Lobby Reform Act

Well congress is back and the crazy season is in full swing. First up is the CYA bill otherwise known as the Lobby Reform Act, unless you're a Democrat, then you call it the Democratic Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. Anyone who watches this farce knows that any bill with the word reform in it will serve only to make following the money more complicated. About all these two acts offer right now is rhetoric. Once they get down to the business of debating and writing the law it will become a 600+ page of incomprehensible gibberish with Mac truck sized loopholes. The only good that will come of it is the congress will be too busy with trying to one up each other that they won't have time to find new ways to pick our pockets.

The problem of the influence of money in politics will not go away. Politicians are the same now as they ever have been. People drawn to power need wealth to gain power. To manage this reality we should limit the source of that wealth to only those governed directly by the person holding the power. In other words, campaign contributions should only be made by a registered voter to the candidates running for office in that voter's jurisdiction. If I can vote for him I can give to him. More importantly the politician can't get money from any entity that can't vote for him. No corporate, PAC, labor union, or foreign donations.

Then get rid of the restrictions on the amounts one can give just so long as the names of those who give and the amounts given are published daily. With the Internet it should be easy to do. Then we know who owes who what. Knowing that we can at least know what to expect once they take office. After all Will Rogers was fairly accurate when he said "An honest politician is one who stays bought."

mcq at QandO likes the Dem plan and has a good analisys I agree with, but I still think the devil's in the details.

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