Should For-Profit Lobbying Be Outlawed?

Don't we deserve better than this?

How corrupt is Washington? And how bipartisan is the corruption? Washington is so corrupt that the inner child in me wants to say the only solution is obliterating it entirely and starting fresh. That's ridiculous, of course, and if we did obliterate it, we'd be throwing out all the good-- and there's plenty-- with the bad. How about just throwing out all the Republicans? Well, that's always an excellent solution-- particularly if you include the Republican-lite Blue Dogs with them-- but that takes us to the heart of the second question. How bipartisan is the corruption? I'm afraid the answer is "very bipartisan." The House elected Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel to top spots not because of their competence, brilliance or ideologically cohesive strategies. They were elected to lead the House Democrats because they are both crooks and can be counted on to-- at minimum-- manipulate and bend the rules to help keep the cash flowing. (It's very similar to why the Republicans stuck with their far more corrupt leader, John Boehner.) Whether we're talking about Tom DeLay, Jerry Lewis, Rick Santorum, Ted Stevens, Rahm Emanuel, Charlie Rangel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Roy Blunt, John Boehner, Jack Murtha, Terry McAuliffe or John Cornyn, in Washington, the sleaze rises to the top.

Corruption follows power and the most corrupt of all industries-- the for-profit lobbying industry, which is designed to function as a criminal endeavor and should be outlawed-- gives to both parties. The most egregiously corrupt employer of lobbyists, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (which spent over double what the second biggest crooks spent ($461,509,680) to bribe federal politicians, gives overwhelmingly to Republicans but also supports sleazy and reactionary Democrats willing to sell out working families and vote with the GOP on crucial issues. Not counting presidential candidates, the lobbyists' 5 favorite members for 2008 (those who have put their votes on the auction block most consistently and have delivered the goods for the bribes they have been paid) were:

Mitch MCConnell (R-KY- $356,140), widely considered the sleaziest member of the U.S. Senate
Mark Warner (D-VA- $283,806), widely expected to be Big Business' best Democratic bud in the Senate
Max Baucus (D-MT- $277,511), widely expected to not cede the title to Warner without a fight
John Sununu (R-NH- $274,301), widely expected to find a less corrupt job now that NH voters kicked him out of office-- despite the massive infusions of questionable cash
Mary Landrieu (D-LA- $269,627), widely seen as someone with both the ethics and the voting record of a Republican.

So a startling report by Open Secrets today shouldn't really startle anyone who has been paying attention. One line summary: The companies that have been awarded taxpayers' money from Congress's bailout bill spent $77 million on lobbying and $37 million on federal campaign contributions.

Their return on investment is 267,208%. Cozy-- they pay off the pols and the pols reward them-- massively-- with our money. We think we're so smart to refuse real campaign finance reform. Think about that 267,208% return means. That was part of what was so sickening about the Randy Duke Cunningham case. Lobbyists paid him-- and his partners in crime, Jerry Lewis and Duncan Hunter-- a few thousand dollars and he would insert millions of dollars in earmarks as a quid pro quo. He's in prison; Hunter gave his seat to his son and retired; and Lewis is laying low and hoping the Obama Justice Department will be as easygoing as Bush's was when it comes to corrupt members of Congress.

The struggling companies whose freewheeling business practices have contributed to the country's economic woes are getting a lucrative return on at least one of their investments. Beneficiaries of the $700 billion bailout package in the finance and automotive industries have spent a total of $114.2 million on lobbying in the past year and contributions toward the 2008 election, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has found. The companies' political activities have, in part, yielded them $305.2 billion from the federal government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), an extraordinary return of 267,208 percent.

"Even in the best economic times, you won't find an investment with a greater payoff than what these companies have been getting," said Sheila Krumholz, the Center's executive director. "Some of the companies and industries that have received payments may now consider their contributions and lobbying to be the smartest investments they've made in years." 

While the Treasury Department, not Congress, doles out TARP funds to specific institutions, congressional lawmakers had to authorize that money in the first place, and lawmakers will determine in the future whether to release more funds to prop up the U.S. economy. During the bill-writing process, members of Congress were able to specify to some extent where the money should go, and they have lobbied regulators to urge them to inject funds into specific banks and financial institutions, including those in lawmakers' own districts.  

"Taxpayers hope their money is being allocated entirely on the merits, but with Congress controlling how much money the Treasury gets to hand out, it will be impossible to completely exclude politics from this process," Krumholz said.

The big donors were Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, AIG and General Motors. Do those names sound familiar? They should. If you're feeling a bit of a financial pinch right now, it's because of them and their buddies in the political system.

Which senators make a point of not accepting money from lobbyists? The ones we've found are Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Robert Byrd (D-WV), Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Pathetically small list!


UPDATE: The Senate Rejects Restricting Corruption

Senator Feingold introduced an amendment today that would have actually made the Stimulus Package stronger-- S. Amdt 140 that would have provided greater accountability of taxpayers' dollars by curtailing congressional earmarking and requiring disclosure of lobbying by recipients of Federal funds. Sounds great, right? Only 32 senators voted for it. It failed 32-65. The Obstructionist Caucus will vote yes on anything that holds up the Stimulus so they were all on board but the only Democrats who joined Feingold in this attempt to clean up the filth and corruption that defines Washington were Evan Bayh, Maria Cantwell, Ted Kaufman, and Claire McCaskill. Sickening.