
Show HN: I'm tired of corrupt US politicians, so I created this - pmarket
http://www.politicianmarket.com/
======
scott_s
I'm going to crib from my own post from two days ago:

Donations don't literally buy votes, but what they do literally buy is face
time. That is, people in Congress will hold fundraisers, and lobbyists pay to
attend those fundraisers. The understanding is that the lobbyists who attend
those fundraisers will have time to talk to the politician about the issues
their clients care about.

This episode of Planet Money clearly demonstrates this:
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/11/01/141913370/the-
tues...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/11/01/141913370/the-tuesday-
podcast-inside-washingtons-money-machine)

Edit: I remove the SOPA specific stuff, and didn't realize that in doing so, I
removed the punchline. The implication of the above is that politicians'
agenda becomes set by those who have the money to pay lobbyists. When you
spend a lot of time talking to a bunch of people with an agenda, you will
start to think about that agenda a lot. It's a natural consequence of the
circumstances and the incentives.

I've harped on this point several times in the last few days. My reason is
simple: we must understand the real problem before we can fix it. And the real
problem is not "Vote for _x_ and I'll give you money." That is illegal. What I
described above is legal, and while it is not illegal corruption, it is _a_
corruption of how we want the system to work.

And I stole that last sentiment from Lawrence Lessig:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc> Someone else here linked to that
a few days ago, and it's worth watching.

~~~
rgarcia
I don't understand your point--wouldn't public financing of elections remove
the need to hold fundraisers?

The problem as I see it is that representatives are forced (due to the
exorbitant cost of campaigning) to win over wealthy interests. This manifests
itself as what we've seen with the whole SOPA debacle: representatives who are
completely out of touch with their constituents.

~~~
nimblegorilla
How would public financing solve anything? If we gave each candidate a billion
dollars it seems like there would still be an incentive to raise even more
money from rich corporations.

~~~
rgarcia
By definition public financing precludes corporate financing.

~~~
nimblegorilla
Thanks for an incorrect non-answer. The definition of public financing does
not by itself preclude corporate financing.

Even if you adopted additional restrictions on corporate financing I'm pretty
sure there would be all kinds of ways to shadow-fund a candidate. This creates
a situation where honest candidates are unfairly penalized against candidates
that still play the money game.

~~~
rgarcia
I guess I meant the de facto definition. Literally every attempt at a public
financing bill/amendment I've seen in Congress has the express purpose of
precluding _direct_ corporate financing[1].

Also, I was not arguing whether or not any of these proposals can be 100%
effective (like you clearly deny). This is a straw man, but it is definitely
worth debate on a case-by-case basis.

[1] most recent (and probably most ambitious) example:
<https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hjres100/report>. An intriguing proposal
from L. Lessig: <http://www.plainsite.org/issues/index.html?id=29>

------
bad_user
This is a parody, but something like this could work:

(1) show a list of bills that are passing Congress / the Senate

(2) for each proposal, show a list of politicians that supports or opposes it

(3) have a way for the user to flag politicians he wants to reward

(4) plus a way for the user to setup a recurring monthly donation, distributed
towards the politicians he supports, with a note pointing to your online
profile that exposes your interests

~~~
bjnortier_hn
What happened to "No taxation without representation"?

This would skew the government even more towards rewarding the rich -
increasing the size of the government-as-a-service market is a step in the
wrong direction.

~~~
jedbrown
What if the total contribution was capped? You could even add that he first
$50 of everyone's taxes would be appropriated as that person chooses (Lessig's
proposal).

------
scottdw2
I don't think that public funding of elections or free advertising (see the
bottom of the page) are the solutions to government corruption. That would
just force bribers to be more covert. It's analogous to the fact that SOPA
wouldn't stop piracy.

It seems to me that the real solution is to dramatically limit the size of
government, so that there is nothing to be bought, rather then just changing
the currency used to make the purchase.

~~~
david927
The wealthiest countries in the world have large governments and don't have
these problems.

