Career Politicians Rely on Lobbying For Reelection: Founding Fathers Foresaw This Problem
Op-Ed by John Cox
John Cox is a highly successful businessman. Cox ran in the Illinois GOP U.S. Senate Primary in 2004 and was a presidential candidate in 2008.
Marty Russo was my Congressman many years ago. He is correct; the Constitution does give us the right to address our grievances and lobbying on issues does serve a good purpose. The problem is not with the lobbyists; it is with the career politicians we elect who agree to be bought. Why? Because they want to get re-elected and their districts and states are so large, they need prodigious sums to do it. That is why lobbyists bring a check with them or host fundraisers - money talks with people that need so much money to get elected.
The Constitution (and the Founding Fathers) anticipated this. They capped the size of districts at 30,000 people and had Senators elected by state legislators. They also had the electoral college elect the President. I am not sure they anticipated today's very expensive mass media but they did anticipate that large numbers of voters would mean big costs and the concomitant need to raise large sums. In the late 19th Century, we amended the Constitution to popularly elect Senators because of a bribery scandal involving a state legislator. A little later, we capped the number of Congressmen at 435 so that now, each represents almost 700,000 people.
The answer is to reduce the size of districts on the state and federal level. This, combined with eliminating salaries and benefits for lawmakers and drastically increasing their numbers will remove the need for huge sums for campaigns. That will lessen dramatically the 'legalized bribery' that goes on with lobbyists funding campaigns. We do need lobbyists; they should lobby on the issues and make persuasive arguments. But they should not be allowed to buy legislators or public officials.
Term limits and other limits don't work. The problem is not that we have lobbyists; it is that we have politicians who pursue politics as a career and can be bought because they need so much campaign money. Look at New Hampshire. This works - they have 400 members of their House and they get paid $100 per year. They are not career politicians; they leave after donating their services. That state has no statewide taxes; no corruption; no huge deficits; no overreaching government.
Reduce the need for money and we will get honest, good policy.
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