An Amendment to Ban Lobbyists from our Government.

Government lobby groups should be banned from any state or federal building. They should be banned from talking to, discussing with, or interacting with any federal employee or elected official.

Any group, firm, PAC, or cause found guilty of lobbying members of the government should be tried under RICO and have all assets seized.

Any elected official to have any dealings with lobby groups should be found to have committed a first degree felony punishable by life in prison without possibility of parole.

Star for you.

I have been saying this for years. Any elected official taking a single penny from any lobbyong company, individual or special interest group has sold out the country and the people they are supposed to represent.
This is one of the areas where so called democracy breaks down completely. If our government members are bought off so easily by big business and, incredibly, foreign powers, then why should we, as voting taxpayers, be forced to pay them and do their bidding?

To make it as fair as possible and try to avert any financial shenanigans, I'd also go as far as to suggest that those wishing to serve in government give up any and all shareholdings / stocks, in order to remain completely neutral on matters. After all, those in government are the ones passing laws that may benefit corporations, in which they have a financial stake. If that isn't insider dealing I don't know what is - they have the inside track on information before it becomes public knowledge and therefore are in an ideal position to benefit from that information.

In short, we the public should have much more oversight and scrutiny of those elected officials. If they don't like it then they can always go get a job in the private sector. Although, the way most of them carry on, they'd be out on their arses very quickly, but that's how the rest of us operate in the real world. The order of the day has to be accountability and transparency. If it's good enough for the masses then we should have similar powers to scrutinise them.

I won't hold my breath though.

I dare say most here would agree with you.

Is it going to happen? Highly unlikely.

Let your pen and wallet do the talking.

Boycott those involved in the behaviour of which you speak, support (financially also) those whom you deem worthy.

270 odd million U.S. citizens. Just $10 each to a worthy entity. That's 2.7 billion dollars. More than enough to send a message to lobbyists and elected officials.

I would guess laws are already being broken, if we could point at some of these instances as symptoms of the disease, it may create a groundswell. I have to believe that most citizens are already aware of the abuses. The ones that are unaware, if informed, may be enough to tip the scales.

S&F to all above!

At a first glance, banning the lobbyists would solve a lot of problems.

But how are we to be sure there is no contact between those groups? Aren't both (reasonably) normal persons who could theoretically play at the same golf course, shop at the same grocery store or maybe even live in the same street? If all contact with lobbyists would be illegal, then there would have to be 24x7 monitoring of all those people and their interactions. That implies legalizing the breach of privacy necessary for such 'control'..
Banning lobbyists will only work when the government has 'full observatory access' to their behavior.

Even more frightening to me - I feel like many politicians will still make biased decisions whether they're directly under the influence of lobbyists or indirectly (not being influenced in a corporate-ran world is very unlikely). In fact, I believe the only way to validate a political decision would be to fully account for all contributing motivations - through an objective measure comparable to .. well .. mind-reading . There are elegant techniques out there to 'read' attitudes for example, like the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task ..
We're quite past the age of the simple lie detectors that only vaguely inform us over the possibility of the subject lying - there is much more to infer. I guess that that is exactly why those techniques are never applied - what if we were to infer 'too much'?

Just my 2 lies (or are they!? muhahaha)

Uhhh..

If you ban lobbying, doesn't that mean that other regular joes can't converse with their congressman, either?

This sounds like one of those ideas that somebody with a good general knowledge of politics would say to get a chuckle out of the fact that people who agree are essentially demanding that politicians should be isolated from the public. Why not just skip the song and dance and go strait to a dictatorship?

Originally posted by Kaytagg
Uhhh..

If you ban lobbying, doesn't that mean that other regular joes can't converse with their congressman, either?

This sounds like one of those ideas that somebody with a good general knowledge of politics would say to get a chuckle out of the fact that people who agree are essentially demanding that politicians should be isolated from the public. Why not just skip the song and dance and go strait to a dictatorship?

Wrong!

