The amount of corporate money in politics is just unacceptable. It is turning our country into an oligarchy. New senators are often approached by lobbyist crooks on their first day in Washington. What can we do about it?
Reverse the Citizens United ruling. Money may indeed be free speech, but it doesn’t follow the source of campaign funding must be secret.
Make it illegal for our elected and appointed officials to accept a dime from anyone.
**How do we get corruption and bribery out of politics? **
You don’t. Ever. If history is clear about anything, it is that any form or method of government will have corruption and bribery.
If anything, the U.S. Government is somewhat cleaner than most others in the world.
I think what you might have meant is how to get rid of ‘influence’ and ‘campaign financing’, and these to some extent can be legislated; but in a free society, everybody (which includes the oligarchs) have an opportunity to be heard, just some can make their voice heard a lot more.
Or in sum: It’s an imperfect Universe; so we have to deal with it as it is.
So only the rich can run for office?
That isn’t necessarily the case, but yes, it would favor the rich, instead of the current process of getting rich by running for office.
If you want to get rid of lobbyists you will have to repeal the first amendment.
Personally, I feel that the fact that people can get together to try to influence laws being made is a feature of our system and not a bug.
Puddlegun nailed it. There are some things we all agree is corruption. There are other things that are not, but some people see it that way. I think that earmarks are corrupt, but many disagree with me. That’s fine, and I disagree that lobbying is corrupt, or that corporate donations to campaigns are corrupt.
You know what I really think is corrupt? Paying politicians to give speeches when they are in office or are likely to seek office. How can anyone not see that as a way to get around bribery laws?
Another problem is that the things that politicians complain about isn’t what we should be listening to, a point which should seem obvious but isn’t to most people. Politiicans complain about money in politics because it means they have to work harder to raise it. Guess what politicians don’t complain about? The earmarking process, cashing in when they leave office, getting paid ridiculous amounts for speechs, and using inside information not available to the public to make investing decisions. They like those things just fine. Gotta hand it to the poiltical class though, they’ve got all kinds of well meaning people arguing to put a stop to the dastardly process that THEY hate so much.
Lobbying is just speech. Lobbyists don’t just speak though, they bribe.
I agree with this. I do not however, think that our politicians should be for sale.
While there’s some validity in this perspective, it overlooks that ***both briber and bribee have committed felonies.
Any statistics on felonious bribery in U.S., and percentages of prosecutions and convictions?
To be fair you should include union money in that pot as well.
One compromise might be the way judicial elections are handled in Washington State. The campaigns can raise money, but the candidates cannot do the ask and cannot know who contributed.
I’m sure our congress people would love being prohibited from making the ask. That part of the “job” is universally despised.
Someone else will do the asking, and it’s not necessary to know who specifically gave the money. The rules now are useless in that regard. We need to be able to follow the money so when we see any of it we can throw someone in jail.
Won’t happen though. It’s like watching the DVD that comes with the DVD player to tell you how to connect the DVD player. As long as the money is there it’s impossible to make it go away.
And yes, the asking is universally despised (so they say), but what they mean is that they want the money without spending the time asking.
Make all campaigns publicly funded. Once you reach a certain level, you can only spend $X amount so that nobody has an advantage
Nonsense. The First Amendment existed and worked just fine prior to the Buckley decision in 1976 and if the Buckley decision and its offspring were overturned the First Amendment would survive intact.
You people are all joking, right? Find me any law anywhere that eliminated corruption.
Oh, I know… let’s have all leaders take a vow of chastity and a vow of poverty. Nothing could ever go wrong with that system, right?
If you want to be a completist. But realistically, corporate money far outweighs union money. The Koch network alone probably spends more money than all the unions in the country combined. Granted, it’s hard to tell because the current system allows groups to hide how much they’re contributing.
It’s ridiculous to believe corruption and bribery will ever go away entirely, but we have legalized it in several forms and that can be undone.
Cite?