How Much for Your Support

Welcome back to Contemplative Being!

Do you ever wonder what happens behind the scenes with elected officials? How does it all work? These are questions I have thought about on several occasions. The fact is that for elected officials particularly those in the federal or state legislatures work is accomplished through negotiations. It is a constant give and take between representative from different political parties and even for those in the same party. The objective of a representative is to serve those that elected him in addition to achieving the goal of keeping their jobs, in other words getting re-elected. 

We are all familiar with special interest groups and their efforts to impact legislation in a way that benefits them. The way these special interest groups operate to achieve their goal is by hiring lobbyists to promote their cause. In case you are not familiar with the meaning of lobbying it is defined by Wikipedia as the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. So, how can a lobbyist influence a government official or anyone else for that matter? Well, the answer to this is quite obvious bribery oops no no, I mean sexual favors, wait that can be right either, can it? The short answer is yes, that is pretty much how it works. How can this be? Aren’t there laws that prohibit these sorts of things? Of course there are, so here is pretty much how it works. A lobbyist cannot give a government official money for themselves because that would be illegal, what the official can receive instead is a donation to their campaign. There are a number of laws on the books that are intended to make it seem like politicians are not allowed to receive gifts from anyone but many of them are essentially useless. For example if a lobbyist takes a public official to dinner he is not allowed to pay for the official’s meal unless of course the lobbyist gives the politician a check for any amount of money because at that point the dinner becomes a fundraiser and that’s okay. So you see this is essentially legal bribery. Politicians need lots of campaign contributions to be able to try to keep their jobs and lobbyists are happy to contribute in exchange for the politician to support the cause of the particular interest group.

Campaign contributions are not the only techniques lobbyists have at their disposal to influence politicians. Prior to the conviction of legendary lobbyist Jack Abramoff lobbyists could give politicians lavish gifts in the form of travel to exotic locations and staying at fancy hotels, expensive cigars and alcohol and much more  Lobbyists find out what the particular politician prefers and that’s what they get. The North Carolina state ethics commission recently passed a decision stating that it is legal for a lobbyist to use sexual favors as a form of influence (Brown, 2015). Essentially what this means is that it is illegal for a lobbyist to pay for a prostitute because that sort of gift is not allowed but if that lobbyist happens to be a prostitute it is a okay.

Every once in a while a lobbyist runs into a politician that is seemingly incorruptible. For a time this is a nuisance for the lobbyist and the cause he is working for however there is another technique that lobbyists have up their sleeves to deal with these situations. The approach taken here is to do everything possible to ensure that honorable politician does not win reelection. The way to do this is to spend all that money that could have gone to the politicians campaign had they played along to the opponent. The Washington state Supreme Court actually struck down a law prohibiting politicians form intentionally telling lies about each other so it’s not hard or illegal anymore for a well-funded campaign to convince the public who the “better” candidate is (McGann, 2007).

Jack Abramoff was one of the most successful lobbyists this country has ever seen and he was eventually convicted of going too far and breaking laws. After serving jail time he has written a book and become a leader in the anti-lobby movement. He talks about techniques he used to influence politicians and how the laws that were enacted since his conviction are nearly meaningless. He also discusses how at the time he did not think that what he was doing was wrong. The term for this is motivated reasoning and ethical fading. It is no secret that lobbyists make lots of money so they rationalize that what they are doing is not wrong because most of the techniques they use are not illegal. Continuing down this through process leads to ethical fading because they are no longer able to see from where they started. This is what can lead them to illegal behavior as was the case with Mr. Abramoff (click here to watch an interview Jack Abramoff gave on C-Span).  I don’t know about you but I don’t want the people I elect to be willingly or forcefully corrupted so they can keep their jobs or get rich. Special interest groups particularly those with money can get pretty much whatever they want under the current system. Hopefully some day we will see reform to stop this.

Thanks for reading! I will be taking a break from this blog for a while but if you add me to your Google + I will be sure to let you know when I’m back at it.  

Brown, E. (2015). Lobbyists Can Legally Screw Politicians in North Carolina, Says Ethics Commission. Retrieved March 5, 2015, from http://reason.com/blog/2015/03/04/lobbying-sex-okay-in-north-carolina

McGann, C. (2007). State's highest court backs lying in politics. Retrieved March 5, 2015, from http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/State-s-highest-court-backs-lying-in-politics-1251683.php

Abramoff, J. (2011). After Words with Jack Abramoff. Retrieved March 5, 2015, from http://www.c-span.org/video/?303101-1/words-jack-abramoff