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

I applaud your open mindedness and views...
I agree not all lobbyists are bad. But the majority are. I believe they are one of the mechanisms by which big business has corrupted and hijacked our government. Lobbying is not the problem. Their contributions are. As long as candidates are receiving contributions from business they will continue to be indebted to and serve the interests of big business. This further extends to the ability of gov officials to be employed by such interests after they are no longer in office.
What is needed in government are men of vision, who have a concern for the welfare of not only our citizens but of all peoples. They should be from a background that is on an equal plane as the average citizen. A man who doesn't know what its like to live on minimum wage and is not capable of relating to the vast majority of the people or understanding their plight. I believe that even after politicians terms are over they should be prohibited from receiving compensation from any special interest. Hell if a man can't survive off a two hundred thousand dollar a year pension after leaving office he was too far removed from the mainstream interests of the average citizen to begin with.
We live in an age where businessmen use their wealth and power to obtain office with the underlying goal of furthering their business interests and making more money. And this itself whether legal or illegal is a crime.

 

We can't verge to idealism without a sense of practicality. I deeply hasten from a perspective of 'us vs them'. The unison of business and the common man must be a form of harmony, not of war.

 

Oh I do hope so. That's one of the reasons I like living in a nation with seperate state governments. Unfortunately, the majority of the states actually tend to follow the way things are done at the Federal level, because often when something is done at the federal level, they decide to use the stick and carrot approach to get the states to follow along.

The federal government has no power over education, yet they have huge number of bills mandating changes in education... and if any state refuses to follow even one change, mandated or not, they loose all federal funding to their schools, and potentially funding to other areas as well. It's gotten to the point where doing things the federal government's way has begun to cost more than double what they pay.

Many states want to do the majority of the required things anyway... but some states have already said "Go shove your money and rules where the sun don't shine" and gone their own way.

Erm, sorry, that got to be a bit of a rant, didn't it?

 

Thank you. It's not often I get complemented for a quality I try hard to emulate. ^_^

So in other words, as long as Lobbyists and businesses did not have the ability to give gifts or contributions or fancy dinners to congressmen, having people hired specifically to present a view to the legislature would not be a problem? Interesting, and I can see some promise in that, but also potential problems. I'll explain below.

The state of Nebraska recently chose NOT to elect Pete Rickets to the Senate. He was the vice-president of a local corporation, and had no voting record of any kind, so at least we were able to see that something was fishy there.

Now, the problem with having someone without a lot of money running for office, and forbidding them from recieving contributions from any kind of special interest is that candidates would have hardly ANY money on which to campaign. Historically, even back to the founding days, politicians have often been people who have been well off enough that they are already in the public eye before they entered politics, and were able to spend their time campaigning, instead of winning the bread they needed or food simply to survive. Even if the only campaigning done is grass roots, the candidate can't hold another regular job, and travel is expensive. So for any office above a local city one, getting elected winds up being expensive. The only other choice is to make sure that the only money someone campaigning for office can spend on that campaign is money provided by the tax payers... and in that case, there's no real incentive NOT to campaign, there would be far to many candidates to choose from, not enough information ON them to choose well, and a higher burden on the tax payer.

And even then soft contributions wouldn't be stoped. What about Hertz Rent a car renting a luxury car to one of the people campaigning for only a dolar? What about web development companies making a big, detailed website and hosting it for free for a dollar package deal... AND Throwing all of their back-links to the candidate they support? The list of soft contributions that can still be made by corporations even under those STRICT conditons, to influence a potential statesman boggles the mind.

And that's assuming that corporations -shouldn't- have a say in how things are run.

Rick, your idea of there being official and accepted channels for businesses to bring up topics to the legislature intrigues me, do you have any more specific ideas, or references?

 

The only one I'm familiar with is Hong Kong. Their representation is given out to the people and to business representation. I forgot exactly how that worked, though.

googling...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0910/p06s01-woap.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_constituency

Now personally, I see benefits to this, but I could also see potentially bad things about it. Currently all this representation blends into candiates running for office or lobbying for special interests. I suppose we could have a system where business gets a consesus view (among the view of the whole market) on what policy should be. Hong's policy has been fairly positive on business activity. Low regulation activity, easy to start a business, and very small barriers on trade.