Still, if we can bank online, we can vote online. I see nothing stopping a
proposal where if 25% of the public vote online, the result is accepted over
what Congress voted. No advertising allowed. Suddenly, bribing/lobbying
Congress would no longer make sense.

~~~
kiloaper
Regarding voting I highly recommend the brilliant 1970 comedy The Rise and
Rise of Michael Rimmer. It raises interesting questions about how people would
react to being about to vote for everything. Here's a brief summary of it
stolen from [http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2011/06/25/you-cant-vote-
for-e...](http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2011/06/25/you-cant-vote-for-
everything/)

>Rimmer poses as a true democrat, insisting that the people should always have
their way, hence the consultation on important matters – such as any new tax –
with the public at large.

>Whenever a question arose for determination a red light and loud buzzer would
come on and not go off until the household had voted on whatever question
appeared on the television screen.

>But Rimmer was a meglomaniacal schemer. He made more and more issues matters
for referendum questions. After a while the population got thoroughly fed of
having their lives incessantly disrupted. So he posed a final referendum
question – that all future questions should be decided by him. The masses
voted Yes

------
kitsune_
I know this is a parody, but a model like this could actually _work_. A
frightening thought.

~~~
wladimir
It's no longer a democracy, but at least it'd be transparent and honest.

~~~
JanezStupar
Democracy in classical sense means participation of the aristocracy, not wide
populist participation as practiced in 20th century.

I along with many of people I discuss politics agree that for wellbeing of
democracy the civic duties and privileges should be limited and not available
to everybody as a universal right.

Ignorance is the worst enemy of democracy. Letting the ignorant majority
participate in democratic process on principle alone does nothing for
democracy.

~~~
toyg
Bollocks. Democracy is, literally, "rule by the people"; you can twist the
definition of "people", but once you do, they stop being "people" in other
contexts too, and you really don't want to go there, if you really care about
your fellow man (if you don't, you can pick your preferred system that favours
your preferred type of assholes: with the right blood, with the right money,
with the right degrees, with the right veneral disease, whatever).

The real problem is that the Greek concept of Democracy was implemented at the
town level (their "cities" were really villages in the modern sense), and it
has struggled to _scale_ ever since. It's not surprising that the best
"democracies" tend to be the smallest in terms of population.

A literal democracy would have everyone being able to vote on any law at any
level, which is clearly impractical; unfortunately, once you introduce human
intermediaries / aggregators (i.e. your "representatives"), the dynamics
change massively, so you introduce corrections, which further sway the
dynamics, and on and on...

~~~
JanezStupar
But literally all historically successful democracies have limited what set of
populace are the "people".

I am not US citizen however I know that when the US was created "the people"
were pretty much in minority. It was also expected that "the people" will
respect and defend their civic freedoms.

The Switzerland for example historically only allowed armed men to vote and
even today if one rejects their military service they give up their voting
right.

As noble as this popular democracy concept seems in theory in practice it
means throwing pearls before the swine. In modern west 50% of people are just
to willfully ignorant to understand what civic rights and duties mean.

I am not in favor of any kind of representative model I am also not in favor
of direct democracy.

One mechanism would be imposing a citizens tax of 5% of income for those who
want their civic rights. That should clear the field pretty fast.

~~~
toyg
Well, I decide that, to fully participate in a democracy, you have to write in
correct English all the time, so hey, you're excluded already, dear
JanezStupar. How does that feel? Sorry, no repeated tests, once you're out
it's forever.

Let's say that tomorrow that 5% of income is what makes a difference between
life or death from hunger; and at the same time, (rich) "people" are proposing
a law that will literally kill whoever does not pay that 5%; do you pay and
vote against the law, then die from hunger, or do you not pay and die from the
hand of "the people"?

"In modern west" (as opposed to "in Soviet Russia"? lol), in some countries,
_less_ than 50% bother to vote in most elections, so the "to willfully
ignorant" [sic] already don't take part; it's important they maintain their
rights nevertheless. How many HN readers never bothered to deal with the US
Congress before SOPA was proposed? Would have been right to deny them a voice?

