
Kill Hollywood? Let's fix politics instead: kill lobbying. - cies
I read the 'Kill Hollywood' RFC, gave it some thought and came to a conclusion that killing Hollywood is not a Value Adding Intention (tm).  I understand that the RFC is a response to SOPA&#38;co which is obviously pushed by Hollywood.<p>My thoughts went: "Should we-the-people retaliate against some influential business (sector) every time they successfully lobby for their own interests against the interest of the wider public?"<p>On which I concluded: "No we should fix politics instead, that's where the problem originates, that's where we can fix it once and for all."<p>And the most obvious fix I see is to criminalize lobbying (= power to the wealthy) as it is against democracy (= power to the people) in its very nature.<p>Just to name a few sectors that successfully lobbied for changes that (imho) harmed the wider public: banks, car industry, big-oil, big-pharma, big-food, military contractors.<p>Some simple math: if business (sector) X puts in 5M for a lobby on issue Y; the probability of success on their lobby campaign is 0.5; then the payoff of the campaign is at least 10M.  Now where do those 10M come from?  From everyone that is not X.  In other words: the honest people --who do not try to influence politics outside of the public discussion-- lose from the wealthy mega-corps.<p>Lobbying is currently a fast growing industry itself:<p>http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/01/washington-lobbying-grew-to-32.html<p>So please YC use your influence to fight the real bad, and "Kill the Lobby" with an RFC :)
======
dazzawazza
If you remove lobbying from a political system then the elected officials
exist in a vacuum with no information coming from outside sources. Remember
charities and NGO's also lobby government (as well as the churches, mosques,
temples, big pharma, little pharma, oil, mothers for this or that, fathers for
other stuff, governments for war, governments for peace.... this list is
endless).

The problem isn't lobbying. It's corrupt elected officials who at best accept
bribes/payment to fund an overly expensive electioneering machine. The problem
is that lobbying happens with no public over site and now accountability.

The problem is more complex than just removing lobbying. Do you really want
government making decisions without asking companies advice? The same
companies that the government expects to implement strategies?

Say for example the USA predicts a 20% increase in crude oil use over the next
10 years. Where the refineries should go, where the oil is best sourced, how
the petrol products are best distributed are all important questions that the
oil industry is well placed to help answer. Not dictate of course but their
opinion should matter.

EDIT: Before anyone accuses me of supporting the current system please give me
the benefit of the doubt. I understand the system is inadequate as it stands
but to remove lobbying just creates another problem of equal gravity.

~~~
iwwr
The point is that greed is dependable and stable. If you can depend on
something that won't ruin the economy or society, then at least that works as
a guarantee against worse excesses. And let's face it, even large corporations
have a stake in maintaining a veneer of free enterprise (even though they tend
toward cronyism).

Consider that idealistic politicians are also capable of more damage than
corrupt self-interested ones.

The solution is not to seek for selfless idealists (who may be dangerous), but
to remove power from politicians (to the extent possible) or at least to move
decision making as close/locally as possible to the areas affected.

In a way, those interested in politics to make money would be less interested
in it for the pure sake of having (then preserving) political power.

Here's one way to start: remove direct elections of senators. It makes
lobbyists having to deal with 50 separate state legislatures rather than 100
individuals.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _The point is that greed is dependable and stable. If you can depend on
> something that won't ruin the economy or society_

That statement shows exactly why "libertarianism" and all associated doctrines
are built on a solid foundation of ignorance of human nature. There's nothing
you could argue, really, when the other party is not even aware of the basic
axioms.

~~~
iwwr
Just in this context of a political system, having a self-interested
politician is _less dangerous_ than having an idealistic one. Mind you, there
are good and bad idealists, but their impact is greater; and since politicians
generally are negative, it's better their impact be restrained at least by
that narrow sentiment.

------
JunkDNA
I recognize that Lawrence Lessig is beating this particular drum lately, and
he's probably way smarter than me. However, I can't escape the idea that money
is the mother's milk of politics. It's like water in that it always finds a
way through an obstacle, no matter how much you put in its way. If you
eliminate overt lobbying, organizations will find a way to route around
whatever laws are in place to lobby covertly, in ways that are likely much
harder for the average person to detect.

Furthermore, I'd point out that, depending on the form of a ban on lobbying,
the recent SOPA protest might not have been able to happen. Google might have
been prevented from blacking out their page as would Wikipedia, lest they run
afoul of anti-lobbying laws. That's something worth thinking about.

