Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (5077)	7/18/2001 7:01:49 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

You're making a statement that it should be illegal for the owner of a business to hire a lawyer to go up on Capitol Hill to protect his interests. Do you want to do that? I don't think I said that. Conceivably, the Congressional office could refuse to meet with anyone. All contact is limited to "in writing". Alternatively, meeting schedules with Congressional members could become part of the public record. Public officials, public disclosure. Suppose I work in that man's plant. He signs the check that pays my rent and feeds my kids. He should not be allowed to try to protect my family? I doubt that he would be representing his employee's family. It could be couched that way, but I'm more of a cynic than that. I worked for a company that had a lobby. They took positions that I disagreed with [though their internal literature told me that they were representing me; what's good for the company is good for the employee] and they lobbied those position. Sure, I could have sent a memo objecting to the positions......I thought is was in my best interest to not do so. If you represented an organization as large as NRA? Quite possibly. Maybe more from some legislators. As in an earlier post, no organization is monolithic, so I don't know that every point made is supported by each and every member. I used to think that members of the House and Senate were supposed to represent their constiutients first. So any membership organization should be diminished in their weight along those lines. The NEA or NRA has n million members, but when they see the representative of the 6th district of PA, they [the organization]are maybe only representing the interests of their members in that district. So we're talking about a relatively few members getting disproportinate access. Yeah, NRA gets time. Do you think NEA, AARP, Common Cause, and Sierra Club are ignored? Undue influence and quid pro quo are the issues to me. I don't discriminate on the organization. Is quid pro quo for legislation a first amendment protected principle? If that is literally true, you've got a case for bribery, and there are remedies for that. It can be literally true and virtually impossible to prove. Excuse me Senator, were you representing your constituents when you sponsored that legislation or was it quid pro quo? I wonder if the Congress would support legislation that required lie detector tests of the members sponsoring or co-sponoring legislation to get to that question. Integrity through polygraphy! Not in secret from the vested interests; in secret with the vested interests. You mean like Hillary hiding out with left advocates and representatives of left-wing groups to draft her health bill? Ignoring the adjective "left". But you knew who was preparing the legislation; there was some disclosure. You didn't like the composition; perhaps not balanced representation, but you knew. Cheney met with "someone" to draft energy policy, we don't know who those persons or interests were. If organization NNN, drops a floppy disk off containing draft legislation, do we ever find that out? Is it unreasonable to know who is actually drafting policy and legislation? jttmab