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.