Post #3 - Money, lobbyists & politics, part 2

Post #2 considered a defense of lobbyists based on a free speech argument and found it unable to justify or explain away the allegedly corrupting influence of special interest money on politics. This post will consider other defenses. It may be the case that two or more defenses together make a convincing case that the influence of special interest money on politics is more good than bad.

The premise is that the influence of lobbyists backed by special interest money on politics is generally detrimental to the public interest. The argument is that special interest money is a major reason for the failure of our political institutions. Obviously, if you do not believe that our institutions including, the Democratic and Republican parties, have failed then the arguments presented here will probably be unpersuasive or irrelevant. Like most contested issues in politics, people will disagree.

Defense 2 - Lobbyists are just exercising their
right to petition the government

This argument has been articulated several times. The bill of rights of the constitution provides a right for people to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Like the free speech argument discussed in post #2, this argument is true. However, like the free speech argument, it is beside the point of what the role of special interest money might be. Petitioning the government can be good, bad or indifferent for the public interest.

Like the free speech argument, this argument can be accompanied by the argument that lobbyists "toil in the public interest". As discussed in post #2, the persuasive power of that depends on your definition of the public interest. Special interests always argue that what they want for their special interest is in the public's interest.

That routinely happens, including in cases where lobbyists on opposite sides of an issue both argue they are on the public's side. Those arguments are invariably accompanied by assertions that the opposition is working for the special interest to the detriment of the public interest.

Defense #3 - Lobbyists represent many people

This defense has been raised by a number of people, e.g. Hillary Clinton. In her lobbyist defense, Clinton said that "a lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans. They actually do. They represent nurses. They represent, you know, social workers. Yes, they represent corporations that employ a lot of people."

Once again, this is a defense that is is literally true but it ignores the role of special interest money in representing all those people. It also assumes that what special interests want is in the public interest. It is fair to ask, is what the nurses or corporations want necessarily in the public's interest? What they want will be at least party in their own interest, but that says nothing about any effect on the public interest. If there is benefit to the public, then why is so much money needed? Why can't the lobbyist argument win without a pile of cash?

Defense #4 - Lobbyists balance

competing interests

Another lobbyist defense argues that our political system is "specifically designed to balance to competing interests of many rival corporations, lobbyists and PACS." The question for this defense is whether you believe it or not. Is our political system really designed to balance competing interests? Assuming it is, then why is so much special interest money needed to do the balancing? Why don't special interest arguments win or lose on the merits with no campaign contributions required?

As I understand politics, our system at the national level and the local level is a pay to play system. The more a special interest pays, the more it plays. The term "play" arguably is a euphemism for access to power and "pay" is a euphemism for buying votes or favors. Of course, special interests, lobbyists and politicians all deny that characterization.

So, does that system balance competing interests? Does a lobbyist working for a cash strapped non-profit fighting against an oil company lobbyist armed with millions of dollars in cash feel the balance? A reasonable guess is that the cash-poor lobbyist gets little access and influence compared to the rich lobbyist.

Does that look like a political system "specifically designed to balance to competing interests"? The fact that competing interests may fight over an issue does not explain the role of money or why it needs to be involved. If anything, it looks like our political system is favors wealthy interests at the expense of poor ones.

Defense #5 - If you don't like lobbyists,
you don't like yourself

This argument goes like this: Lobbies mirror our own interests and when Americans say "they hate lobbyists, what they are really saying is that they hate themselves." That is an interesting argument. It seems to imply that anything your personal lobbyist wants must be in the public interest because otherwise you would hate yourself. Strange logic. Flawed logic.

What if my lobbyist argues for something I oppose because I am in the numerical or monetary minority in my special interest group? And if my lobbyist argues for something I want, does that necessarily make it in the public interest? Special interests may not necessarily coincide with the public's interests.

For example, rich individuals and corporations do not want to pay taxes and they contribute money so that their lobbyists can get congress to exempt them from paying a lot of taxes. That has created tax loopholes to the tune of at least $100 billion annually for corporations alone. Our tax system "is hemorrhaging with offshore tax havens costing us, according to the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, over $100 billion a year in lost revenue." That certainly is in the interest of the beneficiaries. But, is it in the public interest?

Anyway, this lobbyist defense is silent on why special interest money needs to be involved or whether it is good or bad.

Conclusion for part 2

Lobbyist defenses #2-5 discussed in this post just do not address the role of special interest money in the whole process. Given that, lobbyist defenses 1-5 alone or together do not convincingly show that special interest money is more good than bad. If all that special interest money was so good for us all, then why is America up to its eyeballs in irate alligators? Why has our system failed? Defenders of the status quo have had things their way for decades. Where are the public benefits of all that special interest spending on our political institutions? Where's the beef?

Post #2 - Money, lobbyists & politics

Some people are concerned about the role of special interest money and lobbyists in politics. Some aren't. Special interests and lobbyists certainly are not concerned. However, the issue keeps coming up. People like Solomon Kleinsmith at Rise of the Center (a moderate blog) cite concerns that non-partisan groups like Common Cause and Public Citizen continue to raise. This issue was mentioned here in an earlier post. This issue just isn't going away, and it shouldn't.

Money and lobbyist defenses

The issue raises the question of what is the role of special interest money and lobbyists in politics. Are they more good than bad? What are the arguments that say they are good? Are the arguments convincing? A Google search of the phrase "in defense of lobbyists" gives thousands of hits and among them are several arguments that what special interest money and lobbyists do is defensible.

It makes sense to start with the best defense first. If it is convincing, which should include supporting data, then one can reasonably conclude that lobbyists and special interest, money in politics is a generally good thing. If not, one is left to speculate why the argument fails.

