he got 14 laws through council and before the house. Seven went on to be signed by the governor and law. Thats a small taste of the power of some of these lobbyists as his was an underfunded association in the small state of Oregon. Imagine what large corporate entities can do.. Anyhow I don't really like the using campaign contributions since it just doesn't fit into an equal system, money alone shouldn't allow somebody to be your congressman.

 

When I was in college I interned in Washington DC at a trade organization that did a lot of lobbying, and despite all the lectures I heard explaining why it's a good thing, I still don't see how a world with lobbyists is better than one without them.

 

The comparison is not really simple. It's not meant to say one should be the other.

As long as SB and corporations exist, they'll want an opinion in the political arena. They'll get it this way or another way. I don't necessarily like the way it is now, but I'm not for a world where business doesn't have any form of influence on politics. I think that's suicidal.

Campaign financing is a different issue, though, isn't it? That's already settled it , I believe. The McCain/Feingold law, which went through the supreme court...but I'm sure the rather small margin (by the court) is apt to being overturned. Perhaps I'm not up-to-date on that issue and that's already occured.

I find it difficult how to assign powers. I'm not idealistic in the sense that all the power goes into the people's hands. I think power corrupts even people, and their interests are sometimes in conflict with the whole nations survival (therefore a Constutional Republic w/limiting powers).

Any change must be really up to debate, and we must be able to live with it.

 

I'm not sure about that law in particular, however i'm still sure that campaign contributions (giving cash money) exist to a more limited level. So people now do things like charging $300 for a single plate of mediocre food at a decent banquet. Of course you get to talk to the governor elect or what have you and theres always an open bar.. Fun times.. Anyhow campaign financing is one of the ways a corporation could have high up officials over a barrel.. after all when it just took you a million to get elected how the hell are you going to get another million in two years?

Even small state reps take decent amount of money, one family member for example spent around 100k USD of his own money to get into the house of reps.. Of course he campaigned and spent a lot of time also. His total campaign chest ended up being around 186k.. So 86k or so needed to be contributions.

 

This is the quagmire we're in. I don't think there's anything that can be easily done, without disturbing the balance of power too much. It's something that requires a smaller model to experiment on. The whole idea of radically changing the entire system as-is, is a bit over-the-top in my view.

I wonder if the states are individually looking at this in their own respective authorities....?

 

Eventually i would guess one state will do it in a new way that changes things around, eventually the other states would catch on. Federal system would follow around 5-10 years after the majority of the states make a change.. so say 25-30 years after the first state makes a nice new law regarding the issue.