Letter asks retiring members of Congress if negotiating for lobbying job and posts responses

[yurbud]

Drawing attention to this is at least as important as campaign finance reform and overturning Citizens United.

Even if elections were totally clean on the front end, corporations have a profound advantage over any union, consumer, environmental, or social policy group on what they can offer politicians on their way out of office:

Jobs that pay up to 14.5 times as much as their congressional salary or more as lobbyists, CEO's, do-nothing board members, consultants, and lawyers.

Republic Report asked retiring members of Congress if they were already in negotiations for lobbying jobs, got some responses, and even a couple on video.

If the media did their job, this would be a standard exit question leaving office, and coming in the front door, politicians should be asked how we can be sure they aren't working for their former employers or their own bank accounts rather than the public welfare.

Corruption is at the root of all the other problems our democracy has, and we've don't weld the revolving door shut (especially with a couple of pols stuck inside) to fix things.

You can also SIGN THEIR PETITION demanding Congress end this backdoor bribery.

Republic Report Sends Letter To 36 Retiring Members of Congress: Stop Backdoor Bribery, Disclose Your Job Negotiations With K Street
By Lee Fang posted Mar 15th 2012 at 11:01AM

Is your member of Congress serving you, or serving himself? Many lawmakers, when they approach retirement, begin negotiating with lobbying firms to receive multimillion dollar salaries after they leave office. In some cases, a Senator or Representative will slip language into a bill or write an earmark that benefits a special interest, and when they leave Congress, a big paycheck is waiting for them from the very same company.

While the process of public officials going to work for lobbying firms is often called the “revolving door,” we think this issue deserves more emphasis and urgency. With members of Congress secretly manipulating the laws we must all live under, and then receiving lavish rewards, so they can live lavish lifestyles, we call that Backdoor Bribery.

Yesterday, we published a report detailing the problem, and revealed that the lawmakers-turned-lobbyists we profiled received up to a 1,452 percent raise on average. Congressman Billy Tauzin (R-LA), for instance, made $158,100 as a lawmaker his last year in office. He went on to make nearly $20 million the next few years as a drug company lobbyist — after he wrote the law in Congress that prevents Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices for seniors (a rule that costs taxpayers billions). And Backdoor Bribery occurs on both sides of the aisle. It was reported earlier this year that Congressman Bill Delahunt (D-MA) earmarked hundreds of thousands of dollars in special projects before retiring, then began a lobbying job that counts his earmark recipients as clients.

Members of Congress owe their loyalty to the people they represent, not to big companies offering them future riches. We need to stand up against this abuse of our democracy.

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