
When Lobbying was Illegal - samsolomon
http://priceonomics.com/when-lobbying-was-illegal/
======
entee
Perhaps the least understood view of lobbying that really informs how perverse
the system has become is that as a general rule people believe the lobbyists
are calling the congresspeople to offer them money. In reality, it's the
congresspeople, desperate for campaign cash, that are calling the lobbyists
for money.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/27/145923803/the-f...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/27/145923803/the-
friday-podcast-a-former-lobbyist-tells-all)

The cost of congressional elections has increased so much that it has become
essentially required for someone aspiring to political office to raise
enormous amounts of money. As a result they're asking lobbyists to contribute.
As a result they're more likely to take positions that are friendly to those
interests.

Effectively the polarity of the commonly stated narrative is backwards. It's
not lobbyists giving money for special favors, it's congresspeople needing
money who give special favors in the hopes of maybe getting money. This is
even more perverse, and harder to fix than the former. Essentially, I wish my
congressperson was more traditionally corrupt, that's an issue we know how to
solve.

~~~
danieltillett
The solution is to actually increase the number of politicians so that each
district is small enough that you don't need money to get elected (you need
districts of about 25,000 voters). The crazy thing is it doesn't even cost
anymore money because as you increase the politicians you take away their
staff.

If you want to know more about this idea see [1].

1\. [http://www.thirty-thousand.org](http://www.thirty-thousand.org)

~~~
barrkel
Ireland works this way; there are about 25k voters per representative. What
happens is clientilism: representatives become very concerned with local
issues and neglect national issues. Corruption of a different, more local
kind, is encouraged.

~~~
tacone
That's how democracy is meant to work.

~~~
gozur88
I disagree. I think that exactly the opposite of how democracy is supposed to
work. In the US, anyway.

~~~
riprowan
Obviously, since the US is not a democracy, but a representative republic.

~~~
brownbat
_democracy_ \di-ˈmä-krə-sē\ a form of government in which people choose
leaders by voting - Merriam Webster, first definition

 _democracy_ (dĭ-mŏkˈrə-sē) Government by the people, exercised either
directly or through elected representatives - American Heritage dictionary,
first definition

With apologies to Plato, the word "democracy" most commonly refers to nearly
any political system that involves voting. The only time anyone uses the word
democracy to mean "direct democracy," with every citizen voting on every
issue, is when they're criticizing someone else for using the word democracy
in exactly the way almost everyone does all the time.

See my companion rant: Hitler's National Socialism was a form of fascism in
the way we use that word today, even though he and Mussolini had distinct
political ideas.

------
aaron-lebo
This is very selective reading of history.

Politics were probably more corrupt and lobbying was even more dominant (just
in different forms) in the 1800s.

Obviously, the train has gone off the rails at this point, but we aren't at a
fundamentally different place politically than we were in, say 1896, when many
of the same issues were at play.

~~~
snowwrestler
And the article misleads about the state of lobbying today, for example:

> lobbyists who take out lawmakers for expensive lunches

A lobbyist who buys an expensive lunch for a lawmaker (member of Congress) is
committing a federal offense under the Honest Leadership and Open Government
Act of 2007. The rule is so strict that if a member of Congress is attending a
public event with food at a lobbying org, the org cannot provide utensils,
unless the member of Congress pays for their food.

Executive Order 13490 also prohibits all executive branch political appointees
from receiving gifts of any kind from lobbyists, including lunch.

The 1999 Supreme Court decision was the right one, as it struck down an
interpretation that was obviously too broad. The article names Scalia since he
wrote the opinion, but the vote was 9-0! (Obviously this was back in the good
old days when the Supreme Court still had 9 justices.)

~~~
joshka
“You as a lobbyist cannot buy me a dinner for $40,” Mr. Ackerman said in an
interview, as he nibbled finger food at a recent conference on government
ethics in New York. “But if you give a contribution to my campaign, I can take
you to dinner, and we can discuss politics or official business. You, the
lobbyist, can give my campaign $1,000, and the campaign can pay for our
dinner. That’s perfectly legal, and it’s perfectly dumb.”

