Should lobbyist money be considered a "bribe"?

[mjr]

Poll.

So, should lobbyist money be considered a bribe? Consider what lobbyists do, and how they work...

[MadMike]

Since it's nothing more than legalized bribery, call it what it is.

[TheHuckster]

I somehow accidentally picked "depends" but I meant "Yes."

Serving an interest group or industry to try to influence politics is, in and of itself, okay. In other words, if, say, a group representing the medical industry is making a certain issue known, like "we should curb teenage smoking" then I don't have a problem with that. Even controversial groups like the NRA should have a voice.

However, making contributions to grease the wheel is absolutely wrong and needs to be dealt with.

[MadMike]

I somehow accidentally picked "depends" but I meant "Yes."

I was able to fix it for you.

[s_stabeler]

I voted yes, but in some ways, it depends. How I would set it up is that since corporations get their ability to donate to political causes because they have rights ( and I actually disagree on that point, but not on the freedom of speech parts, which is where Citizens United came from. I do believe it was over-broad, though.) then they have to abide by the same restrictions as ordinary people (dollar limit on contributions, for one thing) and I would also restrict how much a corporation can campaign on a candidate's behalf (maybe make it that actively campaigning for a specific candidate counts as a campaign contribution, so is limited by laws on campaign finance?)

[TheHuckster]

I was able to fix it for you

Thanks, oh powerful forum god.

I voted yes, but in some ways, it depends. How I would set it up is that since corporations get their ability to donate to political causes because they have rights ( and I actually disagree on that point, but not on the freedom of speech parts, which is where Citizens United came from. I do believe it was over-broad, though.) then they have to abide by the same restrictions as ordinary people (dollar limit on contributions, for one thing) and I would also restrict how much a corporation can campaign on a candidate's behalf (maybe make it that actively campaigning for a specific candidate counts as a campaign contribution, so is limited by laws on campaign finance?)

Campaigning for a candidate is an interesting grey area for me. I think it really depends on the details as to why a candidate is being endorsed by a group or cause. If, for instance, there was an agreement to the effect of: "I will fight for this law passage if you endorse me and spend advertising money to do so" then I'd say that falls under bribery. If, on the other hand, a group or cause already knows that one candidate is supportive of a particular law versus their opponent, and it's not conditional to that group's endorsement of that candidate, then I don't have a problem with the group spending money to inform voters of this fact.

Problem is, this is where it becomes difficult to enforce, since any deals between them would almost certainly be behind closed doors, so you'd have to do a lot of investigation to figure out if there were behind-the-scenes agreements or not.

[s_stabeler]

the idea is to limit a corporation's ability to campaign for a candidate over-and-above what individuals can. Currently, you have PACs, which allow the de facto ability to flout campaign finance laws since officially, it's the PAC campaigning on behalf of the candidate.

[mjr]

the idea is to limit a corporation's ability to campaign for a candidate over-and-above what individuals can. Currently, you have PACs, which allow the de facto ability to flout campaign finance laws since officially, it's the PAC campaigning on behalf of the candidate.

Personally, even as someone who leans Conservative, I think PACs & SuperPACs should be limited as to how much they can contribute, too.

I've posted my thoughts on that before, but I think there should be a cap on how much can be raised/spent by these campaigns and by the political parties. And no "war chests" either.