Us "regular Joes" (and Josephines) do not pay thousands of dollars into their bank accounts, disguised as "campaign" donations or send them and their families on all expenses paid fact finding tours to exotic holiday locations.

It is us regular Joes who, through taxation, pay their wages and who they, in turn, are supposed to listen to and represent in government.

As for dictatorship, isn't that we already have, thinly disguised as democracy?
When we have a two party system, made up of career politicians and the old boy network, doing the bidding of corporate and special interest groups, and bankrolled by the same financial interests, then do we really have choice?
There are other small parties / groups allowed by the system to maintain the illusion of choice, but who will never hold the power. So in essence we are screwed whichever party we choose. That is by design, they know it and probably think many are too dumb to realise it.

[edit on 28-12-2009 by Britguy]

it kind of seems to me that you are taking an approach to the problem much like the Islamic world does...

the Islamic world recognizes that there are many men that would take advantage of those gorgeous women out in their world, so to protect them...what do they do...oh, ya, make all their women dress in drab black outfits that cover them from head to shoulder.....the take away the gorgeous....

well, we don't need to ban the lobbyists, we don't need to provide 24/7 security to our lawmakers!! We need to find people with an once or two of integrity to hold these offices, and prosecute the heck out of those who defy our trust in them!
our lawmakers aren't experts in every little area....and well, I kind of think that these lobbyists are in a way, providing a service when they offer their expertise. the problem comes in when both the lawmakers and the lobbyists are laying aside the facts and the good of the nation, and instead proceeding to place the good of this small group, whatever group it is this time as their number one priority.
I've raised three kids, and there's one thing I learned by the experience....you can't make people behave the way you want them to!!
I don't care if you try to have your eyes on them 24/7, or whatever....they are gonna find a way to do what they want...
It's better to just let them know that there are always consequences to what they do, and well....those bad decisions are gonna come back and bite you in the behind. and well....just let the consequences roll for the most part!

if we had a monarchy with it's king and queen with total unchecked power, I would say that the problem is with the king or queen, or the ones they put into power...their empire is a reflection of them!
but we are the ones who put our elected officials in power. they were selected from our own ranks. our government is just a reflection of our society....
our government has no moral compass, because far too many in it's society have lost their moral compass. and well....you can fix alot of things...but you can't fix stupid!

Originally posted by Britguy

Originally posted by Kaytagg
Uhhh..

If you ban lobbying, doesn't that mean that other regular joes can't converse with their congressman, either?

This sounds like one of those ideas that somebody with a good general knowledge of politics would say to get a chuckle out of the fact that people who agree are essentially demanding that politicians should be isolated from the public. Why not just skip the song and dance and go strait to a dictatorship?

Wrong!

Us "regular Joes" (and Josephines) do not pay thousands of dollars into their bank accounts, disguised as "campaign" donations or send them and their families on all expenses paid fact finding tours to exotic holiday locations.

It is us regular Joes who, through taxation, pay their wages and who they, in turn, are supposed to listen to and represent in government.

Corporations pay more taxes than we do, so by that logic they should have more say in how the government works. (Note: I don't agree with this.)

As for dictatorship, isn't that we already have, thinly disguised as democracy?
When we have a two party system, made up of career politicians and the old boy network, doing the bidding of corporate and special interest groups, and bankrolled by the same financial interests, then do we really have choice?

And just who do you think keeps voting them in? The corporations? Nope. The citizens. Welcome to America, where the majority of residents are dumbasses. Get use to it.. I know, it sucks. But you have to live with these other people, somehow (Try to take it day by day.)

AMEN. Common sense lives! Been thinking the same thihng for quite some time. The parasites are deeply entrenched, we might have to remove a few limbs to get them out.

Obviously I do understand that this is a highly unlikely scenario. But a large part of the problem in this country is that lobby groups have by far more influence over our lawmakers than we do.

Other ideas I was thinking about was requiring each lawmaker to wear a jacket that lists the logos of corporate contributors.

If we made it an illegal act for lobby groups to influence our representatives, that would not stop individuals from lobbying our representatives.