It's also not just the business sector that has lobbyists. There are tons of
other groups. The Sierra Club and NRA are two biggies that come to mind. As an
individual, it's much more efficient for me to throw in with one of those
groups to ensure my interests are protected than it is to do it myself. Both
are exceptionally effective at getting what they want because they spend all
day keeping an eye on elected (and unelected) government officials and their
continued existence hinges on their success.

I'm not arguing that we have to _like_ this current situation, but it's hard
for me to think of a _better_ scenario that doesn't infringe on the rights of
people to assemble as a group and voice their opininon via financial support,
advertising, etc... Just because some of the time we don't personally like the
result of lots of lobbyists, doesn't mean this is the root of all evil. In the
end, all the money in the world isn't going to compel ordinary citizens to
vote for someone who doesn't have their interests in mind. Exhibit A would be
John Corzine who had an incredible fortune at his disposal in his reelection
bid as governor of NJ and _still_ lost to Chris Christie in 2009.

~~~
chiaro
The way I see it, the only reason political parties need such vast amounts of
money is to spend it campaigning. If you reduce the need or ability to
campaign, by restricting advertising or making voting compulsory, the demand
for money is lessened, and some industry or another threatening to pull their
support isn't such a big deal.

~~~
simonbrown
How would making voting compulsory reduce the need/ability to campaign?

~~~
jbooth
A huge part of campaigning is either driving your own turnout (field
operations) or suppressing the other guys' turnout (negative ads).
Additionally, there's a philosophy of "suppress turnout in general and it will
probably help me", which statistically is a good move for Republicans, most of
the time.

The argument is that compulsory voting would disincentivize these activities
in favor of issues-based campaigning. I agree although I'm not sure I agree
strongly enough to favor compulsory voting.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
How about "single payer" campaign funding?

You want to contribute money to politics? Sure, feel free to pour some into
this big barrel over here. The proceeds will be evenly divided between all
candidates.

~~~
simonbrown
At the party level, or just to "politics" in general?

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Nation-wide.

------
mcherm
You are missing the point. PG didn't say "Kill Hollywood" in order to get
revenge on them for SOPA/PIPA. (He _did_ title the piece in a provocative
manner that _suggested_ he was seeking revenge. That title certainly bought
the piece some notoriety.)

Instead, PG said "Kill Hollywood" because the SOPA/PIPA debacle finally made
it apparent to him that these industries are ripe for replacement. Imagine you
notice that some middleman in a purchasing chain is starting to try very hard
to include terms in their contracts that prohibit their customers from going
directly to suppliers. This might make you realize that this middleman is
scared of becoming unnecessary as customers go directly to suppliers. The
middleman is in a position to know their industry really well... perhaps it's
time for you to start up a business matching up the customers with suppliers
directly (for a tiny cut, of course), thus killing off the middleman and
making yourself a successful company in the process.

Well, that's what PG saw going on here. The SOPA/PIPA behavior made him
realize that these media companies are focusing on keeping their position
rather than on improving their services, which made it obvious that they are
in danger of LOSING their position. What a perfect time to launch a company
intended to profit from the large-scale changes that will be happening anyway.

------
JumpCrisscross
There is good economic literature on how bribery evolves into its more
transparent and regulated form, lobbying, as a society develops. There is an
equally developed literature on the returns on lobbying. Book-ending all of
this is the legitimate claim that no elected official can be expected to
understand everything of consequence and so will probably need to be
"educated" (the base claim of every lobbyist, whether in good faith or not).

Killing lobbying, sadly, is not an option. It will force the influence vectors
under the table and cause all sorts of nastiness. People wanting to influence
power isn't bad; it just needs to be effectively channeled.

What is needed is more _transparency_. Going both ways.

Going up, we need some way for politicians to effectively guage the support or
opposition to a proposed piece of legislation. The ad hoc activism model we
have going now is Dark Ages crap.

I can see a future where reps and senators pledge to use an online polling
platform for bills that voters registered in their district sign up to voice
up with, and where not pledging to use such a system will be anathema to one's
campaign.

Going down, we need something that makes campaign financing more effective. By
more effective I mean that instead of finding out about donation opportunities
ad hoc I have a systematic way of ensuring I have considered every candidate
and that every candidate has been evaluated on every issue pertinent to me.
Not terrifically complicated software.

Second stage of top-to-bottom transparency revolves around informing voters,
but I think that is fairly well covered for the amount of influence it has and
the number of people who regularly and actively follow elections.

