
Two Congressional Staffers Who Helped Write SOPA Become Entertainment Lobbyists - philjackson
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111209/10151917022/shockingly-unshocking-two-congressional-staffers-who-helped-write-sopapipa-become-entertainment-industry-lobbyists.shtml
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DevX101
You'll never find a politician worth his/her salt taking cash from a company.

The way its done is to push through favorable laws for a company with a wink
and a nod, and then come back and work for the company as a
consultant/lobbyist with a minimum 1 million dollar per year salary.

Billy Tauzin did this quite well with PhRMA (lobbying group for pharma
companies). He headed up the committee which oversees drug companies and led
the push to pass the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill which was quite favorable
to drug companies. The bill among other things allows drug companies to set an
arbitrary price for the drug without Medicare having the option to negotiate
on prices.

As soon as the bill was passed he retired from Congress to lead PhRMA with a
$2.5 million USD per year salary. Mission complete.

~~~
DiabloD3
Short of Ron Paul, where do you find politicians, nay, statesmen who don't
take cash from companies?

~~~
twoodfin
Considering it's illegal to take campaign contributions from corporations, I
don't think you find many serving politicians who are doing so.

~~~
beernutz
Not any more it isn't. Freaking supreme court. 8(

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission)

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kyledrake
Lauren Pastarnack's Twitter account is @lpastarnack

Feel free to express your opinions to her. Remember that the only reason they
do these things is because they don't think anybody is paying attention. Let
her know you're paying attention.

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mathattack
Regulatory capture is the natural side effect of regulatory control of
industries. Look no further than Barney Frank asking the companies he
regulated to hire his SO.

~~~
gujk
A balance of power between multiple branches and levels of government, and aka
oversight, can mitigate that. Not perfect, but neither is nonregulation.

~~~
mathattack
There is no perfect solution, and complain as I do, we still have something
good and fixable.

In general I prefer less regulation and smaller government so we can let the
market handle resource allocation for us. The less pie for the govt to waste,
the better we are.

I believe regulation is definitely needed where there are externalities:
pollution, access to education, basic r and d...

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nextparadigms
This won't end lobbying, but it's a start in the right direction if people
call their Congressmen and ask them to vote for it:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/saving-
our-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/saving-our-
democracy_b_1137783.html)

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click170
I thought Obama already passed a bill that was supposed to prevent
lobbyists->industry shenanigans like this when he first came in to office. I
remember it being portrayed as the first bill he signed. Am I misremembering
things?

~~~
hammerdr
It was an Executive Order that only affected the Executive branch. But, there
has been some abuses of an exception clause in the executive order. More
information can be found at (the previously linked on this thread)
[http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/promises/obameter/pr...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/promises/obameter/promise/240/tougher-rules-against-revolving-door-for-
lobbyists/)

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rickdale
I thought Obama was going to 'change' washington and more specifically end the
bs lobbying that continues to punish the people of the United States. Most
lobbyists are going to be scum, but in a place where having job is so
cherished, you can't blame them for doing their job.

~~~
illumin8
How exactly is the President, who is head of the executive branch, going to
fix the shenanigans going on in the legislative branch? Remember, the
President doesn't make laws, he just enforces them (indirectly, through the
Executive branch).

The real problem is that asking legislators to pass laws against their own
self interest will never work.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure that no President can
solve this problem. Blaming Obama because you don't understand high school
level US history is pretty sad and doesn't give me a lot of confidence that
the average voter will ever solve this problem, either.

~~~
hammerdr
The President certainly does have legislative power, some directly appointed
and some not. He has the ability to veto bills. His VP--effectively an
employee of his branch--has the ability to break ties in the Senate.

He is also the leader of his party. The President can direct the party to
focus on a particular issue. Granted, this is more "soft" power than "hard"
and there is only so much political capital a President can use. But, Obama in
particular was elected with a large majority and is dealing with a Congress
that has an approval rating of about 12 percent.

Futhermore, and more indirect, the President can elect Federal judges (not
just Supreme Court justices, but Federal court and appellate court judges)
that can "legislate from the bench." Effectively creating or destroying law
that would prevent or enable, respectively, lawmakers to be a part of the
Revolving Door[1] and to take money from lobbyists.

So, yes, most of the blame is on the legislators. But the President does not
get a free pass.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)>

~~~
shadowfiend
A few things to keep in mind. First off, the President appoints judges and
justices, but in no way does he guide them once they've been appointed. When
appointing these positions, the best the President can do (keep in mind they
have to be confirmed by 2/3s of the Senate) is to try to pick someone who will
not undo years of jurisprudence the President agrees with. Once the position
has been appointed, the President no longer has any control, and I believe the
evidence says Presidential initiatives have both been supported and torn down
at various times by the same judges and justices they've appointed.

Additionally, the President is the leader of his party,but there is a
significantly greater power to being the leader of the Republican party than
that of the Democratic party. This is because the Democratic party is much
more fragmented and pulls from a much wider pool of underlying ideas than does
the Republican one, so legislators representing their communities will be much
tougher to keep on a coherent party message on a given issue. This is why,
despite the strong hand he was dealt, the healthcare package passed by the
Congress was lackluster at best: the Republican support was uniformly against
it, while the Democratic support was extremely fragmented.

The President gets a free pass insofar as one has to look and see whether he's
used the tools at his disposal to try to guide things in the right direction.
You don't judge him by the result, but by whether he did what he could to
influence it “correctly”, no matter what the result ultimately was. In the
specific case of lobbying/corruption, mind you, I think (a) the evidence is
unclear-to-negative and (b) Obama quickly decided to lose the focus on that in
favor of trying to pull out of the recession as best he could and passing some
of his legislative priorities. Whether the latter was a good decision or not
is definitely up for debate. In a similar vein, the civil rights verbiage from
the campaign for the most part went into a tailspin within a year of his
taking office.

~~~
hammerdr
All great points and a finer tooth comb of nuances than my own analysis :)

It all goes to show that the system in Washington is a complex piece of
machinery that requires a hacker mentality to succeed. I absolutely and truly
believe that the same mentality that makes great programmers also make great
political operatives. Regardless of political ideology, I think we, as a
community, can get involved to a much larger degree to help influence and
shape the world from the other side of the business/government divide.

~~~
shadowfiend
Definitely true. I think, unfortunately, that it seems like the hacker
mentality also lends itself more to cynicism, and the end result is that the
hacker mentality lends itself more to a bit of fatalism when it comes to the
government. That, combined with the (less pronounced, perhaps) tendency of the
hacker mentality to dovetail with introversion, makes it harder for the hacker
community to get involved in that sense.

That sounds cynical, of course. I do think we can get better :) And I think
SOPA for one was a great example of the community going “hang on just a second
here…”

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dpres
Relevant video from article comments:

Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist's playbook
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHiicN0Kg10>

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chaselee
Shockingly unshocking perfectly describes my reaction.

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dmorre
this makes me sick.

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Sundog
And Chris Dodd quietly retire to become President of the MPAA

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NHQ
Add their names and faces to the Public Shaming Website!

