by Robert C. Sage

Created on: October 21, 2007

Lobbyists represent special interests to the decision-makers of our government. Their job is to affect the decisions made in the direction of those special interests. Occasionally, it is conceivable that the aims of those special interests and those of the entire population, might coincide, but in that case, they would be fighting against other special interest lobbyists in favor of the common, greater good. However, if lobbyists were prohibited from initiating direct contact with the governmental decision makers, there would be a much higher likelihood that our elected officials would make decisions consistent with the common, greater good.

These lobbyists can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to do work on behalf of members of Congress. At present, lobbyists actually write much of the legislation that is presented to Congress. Lobbyists simply shop around their ideas and proposals and then provide research and support for the sponsors chosen to introduce the bills. Those same special interest lobbyists then swing into high gear to convince other members of Congress to support their legislation. Obviously, this has significant impact on the decisions made and it perverts the intent of America's democratic process.

Lobbying organizations, if prohibited from initiating contact with high level government officials and their employees, could still contact their individual organization's citizen members and ask them to contact their elected representatives. That could result in more citizen contact to those same officials, which would be a good thing. It would also put common citizens nominally on an equal footing as citizen members of the special interest groups, as it should be.

Additional restrictions on special interest group's involvement in the political process would be appropriate. For example, corporations, organizations, unions and associations should not be permitted to make political campaign contributions or give anything of value (i.e. $100), including travel, memberships, gifts or meals, etc. to any government official or else be subject to prosecution for attempted bribery.
Even the appearance of impropriety is inappropriate and should be avoided.

Ideally, all federal campaigns should be exclusively funded by public financing. That would avoid any quid pro quo for contributions, a current practice that is tantamount to bribery. Obtaining a pre-set number of constituent signatures to file as a candidate and receive the funds could eliminate

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