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20lobby.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20lobby.html)

~~~
marcoperaza
But they'll never learn. The folly of those who think they can engineer a
perfect society is boundless. "If only there was a rule..."

~~~
emn13
I don't disagree - but this sentiment can easily mislead. While it's folly to
think any set of rules will be perfect, it's also folly to conclude that just
because a rule has absurd corner cases that it therefore has no value overall.

Ironically (given the complaint Mr Ackerman voiced) one way to encourage
imperfections in rules is to allow lobbying, which biases the decision making
process towards small, focused groups that have a lot to gain by affecting the
rules over large, general benefits.

~~~
studentrob
> Ironically (given the complaint Mr Ackerman voiced) one way to encourage
> imperfections in rules is to allow lobbying, which biases the decision
> making process towards small, focused groups that have a lot to gain by
> affecting the rules over large, general benefits.

Yeah, it's difficult to perfectly take advantage of an imperfect system, and
that's a good thing.

------
Overtonwindow
I haven't seen comments from a lobbyist yet. I was a lobbyist in Washington
for many years, both for small companies and nonprofits. My job was to work
with my clients elected official, to educate other members of Congress, raise
the profile of the issue, and do all of the heavy lifting and work that the
elected official can't or won't do.

There are 535 members of Congress. Unless it's the President, the chances of
one elected official pushing through the needs of their constituents is
extremely difficult.

Lobbyists fill the gap by educating congressional staff, piercing the bubble
that congress lives in, and providing expertise on issues that the staff may
not have. I have never given a campaign donation, I have never paid for
anything for an elected official or their staff. It makes things difficult
sometimes, because most members of Congress won't return your calls unless
you've given at some point. But I believe that's the ethical way to work.

tl;dr: Lobbyists are paid educators and mouthpieces, for people, corporations,
and organizations that can't afford to be in Washington all the time, to make
sure that their issue is heard and considered by the widest audience possible.

------
jahnu
> Wouldn’t it be nice if lobbying were illegal?

Honestly, no. It's essential that law makers can be informed by all interested
parties. The problem is a lack of transparency. Complex to control but not
impossible. Every single meeting between an elected officials and anyone
lobbying them should be in some way recorded and made public. As if it were a
public debate. The other issue is fund raising. Too broad and complex to
really go into here but if a politician didn't or couldn't raise funds it
would make lobbying more honest, imho.

~~~
mapt
"The problem is a lack of transparency" might have been true in some
historical era when there was less money involved; We could target a singular
corrupt politician taking bribes if we knew about the bribes. Sure.

But that's not the problem we have. Our problem is fund-raising. Politicians
are not meeting once every few years with a lobbyist at 2AM beneath the
Lincoln Memorial, they're spending 60% of their time on the phone begging
moneyed interests for reelection campaign funds or party goals, the day after
they get elected. They're spending 25% of their time negotiating with
lobbyists about what laws the lobbyists get to write ("The legislative subsidy
model" of RL Hall, wherein they replace Congressional staff increases), and
another 10% trying to raise their professional profile through non-legislative
activities in the press or with political powerbrokers. Maybe 5% of their time
is spent in committee meetings or on the floor.

On top of that, it starts out as a part-time job, with meaningful meetings
limited to a few days of the week in order to satisfy the need to fly home to
meet with contributors. The Senate has become nearly impossible to get bills
through for a similar reason - a filibuster is a time-wasting annoyance
legislatively, but its requirement that 51 Senators stay on the floor to break
it prevents them from spending days fundraising, an existential threat to
their careers, while the filibustering party only has to commit a couple
Senators to keep it active.

Of the bills voted on in their legislative career, the proportion actually
read by the legislator will be under 1%. The number read in full by their
staff, under 10%.