------
malandrew
Lobbyists are further proof that shipping code wins and they know this. We can
discuss this all we want in the blogosphere, but so long as they are the ones
implementing the laws, those are the implementations and architectural
decisions we're going to have to live with. Congress is a commit generator,
and most of the "code" put in front of them for review are written by
lobbyists.

From my understanding, it isn't Congressmen that write the laws most of the
time. AFAIK, many laws are written by industry and then handed to Congressmen
read and modify, and such bills are handed with explanations and arguments to
why they are needed. Such a process with always result in laws that move in
the interest of lobbying powers due to the very nature of how negotiation
works. In every negotiation, you have an "anchoring" effect, where the final
outcome will be near the starting point. With that in mind, lobbyists define
the starting point and therefore where the anchor is hooked on every debate.

The only solution I can come up with to this is a requirement that every
single bill needs to be drafted in the open with a commit history of who made
each and every commit to a bill. Only with this in place would we be able to
see how much of the laws are written not by government but by industry. It
would also give the people (specifically active concerned citizens) a voice
early on in the process so that the position on which the "anchor gets hooked"
is more balanced and representative.

Politicians, and especially lobbyists, today say things to the effect that it
is difficult to draft laws and discuss things out in the open. What those that
complain about this fail to understand is that that is the very essence of
democracy. Democracy starts at the beginning of the discussion of public
policy, not at the point at which policy comes to a vote.

Dodd, during his speech where he remarked that SOPA was a watershed moment,
even said, "the white noise has made it impossible to have a conversation
about this. We've gotta find a better way to have that conversation than we
have in the last two weeks." This attitude is a clear sign of someone that
doesn't understand what a democracy is. That white noise is democracy in
action and the best thing we can do is make sure that democracy is happening
at the inception of every idea that evolves into a law.

We basically need a super easy, useable git for laws accessible by everyone.

~~~
malandrew
According to this article 65% of bills are written by lobbyists:
<http://www.mercurynews.com/politics-government/ci_15452125>

------
rayiner
There are too many in the tech community that are susceptible to such bullshit
reductionist viewpoints. You don't gain anything from ignoring the fundamental
features of reality. There are two inescapable points:

1) We live in a highly interdependent society of 300m people. Such a society
needs to be governed. Indeed, it needs a lot of government, like any
amalgamation of people that are forced to interact with each other. The debate
about "more versus less government" is only sensible in the margins. Its
really more of a question of "good versus bad government."

2) The public needs to advise elected officials. Because of (1), elected
officials have a huge range of issues to deal with. It is literally impossible
for them to educate themselves about those issues. Lobbyists fill to role of
educating officials.

You're not going to be able to run a society that has, e.g., no regulated
industries (see 1) or one where representatives of those industries do not
weigh in on that regulation (see 2). Forget about such childish ideas.

Stuff like "get rid of lobbying" is as useful in political debate as
statements like "get rid of gravity" are in aerospace engineering. Yes, that
would make certain things easier, but...

~~~
angersock
Please provide your reasoning for your assertion in (1). You did not explain
why you "need" government of presumably central authority, as opposed to
something like an agreed-upon set of protocols operating at a local level.

