I think our government is bought and paid for by an ogliarchy of the super-wealthy. I also think there would be great benefit in breaking the direct payment system that allows this to work so well. Not a panacea for all problems, just a step towards actual representation, instead of a patronage system. IANA lobbyist, so I don’t know much about writing legislation, but I wonder if the following is anywhere near what I’m looking for. I’m sure such a law would be unlikely to be enacted by the officials who it would affect, but I’m more interested in the unintended consequences, or additional specifications that would make it work, or why it’s bad idea as intended.
Elected and appointed officials of the US government may not receive anything of value or unique benefit from anyone except for their government salary, and the benefits of any prior or subsequent investments, which must be disclosed from the time of consideration for office, until 2 years following the end of their government office. This restriction applies to any family member, business associate, or other established relationship with the official, who receives a benefit from any entity recieving or bidding for government contracts, or directly lobbying the government, with the exception that these may be approved by establishing an independence of benefit and influence.
A unique benefit shall include any indepedent action taken by another party for the benefit of the official, in which the official is an active participant.
Gifts of value under a specificed amount may be kept in the possesion of the government until 2 years following the end of government office, or donated to another party.
The establishment of hardship can be an exception.
Caveats:
There must be sufficient ethics laws which require recusal or disqualification where conflicts of interest still allowed by this regulation exist.
The system of compensation including pensions must be sufficient to make government service practical by persons of average means, even for a representative who may only serve a single 2 year term.
Obvious Problems:
The wealthy will still be in a better position to run for and serve in political office. They have their own money to spend, and their connections of influence may range beyond the scope of any practical law to limit. However, they may be less susceptible to material influence.
Some person or organization can independently influence elections without direct contact with a political candidate. A politician will recognize the expenditure of money on his behalf when it is tied to a special interest and have his votes influenced without any direct contact.
Politicians may simply become influenced by non-material special interests that want to impose standards of morality, or cultural domination.
It’s funny that you should post this now as I am considering posting a question: “Do we need another level of representation in a modern, capitalist, democracy?”.
It’s seemed to me for a long time that the actual citizens of a country are largely denied a voice in shaping a lot of government policies because the large corporations have the money to schmooze the politicians whereas the general public have (with the exception of certain pressure groups) little chance to become involved.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen a welcome piece of legislation announced that curbs some excess by large companies only to see it watered down to nothing or abandoned after the relevant corporations have done their lobbying.
For some reasons consumer groups never seem to have the same clout as big business (probably because no one’s prepared to pay for it).
Needs teeth. Add provisions that make the offering of any such value or benefit a Corporate Capital Crime. Go after the givers with a cannon. Make it deadly: first conviction is a $50 million fine and 40 years in prison for the CEO, CFO and Board of Directors.
Looks decent in general. Of course it’s going to be difficult to pass.
qpw3141 raises an interesting point, which reminds me of an idea. If wealth is power (& I think we would agree it is a kind of power); then any serious pursuit of bringing state power more under the power of the popular & general sentiment than under the sentiment of special interests must seek to at least partially democratize the power of wealth.
That is, if the corporations are able to buy legislation against the will of the people because they are so rich, then we should place the will of the people more over the corporations themselves or make the people more competitive in some way. I don’t mean some abstract “will of the people” as through some Caesar who calls himself their consul, but the will of the country’s persons in general. We might enrich the people enough to compete in some way, or diminish the power of the corporations in some way.
This leaves aside whether the popular & general sentiment is in fact correct.
I’m trying to figure out what problem the OP is trying to solve. TriPolar, do you think that the super-wealthy now actually pay the representatives directly?
A problem may be the buying-off of politicians through contributions to their election campaign funds. However, your proposal doesn’t seem to address that, given that the campaign fund finances are separate from a candidate’s personal finances.
A unique benefit shall include any indepedent action taken by another party for the benefit of the official, in which the official is an active participant.
That phrase was meant to address campaign financing, libraries, and the like. I guess it needs to be spelled out more specifically.
