Law Against Lobbyists

[Aloysius]

I know people tend to say that Lobbyists are protected by the first amendment, that everyone has the right to petition their government... but if we can have FEC regulations trying to keep the influence of money out of politics, can't something be done about lobbyists?

here's a simple idea I just thought of: yes, everyone is allowed to petition the government for anything they want. but no one is permitted to make money by professionally petitioning the government. no one can get paid to prepare a petition to the government or to go around and try to get support for it. anyone found in an investigation to have made money through campaigning in Washington to change government policy would be subject to fines and forfeiture of any money they had made illegally, or prison time. petitions of the government must be made freely by the people themselves, not by professionals who have government officials wrapped around their fingers.

a company could pay for commercials and such to appeal directly to the American people to ask them to call their congressmen (something that is regularly done), but that is the extent to which people could be paid for trying to influence government, they have to try their case directly to the people and let the people influence the government.

it might be a bit hard to enforce, but it'd be a good first step. what say you, good idea, bad idea? any other ideas for how one might legislate away this beast that has strangled our democracy? or does anyone actually support the way lobbyists work in Washington today?

Edited January 8, 2012 by Aloysius

[ThePenciledOne]

I agree, get them outta there!

By taking the money out of politics, we get back to what it was for orginially, a forum to help promote freedom and liberity for everyone. The forum of which humanity, which is social by nature, could come togeather and decide how the best way to interact and exchange ideas etc.

By keeping money [u]in[/u] politics we keep it the buisness it has become.

[CatherineM]

My brother is a lobbyist. Labor Union. One of the few that's a boy scout type.

[Aloysius]

I hope he is able to find a new line of work when I come to power.

lol jk, though I actually am suggesting that there should basically be an across-the-board abolishing of all lobbyists absolutely, not just the corrupt ones, all of them. there should not be unelected people whose professional lives consist in influencing the minds of the elected and who thus wield such power over our government, even if they're completely ethical boy scouts. if they want to influence the government, they should have to appeal directly to the people asking them to call their congressman, and they themselves as individuals can call the congressman as well. no offense to your brother, of course, I'm just exploring the idea of a Washington with no lobbyists at all, and it sounds nice to me.

Edited January 9, 2012 by Aloysius

[Basilisa Marie]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1326072566' post='2365347']
there should not be unelected people whose professional lives consist in influencing the minds of the elected and who thus wield such power over our government
[/quote]

I hope you'd be logically consistant and want to also do away with all advertising firms, PACs and Super PACs.

I'd much rather have a knowledgeable lobbyist talking to my congressman for me than just Bob from down the street.

Because when you get down to it, lobbyists are just people who get paid to be a professional representative for a cause. They're paid to do research and be persuasive, to educate congressmen about issues, so they can make informed decisions not completely based on what the most vocal minority in their electorate want. Lobbyists are not the problem. Buying votes is the problem. Corporate money as a form of speech is a problem.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Basilisa Marie

[Socrates]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1326072566' post='2365347']
lol jk, though I actually am suggesting that there should basically be an across-the-board abolishing of all lobbyists absolutely, not just the corrupt ones, all of them. there should not be c and who thus wield such power over our government, even if they're completely ethical boy scouts. if they want to influence the government, they should have to appeal directly to the people asking them to call their congressman, and they themselves as individuals can call the congressman as well. no offense to your brother, of course, I'm just exploring the idea of a Washington with no lobbyists at all, and it sounds nice to me.
[/quote]
So in other words, you'd like to grant the federal government power to forcibly deny citizens the rights of freedom of speech and assembly guaranteed by the first amendment.

"Congress shall make no law . . . [b]abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.[/b]"

Lobbyists are merely a form of an assembly of people petitioning the government. True, they may be rotten, and you may not like they may have to say, but that can be true of [i]any[/i] assembly of people petitioning the government on behalf of some cause. But that's the price of free speech - you have to protect the bad and the ugly along with the good. For instance, I think the petitions and demands of most of the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd are absolute garbage, but that doesn't mean they don't have a right to make them (so long as they otherwise act lawfully, but that's another debate).
And I certainly wouldn't want the feds to have the power to bust up a pro-life or other worthy group simply because they lobby the government for their cause.

Whether people make money from lobbying is irrelevant, and outside the proper scope of the government to regulate. If me and Bob from down the street, who have neither the time nor means to directly protest in Washington, have a grievance and decide to pay Joe, an eloquent professional writer and speaker, to petition on our behalf, that's between me, Bob, and Joe - and the government has no business silencing Joe because he happened to receive pay for his work.

If you want to get rid of all "unelected people whose professional lives consist in influencing the minds of the elected," then we might as well go all out and revoke the freedom of the press - as reporters and other media workers are paid professionals whose work influences the minds of the elected as well as voters, and who are rarely really completely unbiased. (Believe it or not, in the days of the founding of the American republic, newspapers and such were more fiercely partisan than today, and were more influential.)

It was exactly such political speech that that clause of the first amendment was designed to protect. Politicians and tyrants have little to fear from speech with no influence on politics.
Contrary to current popular politically correct belief, the first amendment was made to protect [i]political[/i] speech, not porn or obscene "performance art."

I also think you're incredibly naive if you think outlawing lobbyists will end the corrupting influence of power and money on politicians. Such a law would only grant the government more power over the lives of citizens, and power corrupts more than anything else. The Bill of Rights limits the powers of government, as the framers of the constitution wisely realized that government will be likely to abuse any powers it gains. I tend to be extremely suspicious of any law that would grant the federal government new powers it did not formerly possess.

[Aloysius]

fair enough, and what you say is really the sense I had about this, I just wanted to float this idea. I feel there to be a difference between groups who lobby about some issue that comes up, and permanent lobbying firms, because the permanent lobbying firms appear to be the consistent unelected power in Washington. they appear to basically run things by and large, and be the reason why nothing ever seems to change. you're right that there's a better answer than what I propose, but I really don't see equivalence between permanent lobbying firms whose business it is to stay in government and manipulate the elected officials (and yes, I think they are largely manipulating rather than merely influencing).

the real solution in Washington is, of course, restricting congress to only having the powers explicitly listed in the Constitution, without any vague overreaching misinterpretation of the General Welfare clause, because if congress did not have as much power lobbyists wouldn't be able to get anywhere.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Aloysius

[Socrates]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1326331675' post='2367276']

the real solution in Washington is, of course, restricting congress to only having the powers explicitly listed in the Constitution, without any vague overreaching misinterpretation of the General Welfare clause, because if congress did not have as much power lobbyists wouldn't be able to get anywhere.
[/quote]
It would be madness to disagree.

However, from a constitutional standpoint, far more damage has occurred from activist Supreme Court justices effectively "legislating from the bench" without regards to the actual content of the Constitution and presidents acting in disregard of constitutional restraints.

[Aloysius]

Ron Paul argues that Article III clearly grants power to strip the courts of jurisdiction on a particular issue, which is the real solution... we keep going into election cycle after election cycle where one thing that is held hostage to the pro-life movement is the judicial appointments, and yet the Republicans never intend to do anything but keep the status quo balance, but don't dare let the other ones take power or they might unbalance it.

what needs to happen is that congress strip the courts of jurisdiction over abortion.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul270.html

[Winchester]

So long as government can bestow special favors on one group or another, lobbyists will exist. Incentives matter.