Please also explain your reasoning for (2). It does not seem immediately
obvious that the majority of the public has anything useful to say about
policy whatsoever.

~~~
rayiner
One can imagine a distributed system of organization, akin to what is used in
the internet, but that's still organization. I'm personally a fan of pushing
more authority down to the courts, which are both distributed and local.
However, at the end of the day it becomes a question of where particular
authority exists rather than a question of a need for the existence of
authority.

We live in a highly interdependent society of 300m people. Highly specialized
division of labor has given us a society where any person depends on probably
10,000 others for their basic needs, and modern technology has given us a
society where nearly every human activity has the potential to harm large
numbers of people. However you want to structure it, you need government to
ensure the harmonious operation of such a society. Government is indeed an
emergent phenomenon in human societies. As Google grew from a startup to a
multi-national, it didn't have the conscious intention of growing a management
layer for the sake of having more management. Yet, Google has a lot of
management. Indeed, even in computers we see operating systems exploding in
size and complexity as computers themselves become more functional and
complex.

Techies take it for granted that startups grow management as they mature, that
operating systems get more complex, that schedulers and out-of-order execution
structures eat up increasingly large amounts of die-space in CPU's, yet there
is a large contingent that thinks that a government running the affairs of 300
million people could be dramatically (meaning 10x, not 25%). Techies don't bat
an eye at an OS that takes up 20% of your memory right off the bat, but in the
face of a federal civil service payroll that amounts to 1.5% of GDP, many
complain loudly of "too much government." Now, there are good arguments to be
made that we could trim here and there and maybe get an effective government
half the size (though it should be noted our federal system by design doesn't
lend itself to particular efficiency), but do you think a federal government
with a million employees and $1.5 trillion in expenditures would be so
qualitatively different from the one we have now? Of course not.

Re: lobbyists, I didn't say anything about the majority of the public having
useful things to say about policy. I said that 1) there are lots of policies
that need to be made; and 2) there is no practical way for elected officials
to make such policies without input from the affected parties (i.e.
lobbyists).

Let me give you a very specific example. Here in Chicago we have two very
dirty coal power plants. They're the product of an elementary market failure
(the power company that profits from their operation doesn't bear the
staggering health costs of that operation). They're also the product of a
basic democratic failure (the health costs are highly localized to poor
communities, so in effect voters choose to get cheaper electricity at the
expense of a poor minority). Shutting down those coal plants is almost
certainly the right thing to do, even on a purely economic calculus. Now, a
legislator could read up on economic externalities, demography, and public
health, and come to that conclusion. Do you think a group of state
legislators, who all work part time, are going to be able to do all that?
Hell, all that theory would go completely over the heads of many HN-ers, much
less most Illinois state legislators! Someone needs to collect the data,
estimate the health consequences of the plants, estimate the economic
consequences of shutting them down, put together a policy proposal, and tell a
legislator in 5 minutes why it is a good idea. That someone is a lobbyist
(whatever you choose to call them).

~~~
angersock
(upvoted for good answer, thank you sir/madam)

I would agree that government through some mechanism is needed--thank you for
clarifying your position in that regard.

Note, though, that some of your examples--Google's management, OS complexity,
and so on--are actually very much contested in some circles. People _accept_
that their OS of choice may be bloated, but few I believe _want_ that.

There's an interesting question present, though, in the "running the affairs
of 300 million people", right? To what degree does the government actually
"run" those affairs, and ought the government do so?

As regards to the Chicago thing--that sucks, good luck. :(

------
hawk1701
I live in Connecticut, and people should be aware that we have a great
campaign finance system here (best in the country, IMHO) that's made an
enormous difference reducing the power of lobbyists at our State Capitol.

To show how the system works, I'll give an example. A typical State Senate
campaign runs a budget of about $100k. Under our Clean Elections system,
participating candidates must raise $15k in small contributions of $100 or
less per person. They then qualify for a grant from the state of $85k to round
out their budget.

The grants are funded by state auction of unclaimed property and the like, not
by taxpayer dollars (though even if we didn't do it this way, clean elections
would still be a worthy thing for taxpayers to support).

This system is purely voluntary, but 75% of all candidates participated in the
last state election. Our current governor was the first ever elected under
this system.

Of course, this kind of reform doesn't happen out of the blue. A previous
governor of our found himself thrown in jail for bribes and corruption.
Afterward, both parties found themselves competing to "out-reform" the other,
and this campaign finance system was the result.

Politically active folks I know tell me that lobbyists at the State Capitol in
Hartford are less than half of their former selves. They still exist, but
don't hold nearly as much power as they once did, when we called our state
"Corrupticut."

Our system isn't perfect, but I think it's far better than anything that's
done in any other state.

More states should move in our direction, but that will require overcoming
their own lobbyists first. Not easy, but we are proof that it's possible.

Sadly, many outsiders don't like our system. The US Supreme Court also might
destroy it (and a similar system in Arizona). It would be like Citizens United
all over again.

But don't just take my word on all of this. Here's more info for the
interested:

<http://prospect.org/article/clean-election-state>

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Money for political campaigns should be a "single payer" system.

------
jcampbell1
Lobbying in its most basic form is simply free speech. I _should_ have the
right to assemble with like minded people and say whatever I want. We should
also be free to contact politicians with the message, or pay for ads on TV
with our message. How do you stop this and claim to be a free country? I don't
much care for Citizens United, but I am certain the founding fathers
considered political speech to be covered in the 1st Amendment.

I agree with the idea, but the devil is in the details. Congress should start
with a cooling off period for staffers to work for lobbying firms, but I don't
even know what it means to "criminalize lobbying".

~~~
chiaro
Another way to look at it is that lobbying distorts free speech. Instead of
each person having an equal, free, say, a person with more money has a
'greater say', if that makes sense. Sooner or later we'll have to work out
whether free speech or true (as far as representation goes) democracy is more
important to us.