Politicans are not hiding this; They are complaining about it. We have created
a system wherein legislating ranks as the lowest priority, and not even the
wealthiest in Congress can be free of implicit corruption.

~~~
JoBrad
What I find hilarious (and a little soul-sucking for the politicians), is that
the money that they raise from taxpayers is used...to convince taxpayers to
elect them, so they can raise money from taxpayers...ad nauseam

------
kbaker
This article kinda just glosses over any causes of lobbying, and then
complains about the symptoms.

There is one incredibly interesting video I have seen which lays out a major
root cause of corruption in the US, and the rise of lobbying and corruption
since the 1970s.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gEz__sMVaY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gEz__sMVaY)
(Cardboard Box Reform)

It is long, but well-reasoned and supported by a lot of evidence. Definitely
worth a watch...

~~~
kbaker
TL;DW (sorry, this is still long, the video is an hour!): Something happened
in the 1970s which caused a major shift in a number of indicators in the US,
leading to a general decline and increase in corruption in Congress. Lots of
media kinds of sees this trend happening, but none of them have found a cause.

The author was in Africa, thinking about how E-voting could help to reduce the
costs of voting. Which sounds great, but then, why is the formal voting
process today, with voting booths, neutral polling places, private voting,
etc. so sacred to democracy?

Two major problems come up when votes are not secret: intimidation, and vote
buying. Leading to harassment and electoral fraud. We have already fixed this
problem now here in the public, using the secret ballot. We are taught it in
school and use it wherever we need a fair democratic process.

Except in one place - Congress. All votes are recorded and public, just see
govtrack.us to see how your Congressman voted. But hasn't it always been this
way? Even from the first Congress, with Yea or Nay votes recorded? No, it
hasn't...

There is a little-known bill called the 'Legislative Reorganization Act of
1970', which introduced the electronic vote buttons into Congress, and records
the vote for each bill by each Congressman. Before these buttons, they would
mostly not record each vote individually. This bill overwhelmingly passed at
the time, with no discussion about the problems this total transparency in
Congress would introduce.

There has been no discussion since either! No pieces anywhere discussing this
bill as a root cause since the bill passed in 1970. Kennedy was the only one
that mentioned anything about the danger of transparency - as it would turn
Congressmen into 'seismographs of public opinion.' But what actually happened
was worse.

Since it takes a lot of money to run for elections, it is easy to turn to
lobbyists to raise money. With transparency, lobbyists can directly see if the
bills they want propped up are being voted for. Endless congressman admissions
of the problems: “There aren't any poor PACs, Food Stamp PACs, or Medicare
PACs.” A more complex tax code has ushered in a huge increase in complexity in
the financial system since the 1970s, and led to even more lobbyists from Wall
Street. “But once lobbyists knew your every vote, they could use it against
you.” Almost all giant lobbying organizations (ALEC, Heritage Foundation) were
founded only a year or two after this bill. Congressmen cannot vote their
conscience anymore, they are pressured to vote for whatever the lobbying firm
or corporation wants. Bills are basically introduced by special interests now.

The nice thing, is that there is an easy solution - reintroduce the secret
ballot in Congress. AKA, a $5 Cardboard Box to have Congressmen vote in
private. It's a tough pill to swallow as it goes against the nice idea of
having transparency, especially at the highest levels of government. But we
must reintroduce it if we ever want to have a Congress that is not controlled
by lobbyists and corporations, one that is truly democratic.