By now I'm pretty sure you're either trolling or a dangerous elitist, "to
willfully ignorant" to be trusted with any decision on political systems.

~~~
JanezStupar
Strawmen.

The only argument I am making is that Democracy means "rule by the people",
where "the people" is an arbitrary bunch. And in no way has it always meant
"everybody living on this land". This populist form of democracy is an
invention of 19th century.

What I am arguing is that I have noticed in historic annals that democracies
that have been virtuous and didn't implode after a generation all had built in
safeguards from populism. And that citizenship was never viewed as an
universal right, but always as privilege that one has to actively protect and
exercise else it will be taken away.

Indeed many people do not vote, however when some drastic measures need to be
taken, short term sacrifices for long term gain - these people will turn up
and block any hope of change.

Also I would like to remind you, that popular democracy was viewed as an
instrument of change, that mass participation in political process would
enable society to evolve faster into better forms. What it has proven is that
rule of the mob is the best "status quo" preserving device anybody ever
imagined.

You chose to attack the proposed mechanism, but I merely used it as an
example. Should you read this thread, you would notice that I proposed random
draw as another alternative.

All I am arguing is that some very wise people eons ago noticed, that for
prosperity to happen, you need an elite.

Thats what kept Roman republic strong for so long - the balance between elite
and the mob. Once the mob managed to break all the "privileges" of the elite,
Rome was effectively doomed.

I am not advocating policy here, I am discussing politics and history. No need
to call me names and mock me.

Thank you.

Edit: Soviet Russia (or any communist country) was not a country ruled by an
Elite. One does not become Elite by killing previous Elite and proclaiming
himself one. Building Elite class takes generations. What happened in
communist countries is what you get when you eradicate the Elite and let
inmates run the asylum.

------
jimmybot
Isn't this some kind of explicit, well-organized, distributed bribery?
Legislation for dollars?

Not saying it doesn't happen anyways. But not sure how this helps.

Edit: Ha. Okay, completely missed the parody disclaimer.

~~~
scott_w
The disclaimer at the bottom states that it's a parody.

------
ttt_
I think that we should be trying to limit what incentives there are today for
politicians to become corrupt. The biggest one IMO is the campaign as it
exists today. They are long lasting and very expensive, hence a politician has
no chance other than to find ways to fund their campaign.

The resulting factor is that this attracts the attention of parties that do
have large sums of money and that comes with an implied exchange of favors.

An option would be for campaigning to be restricted to low cost media such as
the internet and maybe government provided TV time.

Another alternative to be considered. Every cent spent on campaign should be
divided equally between parties, where if you buy a 20 second ad on TV than
that time will be equally divided between your campaign and all other
oponents.

------
Ryan_Shmotkin
What we need is KickStarter for Bills !

Let the people fund the bills they want.

Its time to stop poor people having soo much say..

------
vladd
At large scale, there's something even better than money: votes.

Make a website where I can express my point of view about some legislation
(SOPA, PIPA, etc) and then, given a list of candidates for the elections in my
district, show who should I vote for based on their voting history.

------
georgecmu
Excellent idea!

Consider adding a separate sign-on for politicians promising them a campaign
funds dashboard, real-time tracking of most profitable causes, political
profile tuner, etc

Limit sign-ons to .gov email addresses, restricting early stage use to elected
officials and representatives only.

~~~
kmfrk
Just let the analytics be public to everyone in the name of transparency.

------
joering2
I think wise politics is about wise decisions that are based on todays
situation but reach out in the future. The worst case scenario are politicians
who make up their mind today and change it 180deg later on. While some may say
they may be uneducated, lack experience, etc, corruption is also a big deal.

what I would love to have is a website like politicopedia where i could see
all politicians enlisted and each vote on each bill with date they voted and
why they voted this way. this would be a great tool to run statistics down the
line: see who voted right/wrong way on certain issues, etc.

------
edandersen
Bootstrap Hint: Check out the bootstrap-scrollspy.js code to make the
navigation at the top change when you scroll down to the matching anchor tag.

~~~
pmarket
Thank you.