~~~
jerf
Trying to "equalize" free speech just hands vast swathes of power to the
people who get to define "equal". Speech is intrinsically unequal in
effectiveness and there's no way to make that go away.

------
car
An important measure to change the skewed dynamics of political financing in
the US would be the additional funding of political parties with money from
the government. An example of this is Germany, where parties receive money
from the state according to the number of votes they collect, in addition to
other funding sources. This relieves the pressure to raise money from
corporations, and makes politicians less dependent on "money interests".

EDIT: Wikipedia article going into more detail, see under 'Political Revenue':
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_finance_in_Germany>

------
jugglinmike
Lawrence Lessig has much to say on the subject:

[http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/01/02/lawrence-lessig-on-
money-...](http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/01/02/lawrence-lessig-on-money-
corruption-and-politics)

Basically, publicly-funded elections could remove the corrupting influence of
corporate money. Still not clear on how we get there, but I may pick up his
latest book to learn more

~~~
ashconnor
Great google talk on the subject for those interested:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc>

------
wallacrw
I think it's important to note who the lobbyists are trying to speak for: it's
you as a voter. Same with money.

Bottom line: you cannot buy a political office anywhere in America. You still
must be voted in. You also cannot directly give money to a politician for
their personal benefit; money can only be contributed to their (re-)election
campaign. It's valuable because it buys media (that's 60% or more of a
campaign cost).

So money, and lobbyists, are just proxies for large blocks of votes.

To fix this problem, you really need voters who stand by their own principles
and aren't overly influenced by one-sided media (that's the only reason a
politician needs money).

You also need to somehow disconnect the influence of media and advertising
from actual voters. Would love to hear ideas on that particular problem.

More realistic changes include those that Lessig proposes: finance campaigns
through what is effectively a capped tax credit offered to every taxpayer to
allocate among candidates as they see fit, then repeal Citizens United.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _So money, and lobbyists, are just proxies for large blocks of votes._

No, it's not.

I only have one vote, and a few bucks to donate.

Ritchey Rich Jr., over there, has only one vote, and $100 million to donate.
He trumps me by many orders of magnitude. And his money is a proxy only for
his own self-interest.

 _That_ is the real problem nowadays.

------
danielrhodes
Lobbying is constitutionally protected, and rightfully so. Without such a
protection, the government is under no obligation to open a dialog with
citizens. When people organized against SOPA, that was lobbying. That ability
to talk with your representatives and leaders should not be removed.

------
urza
I was very amazed to learn that in the USA you can legally give money to
politicians so that they would vote for something. It is illegal in my country
and I have trouble finding rationale why on Earh, could this be legal
anywhere?!

~~~
learc83
>so that they would vote for something.

That is illegal, here's what wikipedia has to say

>Similarly, political donors are legally entitled to support candidates that
hold positions with which the donors agree, or which will benefit the donors.
Such conduct becomes bribery only when there is an identifiable exchange
between the contribution and official acts, previous or subsequent, and the
term quid pro quo denotes such an exchange.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _That is illegal_

It is _technically_ illegal.

------
eof
What the OP really meant, I think, was kill corporate contributions to
candidates/officials/campaigns.

A company should certainly be allowed to hire someone whose soul job is to
educate politicians.

Probably though, they should not be able to buy them fancy dinner, give them
gifts, etc. Probably it is even fair to say that lobbying _must_ be
transparent. Either through some new system which interfaces citizens with
their officials; or, through some direct transparency with regard to
intentions of the lobbyist.

Money is the problem, not the lobbying.

------
schwit
There's a number of little things that would make lobbying less effective.

\- Move legislators back to their home district

\- Term limits

\- Permit them to only accept contributions from registered voters in their
district

\- repeal the 17th amendment

~~~
twoodfin
Congratulations, you've empowered the permanent bureaucracy.

~~~
rafcavallaro
He said "term limits" not "remove all power from elected officials." We
already have what you call a "permanent bureaucracy" - it's called the civil
service. It executes orders from elected officials - the President, cabinet
officers, and every civil servant's paycheck is dependent on the good will of
Congress.

