Lobbying?? What's wrong with lobbying?

[underpants]

:shrug:

In Defense of Lobbying
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 29, 2008

Everyone knows the First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. How many remember that, in addition, the First Amendment protects a fifth freedom -- to lobby?

Of course it doesn't use the word lobby. It calls it the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Lobbyists are people hired to do that for you, so that you can actually stay home with the kids and remain gainfully employed rather than spend your life in the corridors of Washington.
---Okay so CLEARLY lobbying is a constitutional right but just to make sure he established that FACT ---

Lobbying is constitutionally protected, but that doesn't mean we have to like it all. Let's agree to frown upon bad lobbying, such as getting a tax break for a particular industry. Let's agree to welcome good lobbying -- the actual redress of a legitimate grievance -- such as protecting your home from being turned to dust to make way for some urban development project.

There is a defense of even bad lobbying. It goes like this: You wouldn't need to be seeking advantage if the federal government had not appropriated for itself in the 20th century all kinds of powers, regulations, intrusions and manipulations (often through the tax code) that had never been presumed in the 19th century and certainly were never imagined by the Founders. What appears to be rent-seeking is thus redress of a larger grievance -- insufferable government meddling in what had traditionally been considered an area of free enterprise.

Good lobbying, on the other hand, requires no such larger contextual explanation. It is a cherished First Amendment right -- necessary, like the others, to protect a free people against overbearing and potentially tyrannical government.
--- :eyes: ---
What would be an example of petitioning the government for a redress of a legitimate grievance? Let's say you're a media company wishing to acquire a television station in Pittsburgh. Because of the huge federal regulatory structure, you require the approval of a government agency. In this case it's called the Federal Communications Commission.

What would constitute not doing their job? A textbook example would be the FCC sitting two full years on a pending application to acquire a Pittsburgh TV station. There could hardly be a better case of a legitimate "petition for a redress" than that of the aforementioned private entity asking the chairman of the appropriate oversight committee to ask the tardy bureaucrats for a ruling. So the chairman does that, writing to the FCC demanding a ruling -- any ruling -- while explicitly stating that he is asking for no particular outcome.

This, of course, is precisely what John McCain did on behalf of Paxson Communications in writing two letters to the FCC in which he asked for a vote on the pending television-station acquisition. These two letters are the only remotely hard pieces of evidence in a 3,000-word front-page New York Times article casting doubt on John McCain's ethics.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022803232.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. there's lobbying and there's lobbying

when my neighbor Herb goes to Washington to talk to our conman about clear cutting the national forest, he just brings himself. And he speaks for himself and his neighbors. No buddies from Washington DC, no planes or dinners or other goodies to offer. Just a constituent wanting to talk. Used to be he could--nowadays I reckon he wouldn't be granted the time. This is why the paid lobbyists of K Street should be outlawed.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. But, Herb can give 10 bucks to a bunch of...

organizations that do have access to Congress. He might even become an organization's rep down there. Strength in numbers, and all...

I'll go along with a major overhaul of lobbying in DC, but I'm not sure how you would deal with the abuses without hurting "our" lobbyists. Friends Committee on National Legislation doesn't have near the resources of the defense contractors and I would hate to see whatever influence it has reduced even further while trying to reign in oil companies, Wall Street...

[Vincardog]

3. Start with Pubic financing of elections. Outlaw the revolving door between Government and the

industries they regulate, When the only thing our representatives want or need from us is our VOTE they will listen to us and not the Parasitic Corporate Welfare Queens.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. You got that right

that is exactly what needs to be done.

[Igel]

5. Of course.

It's only bad when your enemy does it. When the virtuous do it, it's virtuous.