Just one thing. You can’t ban lobbying. You can and should highly regulate it. But you’d have to put your representatives in an isolation chamber if lobbying was banned. What we need to do is define anything more than a handshake passing between lobbyist and politician as a bribe. But Congress pulled the FBIs fangs decades ago now.
We could ban lobbying for consideration. (We already have a well-developed body of contract law which spells out the scope of consideration.) A lot of the effectiveness of lobbying comes not from donations, gifts, or other bribe-like transactions, but rather from the scope of their presence. For example, petrochemical lobbyists can show up in person every day of the week, exert direct pressure, and even soft influence like providing consultations or “expert opinion” about bills that come before Congress. The people affected by fracking, on the other hand, have lives to live, and the best that they’re capable of is calling and writing letters occasionally.
Ban consideration in exchange for lobbying, instead. If an individual wants to go to D.C. and lobby on behalf of the petrochemical industry for no personal benefit whatsoever (not even covertly), great, that’s democracy in action. They’d be on a level playing field with the rest of us.
But you’d have to put your representatives in an isolation chamber
Interesting… lol
But in all seriousness, I’d say the number of reps we have it wouldn’t be impractical for a yearly complete IRS audit for each of them that has real consequences like losing your position, repaying victims fully, and/or going to prison.
Just one thing. You can’t ban lobbying. You can and should highly regulate it. But you’d have to put your representatives in an isolation chamber if lobbying was banned. What we need to do is define anything more than a handshake passing between lobbyist and politician as a bribe. But Congress pulled the FBIs fangs decades ago now.
We could ban lobbying for consideration. (We already have a well-developed body of contract law which spells out the scope of consideration.) A lot of the effectiveness of lobbying comes not from donations, gifts, or other bribe-like transactions, but rather from the scope of their presence. For example, petrochemical lobbyists can show up in person every day of the week, exert direct pressure, and even soft influence like providing consultations or “expert opinion” about bills that come before Congress. The people affected by fracking, on the other hand, have lives to live, and the best that they’re capable of is calling and writing letters occasionally.
Ban consideration in exchange for lobbying, instead. If an individual wants to go to D.C. and lobby on behalf of the petrochemical industry for no personal benefit whatsoever (not even covertly), great, that’s democracy in action. They’d be on a level playing field with the rest of us.
Interesting… lol
But in all seriousness, I’d say the number of reps we have it wouldn’t be impractical for a yearly complete IRS audit for each of them that has real consequences like losing your position, repaying victims fully, and/or going to prison.
Oh absolutely.