In all seriousness, is there any reason for lobbyists?

[Racer X]

which platform do you represent? ;-)

[Randalls]

Legal bribery....nuff said.

[the_poochies]

brofoski Wrote:
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> I knew a guy in college who's father was a
> lobbyist. His father was basically paid to party.
> It was pretty fun when he'd come to town with his
> credit card, though.

Yeah, that's one of the perks. The biggest drawback is that you have to wear a suit a lot.

[Teela Brown]

RogF, don't lobbyists focus most of their attention on legislators rather than administrations?

Lobbyists do perform an important function.

Contrary to the widely held belief on most internet forums, most issues aren't black and white. Costs and benefits must be weighed before making sweeping decisions. Lobbyists have the resources to research issues (and present the research as lopsidedly as they dare, of course) in ways your representatives couldn't do with their relatively small staffs. Your legislators can't all be experts in every single issue that comes before them, can they?

In an ideal world, opposing lobbyists present good information and our legislators are honest and intelligent enough to review the information and to write bills as well as they can not to do more damage than good, and then vote in their constituents' best interest. If they go back home and can't convince the voters that they voted right when it's most important, they get booted.

The custom has other natural checks. Lobbyists who burn legislators with bad information lose influence no matter how many lagniappes they hand out.

Actually, the system works pretty well in some places. Vermont is small enough that crooked pols get caught or voted out most of the time. Most people are no more dishonest than you are. (If you're a crook, you'll tend to believe all people are crooks.)

"Partying" is a small part of what lobbyists do despite what brofoski's expert source says. Though provocative, it is little different from a salesman wooing a client by wining and dining. In business, accepting personal rewards for bogus purchasing and getting caught is a fireable offence. In government, it's a jail-able offence. It's the catching that's tough in both cases.

If you're truly concerned that the system works against voters' best interests, term limits and the line item veto would help.

[RgrF]

>If you're truly concerned that the system works against >voters' best interests, term limits and the line item veto >would help.

Worst approach, in my opinion. If an experienced lawmaker with no ethical issues is forced to go find another job because of term limits, it only increases the influence of lobbyists and the folks who fund them.

Not only that but the loss of "institutional memory" almost guarantees these people will keep repeating past mistakes, mistakes that often conviently benefit some same lobbyists.

Term limts, while appealing in a cheap shot kinda' way, only make matters worse in the long haul.

[Pops]

Jimmypoo Wrote:
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> If you were a congressional staffer for a candidate who lost - how else would you earn a
> living? (assuming you weren't female)

Does gender really matter? Oh yeah..... with a guy lobbiest, it's more likely that the public gets ..... er, you know.