\--

Really interesting video, definitely merits some discussion somewhere about
the problems that total transparency in Congress can create.

~~~
sirsar
Sorry if this is naive, but:

Don't we _want_ intimidation/vote buying of members of congress, in a sense?
As a voter, it's important to be able to verify that the people I voted for
actually represented my interests, rather than just paying lip service in the
campaign. A citizen at the polls has no constituency.

Doesn't seem to me like there's an easy answer, although I'm open to the idea
that closed votes are the lesser issue.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> As a voter, it's important to be able to verify that the people I voted for
> actually represented my interests, rather than just paying lip service in
> the campaign.

I think this vastly overestimates the degree to which voters actually look at
how representatives voted rather than what they say on television. The only
people actually looking at votes are lobbyists and party leaders.

The whole idea of representative democracy rather than direct democracy is
that you elect people you trust to represent your interests. If you don't
trust them then vote them out, because individual voters clearly don't have
time to micromanage untrustworthy members of Congress.

The actual votes are all choreographed anyway. Everybody knows ahead of time
whether or not a bill is going to pass and by exactly how many votes. Which
means every bill that passes or fails with a margin of more than one vote
(which is almost all of them) would have allowed anyone to change their vote
from the one they preferred to the one their constituents or donors would have
preferred without changing the outcome, and party leaders generally only care
about the outcome. And if it would have changed the outcome then that means
the vote was close and it shouldn't be hard to find someone on the other side
that you can trade votes with so that you can both vote the way your
respective constituencies want to see you vote even though you each
effectively voted the other way.

The only thing revealing the votes does is allow the exact thing we wanted to
prevent, i.e. it allows a representative to be rewarded or punished for voting
a certain way but only by the people who know enough to distinguish when the
vote is only for show and when it really changed the outcome.

------
SturgeonsLaw
> Although it seems like established cannon today that the Second Amendment
> guarantees the right to own a gun

That's one of the more amusing typos I've seen lately :)

------
InclinedPlane
It's good that people are cognizant of the problems here but lobbying and
money in politics are much more symptoms of deeper issues. You can treat the
symptoms all you like but without solving the underlying problems you'll
likely get something just as bad happening in a way you can't control. Right
now the system is so corrupt and broken in every way that the only people who
would ever want to be a part of it are either corrupt themselves, power
seekers, or incredibly dedicated (which leads to an odd mix for sure).

Things are changing, slightly for the better in some ways though it's overall
a complete mess. It helps that it's no longer necessary to spend tens of
millions of dollars just to communicate with the electorate, though we're
still not quite there yet.

We can't just make a few tweaks to the legal code and magic our way out of
these problems. It's going to take a generation or more of concerted effort
and, as always, constant vigilance afterward, and a bunch of legal changes
along the way as well.

------
sandGorgon
A lot of people seem to think that banning lobbying will make things better.
But looking at campaign finance in India - where lobbying is illegal - the big
problem is that all of this gets pushed underground. And what gets formed is
this dirty nexus between criminals, politicians and businessmen. It gets worse
because extortion is used as a measure by criminals to fund political
campaigns (P.S. is this the reason for the tacit acceptance of the Yakuza in
Japan..another place with no lobbies?).

Campaign finance needs to be more transparent... But the lobbying process in
the US is already aspirational for me.

------
studentrob
In This American Life's episode on "Take the Money and Run for Office" [1],
Barney Frank said,

> If the voters have a position, the votes will kick money's rear end any
> time. I've never met a politician-- I've been in the legislative bodies for
> 40 years now-- who, choosing between a significant opinion in his or her
> district and a number of campaign contributors, doesn't go with the
> district. [2]

A lobbyist is just a person seeking to influence decisions made by government.
Another way to say this is a person who _educates_ Congress. Education is just
a nicer sounding word for society's desire to influence its upcoming
generation.

Congress is made up of lawyers. They don't know everything about the
industries they need to regulate. Drug companies are trying to get away with
using unknown substances which they proclaim are safe. Some are life saving,
some aren't. Banks are constantly coming up with new financial products. Some
help the economy, some don't. We need people to debate these new drugs and
market dealings. The people who debate them should be experts. They should
publish findings which can be replicated by independent parties. These experts
and independent parties often come in the form of lobbyists. _One of the EFF
's jobs is to lobby._

Lobbyists aren't inherently evil, and while I think we should further restrict
money in politics, you're never going to completely remove it.

Fortunately, as Barney pointed out, we have the ability to fire our elected
officials. The problem lately is not just with lobbyists. It's also that we're
not turning out to vote during primaries and general elections. If we want to
get better representation we have to study up on the issues and candidates,
debate the issues with each other, and vote.

[1] [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/461/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/461/take-the-money-and-run-for-office)

[2] [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/461/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/461/transcript)

------
alkonaut
First get rid of the "dark" money. If a candidate has $1M then the electorate
should know where this money came from to the last dollar. No laundering
through PACs or other organizations. That "citizens united" is even an issue
is completely unfathomable for an outside observer (as is this whole
vocabulary that's been invented for describing a defunct political system:
"gerrymandering", "filibuster", "fiscal cliff" etc. I mean come _on_...).

In most other western democracies a constitution is something no one thinks
about. No one praises it or accuses any one for being "unconstitutional". Yet
the US political system and the constitution it relies on (I presume) seems to
be held in very high regard, despite being outdated and clumsy in many areas.

Admittedly - the US isn't a country it's a bunch of largely independent states
and the federal government is more like the EU than it is like France. And the
european politics is arguably working a lot worse than the US.