They don’t seem to be, especially in terms of campaign financing, and favors for friends and family. I don’t know why giving money to a political campaign, or giving family members jobs could be considered anything but a bribe.
You might want to amend your opening sentence to replace “super wealthy” with, or at least include
“unions”
Here is a list of the Top All-Time Donors
And in the cases of items 2, 8 and 13, they are in fact government unions.
So the government is coming to take your money, to pay employees who then use the proceeds of their paychecks to lobby the government for more of your money. See how that works? It’s what was behind the recent $26 billion emergency stimulus to teachers.
Where do you get that? As I read it, the fruits of any investments may not be received until two years after the end of public service. In any case, legislators and senior members of the executive branch are required to file annual financial disclosure reports that show how much money they have invested in the past year, a summary of their investment holdings, and a whole lot of other stuff. I’d consider that more stringent than what the OP is suggesting.
Legislators are prohibited from taking any gift whatsoever from any person who is employed by a company that employs a lobbyist. Executive branch officials may accept no more than $50 in gifts from one source (like a company or something) in any year. Honoraria (being paid to give speeches) is completely banned for legislators and executive branch officials. Indirect gifts (“How would your wife like several cases of wine?”) are also banned.
There are no exceptions for hardship. There is no exception for “establishing an independence of benefit and influence.” I maintain that existing law is more stringent on gifts than what the OP proposed, for the reasons I have explained.
As for TriPolar’s comment on campaign contributions, you will have to change the First Amendment. But let me ask the OP a question on this subject: let’s say I want to run for Congress. I need money to print bumper stickers and run TV ads. If I can’t afford to run the campaign out of my own savings, who can donate to my campaign? It sounds like only people that I don’t know who would have no interest in me being elected. That doesn’t make sense.
No matter what you try or how you phrase it, the simple fact will be that some politicians can and will be bought off. A lot of the influence peddling isn’t about enriching the politician, it’s about giving the politician the ability to run his next election and stay a politician. Our current ethics laws are fairly decent for dealing with cases of politicians enriching themselves. Not perfect of course, but still, I’d be willing to bet the vast majority of cash flowing to politicians is used for re-election campaigns rather than direct personal gain.
What I’d suggest is campaign finance reform, true reform rather than just saying that group can give money while this group can’t. Something like all campaign funds will be provided by the government, and in equal amounts to serious contenders. No other money, be it personal fortunes, donations, or 3rd party groups, is allowed to be spent on an election campaign. Anything less than that, wealthy groups would just go ‘instead of donating X amount to your re-election fund, we’ll just promise to pay for and run a certain number of ads for you…’
The problem is, of course, the first amendment prohibits this.
Alternatively, we could make the government so small and powerless that it isn’t worth the effort to buy off a politician because they can’t do anything. Libertarians would be pleased, but I’m not so sure it’d work that well in the real world.
In the end, we need to either ditch the first amendment for political speech, make the government powerless, or just accept the fact that politicians are going to be bought off one way or another and all we can do about it is enable government watchdog groups.
I agree about the current restrictions in most regards. Lack of enforcement may be the big problem there. But I don’t suggest restricting free speech rights. I do not believe giving someone money is free speech. I wouldn’t restrict the ability of anybody to spend their money to campaign for a candidate, but not of the candidate is controlling how that money is spent. I see the main problem being the advantage of the wealthy in buying their own free speech in a way the average person cannot afford. There should be plenty of ways for candidates to run for office without spending money, but that would be a different topic, but one that this concept would depend on. Maybe I should point directly at campaign financing, and look at better enforcement of the existing laws.
I also object to the idea of government financing campaigns. The internet is available to everyone, and franking privileges should extend to candidates as well. Broadcast media which are limited to selected providers should be required to provide to provide time for all candidates (this does not mean the equal time rule, just provide specific amounts of time to all candidates during an election period). Debates and other forums could be sponsor by multi-partisan groups.
Are you referring to the gift bans that I discussed? What do you mean “lack of enforcement?” What is your evidence that government officials are taking lots of valuable gifts? You haven’t established that this is a serious problem, other than that you strongly suspect that anybody who is a politician must be up to no good.