------
un1xl0ser
I was hoping for assassination politics, but this was amusing. Maybe I'm a bit
thick, but this couldn't be legal, could it?

~~~
cipherpunk
Haha, I came here to post the exact same thing. For those that don't know:
<http://technoanimal.net./ap.html>

------
pdelgallego
Too late, Bloomberg government[1] its already doing it.

[1] <http://about.bgov.com/>

------
danso
Why not go the SUPERPAC route to make this viable?
[http://www.propublica.org/article/in-the-gusher-of-super-
pac...](http://www.propublica.org/article/in-the-gusher-of-super-pacs-even-
one-named-the-internet)

------
pmarket
Jesus! I'm using JotForms for the email signup and the traffic just took them
down.

------
kermitthehermit
I don't normally wish people any kind of death other than a good natural one
when they're extremely old, but I can certainly wish the corrupt politicians
slow excruciatingly painful deaths.

------
jrabone
Hate to be "that guy", but there's a typo: "Note: Your opinion is important
for us to ignore. If you must ___recieve_ __a reply, donate $500 and try
again."

~~~
pmarket
Fixed.

------
mrkmcknz
I think the US election system is fundamentally flawed.

Why wouldn't a UK like approach work of limiting campaign budgets?

Focus more on politics and not lobbying/fundraising.

~~~
waterside81
Because there's too much money to be made from campaigning. TV networks alone
are rolling in the cash during these prolonged primaries & campaigns.

~~~
nickik
Countrys are to big, there is too much power in few places. I think a more
federalistic system helps and even within one governing entity you can
distribute the power more. One thing I really like that we have in
Switzerland, we have 7 instead of one president and they are all elected from
parlament (the president cant just get people who are his drones).

------
funkdobiest
Isn't this essentially a PAC or Super PAC. Give money to a middle man, who
then "gives" it to the politicians in exchange for a vote.

------
aleksandrm
Isn't this what <http://www.wethelobby.com/> is trying to do?

------
jebblue
Is the site serious? If it is then shouldn't it be reported for the conception
of a political corruption scheme?

------
brador
Why not skip the middle and just field our own candidates?

Viral marketing > any other marketing known to man.

------
epynonymous
what the world needs are more robin hoods. anonymous is a partial example of
this, an elite group that fears no organization (big or small) and the means
to exact change.

checked out the site, personally i think the money angle defeats the purpose
of politics, politicians should be bred to enable positive changes in society
based on their core beliefs and principles, dangling a carrot in front of them
is not going to foster this behavior, imho.

a better idea would be some site that promotes discussion amongst the people
for certain topics and would have some angle to bring politicians into those
conversations. that would really help connect the two.

~~~
kaffeinecoma
It was meant to be a parody.

------
molmalo
HN-Effect:

\--------------------

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Over Quota

This application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again
later.

~~~
pmarket
Edit: Should be back up now. Sorry about that.

~~~
molmalo
That was fast! Amusing :) Thanks!

------
noonespecial
The people we really need to be able to get our bribes to are the un-elected,
appointed positions like the "czar of this and that".

Feature request: Bribes to those in appointed positions for special favors.
Thanks.

~~~
llambda
> Feature request: Bribes to those in appointed positions for special favors.
> Thanks.

That would constitute a felony.

~~~
RockyMcNuts
IANAL, and possibly a blinding glimpse of the obvious (BGO), but without some
kind of parody get-out-of-jail card, the site already meets the test of
bribery, paying an official to do something.

More serious comment... not sure what people have against so-called czars. The
president (or congress-critters) have staffers who focus on specific issues,
talk to affected constituents, recommend policy. Ultimately, the elected
official makes decision based on recommendations. Is that a bad thing, is he
supposed to make all decisions on his own in a vacuum?

~~~
noonespecial
Its actually not the "czars" per se, that I have a problem with. Its more the
persistent, appointed, un-elected positions that span administrations but
still have the full force of the executive branch.

------
pmarket
Edit: The main domain is back up.

------
mw63214
what about a political triple bottom line? Cost, Constitutionality,
Efficiency.

------
james-fend
Oh no.. Site's down!

------
hobin
This is absolutely brilliant.

------
jcslzr
where are the social media buttons?

------
gcb
You can't say "give the money"

Say "attend his next fundraising"

------
daintynews
Wow. Bribery at its most sickening.