~~~
Zach_the_Lizard
IMO part of the reason for the sacredness of the Constitution is that it is
nearly impossible to change. 3/4 of states must approve a change, a very high
bar. Maybe in the 1790s when there were comparatively few states and fears of
tyranny were more reality based this was more reasonable, but with 50 states
it's very unrealistic.

The other reason it's sacred is that we Americans revere our founders to an
absurd degree. They were great men but not gods. They were deeply flawed, just
like leaders of today.

~~~
alkonaut
Holding the founding fathers in high regard isn't a bad thing - but holding an
outdated constitution in high regard may be damaging. It _should_ be hard to
change a constitution. It's amazing how a lot of the US electorate finds the
constitution so flawless, yet thinks "Washington" and the political
establishment to be flawed - as if the political establishment is a product of
itself and not of the legislation. I think winner-takes-all two party systems
have the intrinsic problem that changes (such as to gerrymandering) will
always benefit one side more than the other and thus it's hard to pass.

~~~
Zach_the_Lizard
I think that as it gets harder to change a constitution, judicial workarounds
will become more frequent. This then causes more anger around not following
the written law in the general population. Since the founders are Gods who
wrote the Constitution, defying this law is heresy. Political evolution is
slow until the next big court case.

At the other end of the spectrum it's so easy to change that your rights can
be removed in any old vote. Political evolution occurs at a faster pace.

I'd like different levels of review for certain pieces of the puzzle. Editing
the first amendment? 3/4 of all states seems fair. Giving DC voting rights?
Maybe a lower bar is appropriate, but not quite an up or down vote level.

------
stretchwithme
A winner-take-all electoral system concentrates power and enables winners to
sell influence.

If I could hire whichever representative I want to exercise my vote in the
legislature and fire him whenever I want, chances are I will have a
representative that follows my wishes.

How would a collective decision making system work if you were designing it
from scratch? Would it look anything like the American system?

No, I think it would be more like a parliamentary system using proportional
representation.

But even that falls far short of what we could accomplish with modern
technology.

Its also worth pointing out that the Founders did not set up elections for
both houses of Congress. The Senate was appointed by the governors of the
states. After that was changed, it became easier to buy influence. And easier
to centralize everything farther away from the people.

But that can be turned around.

------
mirimir
Teachout: “If any of the great corporations of the country were to hire
adventurers who make market of themselves in this way, to procure the passage
of a general law with a view to the promotion of their private interests, the
moral sense of every right-minded man would instinctively denounce the
employer and employed as steeped in corruption.”