Limiting the influence of lobbyist's campaign contributions will empower
ordinary citizens since elected officials will be more dependent on pleasing
us to get elected rather than pleasing large donors so they can use large
donor money to run media campaigns to get elected. Reducing the influence of
large campaign donors will not give the civil service any more power than it
has now.

~~~
r00fus
The civil service is corrupt along with staffers and legislators themselves.

The problem is the revolving door between industry and government... the
promise of being able to sacrifice yourself politically translating directly
into a cushy job in industry that's gained billions by the malfeasance... high
profile examples are legion: Dick Cheney, Dick Gephardt, Pat Toomey, and (more
timely) Chris Dodd.

I don't know the best solution but an airgap of related employment (say, 2
years) would probably slow this process down.

------
bad_user
Should, could, would - are all nice and all.

Convincing democratically-elected representatives to stop receiving money,
money they use to buy votes, is a futile fight. Even if you do, many will just
be corrupt and still accept money or other kinds of payment. IMHO, I'm
starting to think that this system is really good - at least you have the
means to find out who paid what and to whom.

Killing Hollywood, or at least doing something to make them think twice the
next time, now that's doable.

~~~
coffeeaddicted
I think the money needed to buy votes is a rather US specific problem and
maybe not that hard to attack. As example - in Germany we have 2 laws for
reducing the dependency of political parties on private sponsors. The first is
that TV stations have to send a certain amount of political spots before
elections for all acknowledged parties and the parties only have to pay the
self-costs of the stations for that time (around 35% of the price for
commercial advertisement). The second law is that parties that get above 0.5%
or 1% (depending on the type of election) receive money for each received vote
(up to certain limits to prevent that parties just take part in an election to
make money from that). I don't say it's perfect and there is still a lot of
financing going on beside that, but it shows that the fight at least isn't
futile and that it is possible to reduce the dependencies on sponsors.

~~~
jennyjitters
If countries outside of the US can manage to run their government without
extreme interference of lobbyists, then there is certainly a way for us to do
it, too. The problem here isn't "well, how will politicians get accurate
information without having to spend loads of time doing research?" It's more
an issue of the culture in the US. If we make a shift towards a system more
like the one in Germany mentioned above, it will become the cultural norm in
the US. The problem is making that shift and breaking our current financially-
driven habits.

------
dspeyer
The lobbying system enabled hollywood, but it didn't force it. They _could_
have attempted to make an honest profit. Plenty of industries do. Instead they
_chose_ to attack the internet. They _should_ be held accountable.

I'm sick of the "corporations only want to make money so shouldn't be held
accountable" meme. The fact that they have no intrinsic consciences makes it
_more_ vital that they be held in check by extrinsic punishments.

------
caublestone
I see lobbying reform as just a bandaid to the root of the issue. The root of
the issue seems to be that congress just has to many opportunities and
decisions to make for the welfare of a giant and growing population. They are
open to input from millions of different parties all trying to grab a piece of
the taxpayer pie.

I really think the solution needs to be limiting the decisions that congress
can make by limiting the amount of funds made available to them. The idea that
congress should control all of the tax payer dollars made sense when the only
expenses were Infrastructure and Security. But now there are just too many
expense possibilities.

I would love to see some "real" action against the way congress is spending
our money. What if everyone didn't pay their federal taxes in April? If I a
board does a really terrible job at running a company, they usually don't get
paid and often lose their jobs. Sure we have elections, but it's very clear
that these elections favor the incumbents (ahem, lobbying). What if we really
challenged their structure?

~~~
spc476
Most people don't pay their taxes in April. Or rather, their employer pays
their taxes on their behalf (withholding). Those that don't have withholding
(self employed) have to pay quarterly (well, not technically, but you do pay
extra). Also, there's this bit:

"The Treasury itself publicly acknowledges, in a fact sheet on the history of
the U.S. tax system posted at its website, that wartime withholding not only
“greatly eased the collection of the tax,” but “also greatly reduced the
taxpayer’s awareness of the amount of tax being collected, i.e.[,] it reduced
the transparency of the tax, which made it easier to raise taxes in the
future.”"

(from <http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2092>)

------
buff-a
The fundamental problem here is not money. It is not lobbyists. It is the
artificial market of privileges created by the members of the US Government.

The US Government should _not_ have the power to regulate Doctors, drugs,
food, oil, imports, exports etc. It should _not_ have the power to go to war
without clear and present danger. It should not have the power to make the Oil
business viable by stationing floating fortresses in the gulf at our expense.

For those of you who want to tell me that we need "People To Regulate"
Doctors, Drugs and Food: ask yourself, "Is the head of Monsanto the person I
want to regulate Food?", because that's what you have. To Regulate Transport
Safety, you have a man who makes high-power X-Ray machines.

The problem is not money or lobbyists. The problem is that there is a reason
for them to spend their money. Of course, there will be a small number of
fundamental rights that will need to be safeguarded - but they will be small,
clear and understandable by Citizens.

