• Declaration of Independents
• I Know Jack
• Contribute
• Common Sense
  • We Are America
  • Jobs Policy
  • SOPA
  • Second Amendment
  • Election Reform
• About Me
  • Family Values
  • Biography
  • Why I have to Run
  • Promises
  • Reform Reform Reform

Election Reform that Makes Sense

-- written January 1, 2011

We the People must reform our campaign and election systems. On the one hand, the Constitution guarantees people the right to petition the government for a redress of their grievances. This right does and should include the right of people who will be affected by legislation to seek access to their representatives and express their views about the legislation that affects them. This capacity is at the heart of the concept of Democracy. In the broadest sense, this right is the right to lobby Congress, the Executive and the Judiciary.

On the other hand, what does Washington's most notorious lobbyist have to say about the state of our legislative process?

December 1994: "To start, I was offered $150,000 [at Preston Gates, a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm], a modest salary by lobbing industry standards…" Jack Abramoff, p. 62, Capitol Punishment.

"While the impact of campaign funds on legislation is often overplayed…, there is no question that contributions have a significant impact on the process – and that impact is not positive. What I did not consider then, and never considered until I was sitting in prison, was that contributions from parties with an interest in legislation are really nothing but bribes. Sure, it's legal for the most part. Sure, everyone in Washington does it. Sure, it's the way the system works. It's one of Washington's dirty little secrets—but it's bribery just the same." Id., p. 90 (emphasis mine).

December 1995: "By the end of the year, Manny doubled my salary to $300,000 [at Preston Gates, a lobbying firm]." Id., p. 91.

"We had access [to key members of congress], the second key to winning lobbying. How did we get this access? By hiring people who already had access of their own." Id., p. 92.

"Once I found a congressional office that was vital to our clients… I would often become close to the chief of staff of the office. In almost every congressional office, the chief of staff is the center of power…. After a number of meetings with them (sic.),… I would say a few magic words: "When you are done working for the Congressman, you should come work for me at my firm." With that… I would own him and, consequently, that entire office. No rules had been broken, at least not yet. No one even knew what was happening, but suddenly, every move that staffer made, he made with a future at my firm in mind. His paycheck may have been signed by the Congress, but he was already working for me, influencing his office for my clients' best interests." Id., p. 95, emphasis mine.

Yeah, but congressmen still write the laws, right?

"Being a lobbyist at any hard charging K street firm requires a lot: [including]… drafting and editing legislative language to attain your client's goals…" Id., p. 97.

Nope.

What about Congressional hearings? I'm sure Congressmen decide on their own when to hold those.

"Lobbyists with great influence on certain representatives can actually cause the advent of a congressional hearing, and by doing so, utterly destroy whomever their client wishes to be destroyed." Id., p. 128.

Are there chills running up and down your spine? Are you outraged yet? Here's a guy in an industry where, in 1994, $150,000 a year seemed a "modest salary." I think that that is an insanely good amount of money to make in 1994 dollars! Anyone agree with me?

Many of the tactics Mr. Abramoff describes in the passages I have quoted are not technically illegal. Others are rendered legal under current law by artifices like working as a "consultant", rather than as a "lobbyist" (as Newt Gingrich recently did for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to the tune of between $1.6 and $1.8 million).

If you want to read something that's somewhere between a horror novel and crime novel but that includes much that is probably true or very nearly so, I recommend reading Abramoff's book Capitol Punishment. Every American should know more of the details of the shenanigans outlined in its pages (even if doing so requires advancing the financial interests of a man who might technically be a sociopath).

REFORMS:

Fixing the system would require amending the Constitution of the United States of America. Several possibilities have been suggested by many, including Mr. Abramoff (in the last chapters of his book), the controversial filmmaker and advocate of the working class Michael Moore and a congressional candidate running in Flint Michigan, Dan Kildee.

We need Constitutional Amendments and Federal laws that do all of the following:

1. Limit the amount of money that can be spent in Federal, state and local campaigns; public campaign financing might be a good start. (Possibly in the form of or including an Amendment to adjust the Constitution in response to the Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in supporting specific candidates.)

2. Term limits. George Washington stepped down after eight years, because he thought it was right and he didn't want to become a king. We can't trust the people who we have in Washington these days to make decisions that are in our best interests instead of theirs on their own. With seniority in Congress comes greater behind-the-scenes decision-making power and greater temptation to abuse that power.

3. Close the revolving door between our government and the firms that lobby it and the corporations that seek legislation to be drawn up in their behalf. (The change advocated in 2 cannot be performed without this change in place. We want members of Congress to make lame-duck decisions as part of a genuine calculation of the country's best interests, not as part of an extended interview for their next, much more highly lucrative, career moves.)

For example, if I worked for Microsoft, I don't get to be involved in the decision whether or not something Microsoft did violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, whether as someone who works for a congressional oversight committee, as an employee of the FTC or as an employee of the DOJ: ever. If I served as a Congressman or as chief of staff for a Congressman who was on the Indian Affairs committee, I don't get to take a job for a lobbying firm that currently lobbies on behalf of a Native American tribe: ever.

A decision to serve the people of the United States as a public servant should foreclose my opportunity to work for a corporation that has its hand out to receive federal money (economists call it "rent seeking" when corporations hit up the federal government for money), and vice versa.

It is inevitable that a future employer's interests will someday be affected by legislation. It would (probably) be unreasonable to require people who served in Congress to be permanently unemployed outside of the government. In cases where such a situation arises innocently and could not have been predicted when the Congressman or congressional staffer left for her new job, the laws contemplated should require the former congressional employee to maintain a strict non-involvement in the legislation in which her new employer has an interest, just as lawyers and judges must recuse themselves from cases involving personal conflicts of interest.

A Pledge to support legislation that takes the money out of politics and that reforms our campaign system so that one person has one vote again:

Thus, I am signing the pledge to promote reforms that get money and corporations out of politics. I understand that, in the present climate, it is unlikely that we will succeed on this score, but the least we can do is pledge to support any attempts to pass this kind of electoral reform legislation that arises when we are in office and pledge to introduce legislation of this sort.

This pledge is nothing more or less than a pledge to save our democratic system and, by continually pointing out corruption where it rears its ugly head, to increase the education of our citizenry in order to promote a more perfect union.