This post discusses the most convincing of the arguments I could find. Alone, it failed to convince me that what lobbyists and special interest money does to politics is more good than bad. My next post will discuss more defenses. Maybe two or more defenses will be sufficient to change the political argument that when armed with special interest money, lobbyists and their money corrupt American politics and hurts the public interest.

Defense 1 - The constitution protects special
interest money and lobbyists

This defense is simple. The U.S. constitution protects political speech and in essence it cannot be limited or controlled. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court in January 2010 made it clear that they consider spending special interest money in politics to be free speech. This argument says that what lobbyists and special interests do with their money is legal and cannot be easily restrained or limited. Given that, contacts between lobbyists and people in government cannot be restrained and special interests can do just about whatever they want in terms of spending money to influence politics.

This defense has been repeatedly raised by experienced, mainstream commentators in respected media outlets, e.g., the U.S. News and World Report and the Wall Street Journal. Under the circumstances, it is the case that lobbyist contacts and the spending of special interest money are both protected free speech. Although I disagree with the argument that a special interest legal entity such as a corporation has such free speech rights, that opinion is not the law. So, it will be ignored.

Assuming that there is no dispute that all "normal" lobbyist activities and special interest spending really is legal, how convincing is the conclusion that lobbyist activities and special interest spending is therefore more good than bad? The implied argument is this: If it is legal, it must be good and therefore it is good. That is the heart and soul of this defense. So, is it convincing? To me it isn't.

This defense isn't convincing for the simple reason that it is beside the point. Bare assertions that lobbyist activity and special interest money is legal ignores the question of whether they are good, bad or indifferent. Unbiased data and proof of benefit to society is what would be convincing. None of the people who raised this defense accompanied their arguments with unspun, hard data showing any benefit to anyone other than the special interest. There are two simple arguments that further undermine this defense.

Legal things and illegal things: Things like smoking cigarettes, banning gays from open military service, abortion and drafting massive tax loopholes for corporations that move operations offshore are all legal for the most part. Things like smoking marijuana, same sex marriage, first degree murder and prostitution are all illegal. Are all the legal things actually good for society? Are all the illegal things really bad? Obviously, that will depend on who you ask. An answer based at least partly on a cost-benefit analysis instead of a pure personal opinion will usually be more accurate.

In cases like first degree murder, it doesn't take much analysis to conclude that society is better off making it illegal. But what about cigarettes and marijuana? There are good arguments on both sides for those issues. The same logic applies to lobbyists armed with special interest money trying to influence government. In short, just because something is legal doesn't mean it must be a good thing for society. Sometimes that is true but sometimes it isn't.

We are on the public's side: The second argument against the free speech defense comes directly from the partisan players themselves. Lobbyists and special interests with money usually argue that they are humbly begging to act solely for the public benefit without any regard whatever to their own petty interests. That includes lobbyists and money on opposite sides of contested issues.

Remember the November 2010 elections? It wasn't that long ago. Here in California, there were ballot measures that were hotly contested. Some of those ballot measures pitted labor unions against business interests.

Can you guess what both sides argued? Both sides vigorously argued that they were acting in the public interest. And both sides vehemently argued their evil opponent was acting to benefit their opponent's special interest at the expense of the poor, undefended and beleaguered public interest. That was sweet of both sides to think about us fool taxpayers, wasn't it?

Anyway, set emotion aside and think calmly about that scenario. You had hard core partisan special interests with money and their lobbyists in the middle of political discourse, if that is what you could call it. They were both accusing the other side of acting for the benefit of the special interest at the expense of the public interest. Who should you believe was on the public's side - special interest #1 or special interest #2?

From where I sat as a neutral observer, it looked like each side argued for their own interest to the detriment of the public interest. Neither side was very convincing. Both argued their own special interest with little or no regard to the public interest.

Truth and reconciliation: How do the opposing sides reconcile the apparent paradox? Easy, they both defined the public interest as coinciding with their own. Neither side would ever entertain the thought that maybe both were more wrong than right. An outside observer honestly looking for object truth and common sense logic could easily see it a third way. The partisans slugging it in campaign or advocacy ads out were not a reasonable source for unbiased opinion or fact.

Conclusion

Although the free speech defense of lobbyist and special interest money as being legal is correct, it is essentially irrelevant. Alone, that defense is unpersuasive if you can be neutral and objective. I need to look at more defenses. Maybe two or more defenses of what I see as indefensible are needed to be convincing to someone like me who is objective and neutral when it comes to the facts. Maybe there is something out there that I am missing.

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This post tried to present another way of looking at politics. It tries to step back and apply common sense and logic to politics. Ideology is ignored as much as possible so that facts and reality can be seen more easily and clearly. That is a third way of doing politics.

Post #1 - Reincarnation

The California Moderates blog is back, but as a different beast. The original was dedicated to starting a new moderate / pragmatic political party in California. That effort failed. The premise was, and still is, that meaningful reform and more intelligent politics cannot come from the two established parties. They are captive to powerful special interests with money and their own entrenched activists. Neither will tolerate reform. That would threaten their power and challenge their political and religious ideology.

Moderates are beginning to organize on a national level. To date, most of the discussion has focused on political news, criticism and commentary, which is fine. However, if moderates are going to really challenge the status quo, it will require a new political party in each state. That requires organization at the state level. It also requires a clear explanation of what moderates stand for, what they would do and how they differ from the right and the left.

This blog is here to suggest political changes and how to implement new ways of thinking about solving political problems. Some of the content will be California-centric, but that is just because that is where I live. Maybe some of this content will be useful to groups in other states. If so, use it as you wish. There are no strings attached.