------
harichinnan
Coming from India, I would see lobbying as an essential part of democracy. At
the end of the day, businesses need a way to get to law makers and get laws
passed that favor them. The alternative is in India. There are no real
lobbyists like you have in America. Companies find it hard to run perfectly
legal businesses in a left leaning country. They resort to bribing even to get
things done, something that would be trivial in US. Here in US, you have law
makers like Gingrich who take up a job as a lobbyist/consultant for companies
while taking a break from their day job. In India they take bribes and
continue to work as law makers to perform the same thing. I would take
lobbying any day vs. bribing. I think of it like this. Left leaning parties
oppose lobbying and eventually end up taking bribes. Right leaning parties OK
lobbying and play it by the rules by setting up lobbying companies and
declaring themselves as lobbyists.

------
RexM
It kills me inside when people talk about democracy as though that's how the
United States always was and want to "restore the democracy"

Please watch this video before you decide to toss around the word democracy.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFXuGIpsdE0>

------
raintrees
When I last argued for eliminating lobbying, it was pointed out to me that
lobbying is supposed to equal representation, and "don't I want a
representative government?"

What about limiting lobbying? The amount of money involved is obscene, at some
levels. Why not change it to one US dollar per lobbyist maximum?

Although this may not be a great idea, my general intention is to level the
playing field a bit, make the job less attractive/lucrative.

The same could be done for political positions, as well. It is my
understanding that when the framers put this union together, they could not
make a living being a representative. When all was said and done, they went
back to their real method of earning a living, whether farming, law, medical
practice, etc.

------
klahnakoski
The problem is not lobbying, the problem is politicians know their term in
office is finite, and they must continue to work on their career development
while in office. Essentially, the big corporate lobby groups and politicians
have an unwritten contract: A politician that pushes for favorable industry
legislation is guaranteed a good job when his term is over.

The only solution I can imagine to mitigate this problem is to keep
politicians in the government after their term has ended _forever_. I have no
idea what they would do, maybe review legislation, be in committees, or just
stay home. But, given the average age of a politician, I would imagine the
increased payroll would not be to onerous.

~~~
miek
Correct, and I'd like to add to your thought. Another problem is consistency.
"Business (sector) X" has an income stream, a lobbying budget, and a handful
of focused and related political goals. Politicians know this. Also, lobbying
is an investment with an implied ROI. This is not the case for "everyone that
is not X," who will likely not repeatedly throw money at an issue for many
years to come.

------
zombiehands
We must think of the system as a whole. Analysis it as a whole. Then change it
for the better. Both lobbyist and politicians are running the system. I dream
of a day where the Internet can support a direct democracy, instead of a
elected representatives.

------
shanmoorthy
In Australia we have a government run registry which documents all lobbyists
and their activities: <http://lobbyists.pmc.gov.au>

The closest I could find in the US in a quick search was followthemoney.org
and the Senate Office of Public Records site (which maintains an archive of
filings as required by the Lobbying Disclosure Act).

Is transparency just a matter of making these isolated pieces of information
more easily accessible and transformable/visual... and using an easy call to
action to petition or donate to pro-bono lobbyists who serve the public as
counteraction to corporate (or even foreign) lobbying.

------
wdr1
Part of the problem is that it's only labelled "lobbying" if you don't like
the cause.

Corporations paying for legislation relating to oil drilling rights? That's
lobbying. Unions paying for higher teacher salaries? Well, that's different!

------
dspeyer
Lobbying is a fundamentally stable thing. As you observed, the economic
incentives to do it are strong. And lobbying is a very general thing. Truly
blatant bribery _is_ illegal, but there are many, many ways that someone with
money can help a politician and communicate what they want in return. It's
hard to imagine closing that off without massive collateral damage.

Hollywood, on the other hand, is vulnerable. They're a middleman in a world
that doesn't like middlemen. If we destroy them once, they won't come back.

------
morninj
The problem isn't lobbying. The problem is the corruption that occurs when
lawmakers grow dependent on campaign cash (much of which comes from those who
lobby for wealthy interests).

------
zerostar07
That was exactly what i thought when I read that call: they are aiming for the
wrong enemy. I thing you should add Old Media along with lobbying, they are
both dinosaurs. The way to go about it is this: divert the public's attention
from major mass media, give them easy access to information about politics,
and promote public discourse. Make politicians unable to hide their actions
and intentions, but also train the voters to look into the substance of
matters, not superficialities.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Transparency is good - but keep in mind, mass brainwashing practiced by the
likes of News Corp. makes it useless, or at least reduces its efficiency
greatly.

------
sylvinus
I'm not expert on the subject but one should also consider how it goes into
countries like France where lobbying is already illegal, but still happening
in other ways or channels.

------
drKarl
Completely agree, as I stated yestarday in a comment:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3500939>

Lobbyists are the cancer of Democracy.

------
enqk
The athenians had a way to kill lobbying / corruption:

Make it a democracy with direct participation, removing professional politics
out of the equation. If everyone is participating in any vote (and this should
scale now much nicely thanks to technology) and magistrates / executive
branches were randomly selected for short mandates and with oversee of the
complete electorate, then the only person to corrupt would be the citizens
themselves. And that is a lot more expensive.

------
Wrap
Agreed, but you need to go a step further; it's the Presidential system that
needs to changed.

google "Presidential vs. parliamentarian system" and you'll see what I'm
talking about