Alex Mayyasi notes that the First Amendment guarantees the right to petition
the Government. However, Teachout was discussing a case in 1866, many years
before corporations were granted First-Amendment rights. Indeed, I believe
that only public-interest corporations were legal in 1866.

It was a very different time. So it goes.

------
datashovel
Lobbying: Where rich people have free speech while in an office (or on a golf
course) with their Congressman. And poor people have free speech in the
comfort of their home.

------
goda90
One problem with lobbying right now is not that it's legal, it's that its
legal definition is so narrow that much of it doesn't actually fall under
regulation.

------
ipsin
This is a case where footnotes would be tremendously useful.

I could not tell when the author was writing something from Zephyr Teachout
and when the author was citing another source.

------
banku_brougham
My solution: publicly funded elections, and pay congress people a lot more so
they can't be bought off with a new porch and hot tub, like that Ted Stevens.
It would be money well spent. Make them millionaires, maybe some intelligent
people would be enticed into public service.

------
madiga
Lobbying is bribery whether it's the lobbyists giving the money or
congressional candidates asking for it. The fact that this practice is so
apparent in our system is a shame and contradictory to the system itself.

------
yuhong
I am thinking that in the future campaign contributions might eventually
matter less than it does today. For example, it is a good thing all 40 states
in the US does not do the presidential primary on the same day.

~~~
matthewbauer
How so? I think the biggest problem with campaign contributions is that ads
are so incredibly effective at getting congresspeople reelected. Maybe if
everyone agreed to ignore these ads campaign contributions would be worthless.
But there's a significant enough number of people who are swayed by it to
matter.

~~~
yuhong
I am talking about in the future when less people watch TV for example.

~~~
raquo
People are always gonna be getting video content from _somewhere_ , and
they're not gonna be paying for it enough to make it ad-free, so they're gonna
see ads regardless of the medium.

------
johnm1019
> As one judge wrote, a lobbyist is “induced to use his influence for the
> money he is to obtain; when, as a patriot and a citizen, he should only act
> for the good of his country.”

I wish that was still true.

------
onetimePete
I never got why it cant be legal AND combined with a tax. 25 % of all Voices
go to the Economics, but they have to "vote" for this- in secrecy, meaning,
they pay taxes, and the amount of taxes determinate the share they hold on
there part of the power.

Any lobbying outside of this, is illegal and leads to a company being
auctioned off to the public. When a force distorts your laws and warps
society, one has to sap this force via constructs and channel it where it can
be useful. And this has to be done, without this force being able to destroy
the machinery that channels it. It has been done with the military. It has
been done with nobility. It can be done with what shall come.

------
jeffdavis
Why don't we just pay lawmakers $1M a year, or maybe more?

The fact that a lawmaker is impressed by a nice dinner or a basketball game is
embarrassing.

~~~
learc83
They're not. Lobbyists are breaking federal law if they take a congressman out
to a nice dinner.

Paying them more wouldn't solve this problem because running an election
campaign is so expensive that they spend the majority of their time trying to
raise money. They end up taking positions that are friendly to potential
donors in the hope that the donors will keep sending them money.

The major problem isn't that they trade favors to lobbyists to enrich
themselves directly (although some undoubtedly are), the problem is that they
trade favors to lobbyists in order to keep getting re-elected.

~~~
ljf
So should we pay them less maybe, so that only those that care about politics
run? Or does that leave them more open to bribery? A complex problem to solve!

~~~
raquo
The problem seems to be that a slightly indirect variation of bribery (aka
lobbying) has been legalized in the first place, not that such bribery is hard
to detect.

If there was any political will to solve this problem, it would have been
solved long ago.

------
jokoon
I wonder if we could agree that technology really allowed money to be
transformed into speech, which is something the founding fathers could not
have really envisioned. So maybe restricting political message in the media
would be a solution? Although I don't really know as I am not an american.

Anyway, as long as unfettered free speech is put on a pedestal, it's never
guaranteed to always benefit the public.

