Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When Lobbying was Illegal

priceonomics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 165 posts

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#81

Post by emn13 »

johnchristopher wrote: post #69
entee wrote: post #15

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... The cost of congressional elections has…

In France and Belgium the total amount of money you can spend on your campaign is regulated and financed by the state. Which of course leads to another kind of problems.

Such as? I'd say that's the bare minimum starting point for something that deserves the name democracy. That doesn't mean it's a panacea.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#82

Post by emn13 »

wildmusings wrote: post #58
joshka wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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 perf…

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..."

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.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#83

Post by jahnu »

markdown wrote: post #42
jahnu wrote: post #3

> 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 compl…

> Honestly, no. It's essential that law makers can be informed by all interested parties. Except lobbying does the opposite of that. It means only the wealthy parties are heard.

Not true. The EFF lobbies, for example. I think this is OK. But I'd like the times and minutes of their meetings to be publicly available and searchable.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#84

Post by 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.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#85

Post by Zach_the_Lizard »

alkonaut wrote: post #84

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" e…

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.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#86

Post by barrkel »

danieltillett wrote: post #48
entee wrote: post #15

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... The cost of congressional elections has…

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

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.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#87

Post by johnchristopher »

emn13 wrote: post #81
johnchristopher wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France and Belgium the total amount of money you can spend on your campaign is regulated and financed by the state. Which of course leads to another kind of problems.

Such as? I'd say that's the bare minimum starting point for something that deserves the name democracy. That doesn't mean it's a panacea.

On the top of my head:

- Some parties/candidates spend more than they are allowed and try to hide the difference and that can only be done illegally (See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1085...).

- Also there can be some voting(?) threshold you have to reach to be eligible for the reimbursement of campaign costs (5% for the french presidential I believe) so small parties are gambling a lot by throwing themselves into the pit with other well established big parties and sometimes they simply decide to make a coalition in order to have the guarantee to survive financially. But then they are forced to reframe their political agenda and this usually weakens the ideological stances of everyone.

- I think you have to submit every spending and justify the origin of the money private donors give you. Except when they can't because that money was obtained in shady places (See the Gaddafi-Sarkozy affair http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22220272 or the Sarkozy-Bettencourt affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettencourt_affair).

Of course I am not blaming the system. But at the moment the implementation lacks several error catching checks to make sure the whole thing runs as intended (eg: the official/national organ that is supposed to investigate these campaigns and make sure everything stays legal is largely under funded).

I gave some notorious examples from right parties but it doesn't mean the left doesn't dabble into those waters (in France and in Belgium).

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#88

Post by Zach_the_Lizard »

entee wrote: post #59
danieltillett wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I like the idea. One thing though, this won't work unless people vote. A major reason the system doesn't work well today is because only the most extreme voters turn out for primaries. Even if you reduce gerrymandering, it's hard to eliminate entirely. On the other hand, in smaller districts the electorate will be more likely to share opinions and interests so maybe that counteracts the problem?

Moving to proportional representation would greatly curtail gerrymandering or even eliminate it altogether, especially with some sort of ranked voting system. It also solves the third party problem; no longer does a vote for the Green party hurt the Democratic candidate or a Libertarian vote hurt the Republican candidate.

IIRC Spain has a system along these lines.

First past the post needs to go.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#89

Post by alkonaut »

Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #85
alkonaut wrote: post #84

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" e…

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 degre…

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.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#90

Post by Maarten88 »

alkonaut wrote: post #84

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" e…

As a European I'm not jealous of the money aspect in US politics. I see US politics as completely corrupt, and it's all legal. The coming elections is the 10% against the 1%. The one who cobbles together most money gets to influence most voters though campaigning and commercials. 90% of the electorate does not seem to understand that they are bought and paid for.

And because the US is the most powerful country internationally, it influences Europe in a big way. We get to deal with thing like TTIP, which seems to be a direct product of US corruption, and a refugee crisis, a direct result of failed US foreign policy (which Europe would not improve on, admittedly)

Post reply on HN