• edric
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    2401 year ago

    I still don’t understand how lobbying is legal. Like, it’s straight up bribery.

    • @OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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      351 year ago

      The lobbying is not the problem. The donations that sway opinions are the problem. If it was entirely unrelated to donations and the congress person was just hearing out all sides of an issue, that’s a good thing.

      • alcoholicorn [comrade/them, doe/deer]
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        191 year ago

        If donations did not affect outcome, no company would donate.

        Even when a legislator’s decisions are unaffected by lobbying, companies still control legislation by ensuring legislators who earnestly believe in legislation that favors the corporations over the people get elected.

        This is how Biden sided with banks and the prison-industrial complex for half a century yet didn’t have enough money to fund his son’s cancer treatment without selling his house until Obama paid off his medical debt.

      • silent_water [she/her]
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        61 year ago

        “hearing out all sides” somehow invariably turns into siding with whoever controls the most capital - I wonder how that happens.

      • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin
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        41 year ago

        Donations aren’t to sway opinion they’re to maintain a stock of dependent politicians who already agree with your position but who also need your funding to stay in office

    • @SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      If you ever called or wrote a letter to your congress person about an issue you cared about you were a lobbyist when you did that.

      The problem is not lobbying, the problem is pay-for-play. Something like 80%-90% of candidates who spend the most money end up winning their election. Our politicians are owned by wealthy corporate interests who fund their elections. The solution is to get money — especially corporate money — out of politics.

      There are a number of policy proposals that might limit the power of money in our politics, federally funded elections, regulations for how much air time each candidate gets, perhaps bring back the fairness doctrine, just to name a few.

      • @Asafum@feddit.nl
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        101 year ago

        The “tea party”/freedom caucus are literally groups funded by the Koch brothers. The entire “movement” existed because they willed it to be with their money.

        “Americans for prosperity” is Koch manipulating politics through who they fund to run.

      • @jmankman@lemmy.myserv.one
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        81 year ago

        Yeah but there’s a difference between making one phone call and your job being to convince people to do things they would never do otherwise.

    • floppade [he/him]
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      201 year ago

      In theory, it’s partially meant to educate politicians who cannot be experts on everything in a world where information exponentially grows, but this system has clearly been intentionally used to abuse power.

      • @pigup@lemmy.world
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        101 year ago

        Met a dude in 2015 who was a lobbyist for Boeing in DC. I heard he made 750k a year back then. He must be a really good educator!

        • @mx_smith@lemmy.world
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          41 year ago

          I used to work for a lobbyist on the hill, doing line standings. I would get paid to stand in line for hearings and committees and then the lawyers would come relieve you right before the hearing. Sometimes they wanted you to camp out the day before the hearing, and usually there were other line standers and it would be a circus, lots of fun.

        • floppade [he/him]
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          31 year ago

          And I know lobbyists who are just regular people who looked up the process and did it. I’m not advocating for it, just giving context.

          There are other examples of programs and policies being used in this way. Now, to me, the question is whether or not they are intended to easily abused by design. I don’t have the knowledge to say one way or another. However, as previously stated, it’s obviously being used as a bribery under another name.

    • HooPhuckenKarez
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      21 year ago

      Lobbying is supposed to be making your case to a politician, and hoping they vote/propose a bill/etc. With that interest in mind. You yourself are allowed to lobby your congress critters…technically.

      • SokathHisEyesOpen
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        21 year ago

        We’re allowed, but without a fruit basket stuffed with money they’re not going to listen.

          • SokathHisEyesOpen
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            21 year ago

            I wonder if I could use $10k to get a law passed that every company needs my safety manual in their business that I totally had professionally bound and didn’t print at Kinko’s.

          • themeatbridge
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            21 year ago

            $10k will get you access, but you won’t convince a politician to do something that will cost them all of the other $10k checks they get from special interests.

            Like if you wanted to buy a senator in order to get some earmarks for your development projects, you could probably get that buying a table at a fundraiser or two. But if you want them to pass legislation supporting unions or reducing the influence of money in politics, you’d basically have to bankroll their whole campaign because they wouldn’t raise another dime.

          • JJROKCZ
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            11 year ago

            The majority of Americans don’t have 10k unneeded liquid cash

            • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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              11 year ago

              No, but a bunch of Americans together have 10k, it just so happens that it’s just the conservative ones who figured it out.

    • @beetus@lemmy.world
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      -61 year ago

      If lobbying were illegal, that would mean all of the organizations that fight for justice lose their voices too.

      Lobbying isn’t bribery, it’s persuasion