Congress Members Who Took RIAA Cash

palewook writes "The Consumerist posted a story containing the contact information of 50 United States Representatives & Senators who accepted RIAA money during their last election campaign. Seems like a good time to let a few people know how you feel about RIAA shills."

Comments

Really hard to make a good case for lobbying.

[blind biker]

Lobbyin is the weakest part of US democracy. I am really not a US basher (a colleague says I am a disguised CIA operative), but I don't understand what place lobbying has in a democracy. I don't care how transparent it is, it's still a bribe.

Re:Really hard to make a good case for lobbying.

[Original Replica]

It's more that it's just very difficult to stop, without severely interfereing with the ability of common people to support their prefered candidate. ie: "If I can say good things about this candidate I like, why can't I put a favorable ad in the paper or on TV for him?"

Re:Really hard to make a good case for lobbying.

[Sunburnt]

It's more that it's just very difficult to stop, without severely interfereing with the ability of common people to support their prefered candidate.

It's really that hard to draw a line between individual and corporate sponsorship?

Re:Really hard to make a good case for lobbying.

[Jarjarthejedi]

Yes, because there are ways to cheat. If you let any individual sponsor something, then any company can as well as they can simply use one or more of their workers as an individual for the purposes of sponsoring. Ban any corporate sponsorship and they'll just find a way around it (Okay Bill, we're going to give you a 2,000,000 bonus and you're going to donate 1,900,000 to X fund to sponsor X thing or Y bad thing will happen to you etc.)

I hate lobbying as much as the next guy (who is on /. and hates lobbying :P) but don't try to make it seem like a small problem, so long as you allow ANY sponsorship (which isn't always a bad thing, especially individual sponsorship) there will be corporate lobbying, no matter how many laws you put up to try and stop it. Every law has a loop-hole and these companies have armies of lawyers experienced at finding loopholes. Say you make the max contribution for a company 10,000 or something, they'll just create a whole bunch of sub-corps and have each donate 10,000 to get back to their original contribution. That's just a single example, everything you do to stop it will have a loophole by nature of needing to allow unaffiliated individuals the chance to help.

You're joking, right?

[Reality Master 101]

First of all, this is who the RIAA donated to, not who "accepted" their money. I would say nearly all politicians will except money from anyone, except entities who are clearly negative to the mainstream (and the RIAA is NOT "clearly negative" to the mainstream).

One of the ways the RIAA operates is by donating money to politicians who then enact favorable legislation on their behalf. Don't let the optimist in you believe that this doesn't work. It does.

Second of all, these amounts are ridiculously small. Does anyone seriously thinking $1,000-$9,000 is going to buy major legislation? That won't pay for their gold letter opener on their desk. Sheesh, if that's all it takes to pass legislation, I'll pay a couple thou to get MY pet legislation passed.

In short, what's the story here?

To get rid of lobbying

[Anonymous Coward]

Rebuild the Capitol so that the front door leads directly to the Congress chamber. No lobby, no lobbying.

Re:Does it matter?

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Wow. How very defeatist. "Oh corruption is rife, so let's give up and resign ourselves to being fucked over for the rest of our lives". Good attitude.

Its not the lobbying (advocacy), its the money

[HighOrbit]

Lobbying, in itself, is not the problem. Lobbying in its pure form is nothing more than persuasion or advocacy. In fact, I would argue that lobbying is beneficial in a technically complex and diverse society where various groups need to have knowledgeable people pressing their case to lawmakers who could never be expert on the details themselves. Lobbying is important in a pluralistic democracy.

The problem is that the lobbyists can "bundle" donations in order to give fat checks to lawmakers. Bundling is a technique of pooling money from several donors to get around limits on individual donors.

Only one form of campaign finance reform will ever really work. All others will ALWAYS fail. The one that will work is to enact the following - Allow only registered voters who are eligible to vote for a candidate/issue may donate to that candidate/issue. Only registered voters in a district have any business influencing elections in that district. People from California, New York, or anywhere else have *NO* legitimate reason to donate to a candidate or referendum issue in Nebraska, but I would be willing to bet Nebraska Senators and Congressmen raise most of their cash from out-of-state interests. So there is the problem, and I've given the solution.

Of course nobody who is vested in the current system will ever go along with that proposal. It doesn't matter whether its the politicians or business groups, labor unions, or 'advocacy' groups like on both the left or right like the ACLU, AARP, or NRA. They all believe they have an interest in the current system.

It never seizes to amaze me...

[presarioD]

...how in any democracy on this planet, even in the banana republics, if a politician is caught receiving money from a private or corporate entity it is a huge scandal that will inexorably lead to the demise of that politician, and in this country it is celebrated and institutionalized under the banner of "fund-raising".

What is really even more weird and always laughable is how people are always ready to defend this type of "democracy" even with their lives... tsk tsk tsk tsk *shaking head*...