~~~
geon
Also the de facto 2 party system. It is really silly to expect all datapoints
spread all over the axes of a multidimensional system to be quantized down to
only 2 alternatives. This is a travesty of democracy.

------
warmfuzzykitten
The problem isn't lobbying, it's bribery. We accept as normal at the national
level behavior that might be prosecuted at the local level, but would almost
certainly get the rascals thrown out of office. Perhaps the strangest thing
about American culture is the almost complete lack of corruption in every
sphere except politics.

------
sdizdar
I don't think the problem is lobbying.

The problem is that we, as electoral body, are interested in politics _only
and only_ if something outrages like SOPA happens.

It is not enough just to show up and vote who whatever had nicer TV comercial.
Know your representative, talk to him/her, call offices, etc. Be involved.

------
vide0star
Casino Jack documentary is a pretty good insight into the more unfortunate
side of the lobbying process.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_Jack_and_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_Jack_and_the_United_States_of_Money)

------
agentultra
I remember someone suggesting we monitor the democratic process using
something like github for legislation documents.

It probably wouldn't end lobbying entirely, but it would make the process a
lot easier to monitor.

------
herval
If you criminalize lobbying, won't it simply move to the backstage (like it
does in every country where it is a crime)?

On a related example from the past, how well did criminalizing alcohol work?

------
learc83
One way to improve the situation is to remove the limit on representatives of
435.

The constitution originally provides for 1 rep for every 30,000 people. If say
we go back to that.

------
dholowiski
Why not do both? Why not kill hollywood, and kill lobbying? What, exactly in
Hollywood is worth saving?

------
rj200
As some people have pointed out lobbying isn't all bad - the problem is the
disproportionate influence of organisations with lots of money and corruption.

How about this for a solution: regulate lobbying like sex. Anyone can do it
but you can't pay a professional to do it for you.

------
cjoh
Lobbying is protected by the constitution. Best of luck.

~~~
joccam
Then fix "our" Constitution.

------
Florin_Andrei
Money in politics is the root of all current evil.

------
ObnoxiousJul
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

------
joccam
To illegalize lobbying permanently, we have to clean house as a nation (easier
said than done). That amounts to doing at least three things on a permanent
basis:

1\. Purge congress, and rehab it with genuinely honest legislators (not career
politicians) --- for each and every state (or at least the vast majority of
them).

2\. Purge at least 5 corrupt Supreme Court Of The United States (SCOTUS)
members, and replace them with honest, real justices. But you can't just fire
SC justices (unless we change the law, that is; see #1, above)... so this
process could take time (i.e., not overnight). And two more things relating to
SC justices: first, we need to remove or rehab the corrupt farm system of
justices which feeds corrupt ones to SCOTUS candidacy in the first place (and
probably the farm system for politicians for #1, above), and second: ...

3\. We need to purge the executive office of corruption, including the
political party running as both democrats and republicans --- and rehab our
political system to create real choice, honest Presidents and cabinets, and
select honest SCOTUS justices (i.e., second part of #2, above). Only then
should we expect to make any real progress as a nation, or more to the point,
only then should we expect to have any chance to derail our current national
train wreck.

So, your observation and point are spot on, but we have our work cut out for
us. We need Democracy to work, but ours has not been so resilient under
pressures of wholesale internal corruption. Can we recover our democracy, or,
as far as our national political will is concerned, are we already the walking
dead (harsh, but perhaps true)?

Bottom line: we need to rehab our democracy, our nation, our culture, our
political expectations, and our political will, and perhaps our political
science education system (i.e., from missing in action to addressing organized
corruption head-on in curriculum), and then have a go at rehabbing as a
nation.