The negative side may be: an overly involved business influence and/or bias. Then again, that's what's happening in American politics. If it can be limited and consesus-driven, then I find it an interesting prospect.

But personally, it would probably involve a huge shift in the political idealogy of Americans (or atleast an examples in America), before it would have chance of being here. The idea of giving up representation or changing the system would be rather 'radical' in most people's mind. But if there was a small scale test of this done, I would find it of interest.

 

The condition of the united states government is in a very bad state because of this type of corrupt politics.

 

Hmmm. Well in this case, I really would have to agree with the average American on this. Unless we can find a way to cut down on the ways corporations influence the government through unofficial channels, I'd really rather not give them the power to have MORE influence through official channels as well.

 

That's my perception as well, but ultimately I don't think you can push business influence out of politics, and I wouldn't completely want to.

 

No, if the individual ruled everything, and buisness had no influence, it would often be incredibly hard for buisnesses to make an -honest- dollar, harder than it is now, and more people would likely wind up unemployed as a result. However, I think that buisnesses have to much influence as things stand, as do special interests such as PITA, and the UCLA.

 

Sort of like Europe?

The aclu? Yes, but that's how it works here. There's power divided among interest groups, people, and businesses. The more active or efficient, the more influence. That's why you have a bunch of lawyers and businessmen heading many things.

I do think there needs to be alternative movements in play, but I think they have to stand to reason....that we generally all need each other. Businesses need healthy living individuals (no matter how some specifically don't), and people need a healthy economy (despite all out personal interest).

 

There is an innate simple way to dramatically cut down on the power of lobbying groups and especially business and industry lobbying groups.

Pull the private money out of all races for President, Senate, the house of representatives...and you could duplicate that for states in races for governor and state legislatures.

Shorten the time for elections. Go back to forums like when the league of women voters sponsored lots of debates.

Cut out the money influence and you dramatically reduce the impact of business lobbying on the different levels of the fed government and the 2 major parties.

 

*smacks my face with my hand* Sorry, but I have a touch of dylsexia (typo intended for humor).

As for cutting out private money earl, I did already adress problems with that method, do you disagree that those problems may still exist?

 

Ok the reasoning behind the wealthy generally being in power in the states was three fold.
1. They had money and therefore power to get into the public's eye and gain "friends" that will help them into power.
2. They generally have more experience leading.
3. They actually have time to do it, they're not required to work on a farm or what not.

Perhaps public contributions to campaigns shouldn't be allowed. Gifts shouldn't be allowed. Various taxes would have to be raised. This way the politicians need not have allegiance to any business or volunteer organization.

Or military funding could be cut by a few percent.

Anyhow you know what i hate? I have to register and vote either republican or democrat.. why cant i vote for whatever.. If i register as an independent i would have a difficult time being elected to office later in life. You never know, i could be your congressman one day scary isn't it

 

You don’t have to register as a republican or democrat. You could join me and Register as an independent, or write in that you’re registering as a member of the green party, or as a member of the libertarian party.

 

I don't want to register as any of them, honestly. Republicans are increasingly becoming LBJ-like, Democrats are slowly sliding down the path of increased 'progress'iveness, the green party is just left idealism with no practicality, and the libertarians suck at key issues.

Yuck at all the choses. I do think that I will vote for the Republican party presidental candiate, if the next candiate is a real conservative (whom is a bit prudent at their military options). I'll make concessions on my own personal beliefs concerning social issues.

 

Thus my choice of being an independant, rather than giving people any cause to fault me for not "Staying in line with the party" after the primary.

 

Registering as an independent would hurt my chances of running for a regular election in either of the major parties in the future.

 

Well then it is your choice to register with one of these parties, and pin your hopes to that party, not something that you are forced to do.

 

The biggest and most powerful lobby in Washington right now is the Jewish lobby (ADL). That is why american foreign policy does not serve America's best interest but those of Israel.
No politician in Washington would dare to criticize Israel or express sympathy for the palestinians.
Lobbyists have a negative influence in Washington because they are there to push for their agenda, which is not necessarily what is good for the people.

 

Are you going to try to make EVERY thread in the political forum about this?