Crowd-sourced political lobby

Why is a representative going to listen to our lobbyist over the MPAA's lobbyist? We can raise enough money to hire someone to work in Washington for us, but I somehow doubt we can consistently raise enough money to make matching campaign contributions so that our lobbyist is taken seriously. Even if we could, it feels fundamentally wrong that we need a self-imposed tax on citizens for their representatives to represent them. Attacking the incentive structure of the system by not having campaigns financed by corporations and interest groups is probably a better place to invest our effort.

Can crowd sourced lobbying compete against the deep pockets of corporate interests? That's my biggest concern.

I like this idea a lot though. Hopefully it gains traction.

Interesting concept. I've actually always envisioned a method of having a representative government that is actually representative of it's constituents by use of social networking and technology (making it easier to communicate ideas, values and put the results together to bring to the floor). Since we're not near a world that will accept that type of system as those in power are not those leading in the technology and communication revolution, having a method that bridges the old way and a future way isn't a bad idea.

With that said, I think there are some pitfalls that will need to be addressed. The idea of getting a lobbying group and using them to represent those funding a program gives me the feeling that there's a good chance that many actions won't go further than a first round. The money goes in, it gets a lobbyist group up and going and then.....what? It takes on going funding to fight for legislation, I think the model has to work in a manner that is closer to subscriptions so that it can be pushed for to an end.

Which brings me to point 2. if you're going to go to a subscription based model, there has to be information shared to everyone, not just those willing to pledge the upper limits. If you're creating a group to fight for a cause then they need to continually be updated on said cause and given the chance to help further. Otherwise we run into point 1. Additionally, shouldn't the sharing of information be part of this goal? Why is it that only those that can pay the upper amounts get to hear back?

I think ideally what happens is a team works behind the scenes on this project to review cases, put together the information and once a project reaches the 'open the case level', a subsite is setup for the cause, donors are placed on a mailing list, and the lobbyist group is searched for. A project plan is then put in place to estimate costs and effort so that on going funds can be added to help.

Additionally, since lobbyists without any actual ties beyond a pay check aren't really fighting for a cause, individuals funding the group are put in place to help head the 'project'. This means reviews, putting together updates, and helping with decision making.

In the end, the ability for a program like this to raise capital time and time over is only going to be by showing successful efforts. I think that in it's current form it doesn't have the ability to maintain a fight to that level of success- but I think that with some modifications it could.

Interested in seeing how this develops.

>Attacking the incentive structure of the system by not having campaigns financed by corporations and interest groups is probably a better place to invest our effort.

Is it possible to attack an incentive structure so firmly ingrained in to our system? There's always some form of duplicity between governments and their people so I wouldn't expect a way to 100% defeat a poor incentive system. I think crowdsourcing is a good way to compete with big-time corporate lobbyists, not to mention it fits well with the whole "democratic" model politicians act like they support.

Great question. We're waiting until we can confirm which group we will partner with on any given cause.

And in the case of organizations, we are looking into partnering with advocacy groups such as the EFF as well as traditional lobbying firms.

Once we know who we are partnering with, we can and intend to be fully transparent about how the money is being used. Stay tuned to the site for updates on this!