Well, then, you’re going to have to amend the First Amendment, because the courts have been pretty clear that campaign contributions are part of our constitutionally protected freedoms. I’m not saying those ruling are good or bad, I’m just acknowledging this fact.
So you think that, essentially, there should be no cost to running a political campaign. Let’s examine this for two seconds.
Who is going to pay for the paper for those leaflets you get in the mail? (And if you want franking for political candidates, you ARE saying that the government is going to pay for political campaigns.) Who is going to pay for the phones and the internet for the campaign HQ? If I’m running for the Senate in California, who is going to pay for me to get from Sacramento to San Diego to San Francisco to Fresno? Who is going to pay for yard signs? Who is going to pay for the various staff needed to run a campaign – do you expect a congressional candidate to answer the phone when any reporter, campaign volunteer, travel agent, or whatever has a question? Are you saying that political novices shouldn’t be able to buy TV ads to inform the public that they are running for office against a better-known incumbent?
I’m sorry, but saying that political campaigns shouldn’t need money is simply not realistic in any manner. Personally, I think there ought to be publicly financed campaigns, but I know that the American people at large will never agree to that.
Me, talking to Candidate: “I represent an organization of private citizens who are deeply concerned about recent goings-on with the religious right, and we want to advocate the separation of church and state. Where do you stand on that issue?”
Candidate: I share the same concern. In my past elected position I sponsored bills A, B, and C which strictly limit the government’s role to one that cannot endorse or promote any religion.
Me: Well that’s great, you have my support. In addition, we have funds from our members to finance an advertising campaign, but I can see that money would be just as well spend on your election campaign. I will write a check today, made out to your re-election campaign.
Candidate: Thank you for your support.
Now, is this a bribe? Or is it me (and the other members of my organization) exercising our First Amendment rights?
You are right that I have that suspicion, but I didn’t intend to sound over the top on that point. I’ve seen too many incestuous relationships in government, especially the second hand sort, which regulation may not prevent. As I mentioned already, I probably should concentrate on the clear problem of campaign contributions.
My impression (which may be wrong) was that the decisions were related to laws which limited spending by individuals instead of campaign contributions. If I’m wrong, that is a major roadblock.
The campaign contribution system doesn’t provide speech, it gives control of money to a candidate, who can direct it to other political causes, or pay people who are not restricted in what they can do with it. And politicians who rely on that money to get elected are undoubtedly influenced by the effect of their votes on their ability to raise that money.
I wouldn’t object to the government spending on paper for mailings, or other small amounts. I don’t think the large expenditures of money for advertising are a necessary part of an election, but it is certainly ingrained in our system. My problem with public financing is that it will deliver enormous amounts of money into non-competitive media outlets, and the politicians who depend on it can increase those amounts endlessly. Otherwise, you are pointing out good problems. I certainly don’t want to end up with political parties gaining even more power in order to manage political campaigns.
It’s certainly unusual. And welcomed. I suggest it’s the latter.
Since you’re actually spending money on campaign contributions to ensure the continued limitation and restriction of government power.
You realize of course that 99+% of all campaign contributions are designed to do the opposite…that is, to get the government to use its legal monopoly of force to actively coerce and/or restrict the behavior and power of private entities.
OK, unions have been mentioned, along with large groups that aren’t controlled by a small group of people, like trial lawyers. Do you think that that politicians aren’t currently dependent on individuals and groups like this to get elected, or are you questioning something else? If you don’t think the current situation is a problem, then I can understand that you wouldn’t want to change it. But tell me if there is something more there to consider. I’m particularly disturbed by the influence of money on government, but maybe that makes me ignore other more important factors.
I don’t think the cause matters much. Everybody has their vote, and the use of money to increase the value of some votes is the problem. It doesn’t look like I’m getting a lot closer to a solution though. I don’t want to curtail free speech, but I don’t consider paying someone to have more free speech is curtailment. But then they can just give the money to someone who is not a government official to act as a proxy.
Perhaps the problem is all in the electorate who could toss out the bums any time, but just seem to replace them with new bums.