As it is now, lobbyists must register in order to lobby our congress. But it's completely unfair for individuals who don't have the capital to buy our representatives ears.

Lobbying is fine as long as there is no money involved..

Many US lobbyists came to the EU parliament & Commission in 2009 and basically got told to get lost because they were offering money to politicians and civil servants to change a law that bans American made toxic substances from our food and products!!

Now thats pretty sick stuff.. Blunt capitalism at its best.

To get a better democracy, you first have to get better citizens.

I don't see that happening, in a country dominated by "American Idol" and the Bible.

reply to post by whatukno


i dont even know how it is possible to pass such an amendment when gigantic corporations have USofA by the balls. people cant even agree on petty healthcare.

reply to post by whatukno


Wuk, I could not agree with you more about this, but unfortunately, lobbying and special interest groups are exactly how politicians get into office.

Even though this is bribery, it is legal bribery, because the politicians wrote the laws that made it okay, years and years ago.

Who else is going to pay for their re-election machine to stay in power?

Personally, I see it as nothing more than corruption feeding corruption.

This is the exact reason why politicians vote against what the majority of the public really want, because they have to submit to the puppet strings of those really in power, the people feeding them money hand over fist.

Why else would the politicians not know half the bills being put in front of them?

Because the special interest groups actually write the legislation for them.

This was proven true during the town hall meetings in regards to the Healthcare Reform when the politicians could not actually explain what it was they were trying to sell to the American people, because they were not just selling something patently against a lot of citizens, but selling us out.

Divide and Conquer : Political Ideology of the Power Elite, Selling The Peace, War Is The Motive

[edit on 28-12-2009 by SpartanKingLeonidas]

The answer to this: The people of America as a whole should become the new lobbyist groups.

American Idol has shown that in this digital age, huge sections of the population are willing to electronically voice their opinions, even on trivial matters. Why are we not using this model to rework our government and bend it's will to the people?

If given the chance, I think the people of our country would absolutely rise to the challenge of micro-managing government from their couches/desk chairs. I also think they would get a hell of a lot more done.

Why can't reality television, organized sports, and government merge into something that actually works? Why shouldn't every vote that goes before congress be accompanied by live real-time stats on what we, the people want? Vote against the will of the people, their stats drop. Nothing gets under the radar, because their individual stats are absolute and their jobs depend on them.

We need to take advantage of the digital age and the new abilities to instantly compile absolute statistics, they are our tools just waiting to be used.

Originally posted by Britguy

Us "regular Joes" (and Josephines) do not pay thousands of dollars into their bank accounts, disguised as "campaign" donations or send them and their families on all expenses paid fact finding tours to exotic holiday locations.

Publicly funded election campaigns with a limit.
That would go a long way to start to amend the lobbiest problem.
If they go over that amount they they cannot run and should pay it back.

Why don't they do that?
Heh, they could not get as rich that way I guess, why bite off the hand that feeds them.

Us "regular Joes" (and Josephines) do not pay thousands of dollars into their bank accounts, disguised as "campaign" donations or send them and their families on all expenses paid fact finding tours to exotic holiday locations.

Right, so the real way to do this would be to outlaw campaign contributions (and gifts) period, and make them all campaign from a public fund and mandated airtime, etc. Campaign finance reform is the real key to taking away the power of the lobbyist, not trying to outlaw conversation...

reply to post by maus80


Why not combine the wikipedia model with the legislative process?

Let citizens write/edit/support their own pieces of legislation, en mass, via the internet.

Seems like that would go a long way towards creating laws people want, generally speaking, while leaving out the pork.

The only problem is getting politicians to vote for it without gaming the system and holding their votes for earmark ransoms directed towards their state/districts.

reply to post by maus80


The new iPhone app 'Votemania!'.

Sounds like an interesting idea. Though there would have to be some pretty heavy security running whichever database collected these votes if they were to carry any weight. Otherwise today's lobbyists would be tomorrow's hackers.