Congressmen Who Lobbied FCC Against Net Neutrality & Received Payoff

An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica published an article Friday highlighting the results from research conducted by a money-in-politics watchdog regarding the 28 congressmen who sent a combined total of three letters to the FCC protesting against re-classifying the internet as a public utility. These 28 members of the U.S. House of Representatives 'received, on average, $26,832 from the "cable & satellite TV production & distribution" sector over a two-year period ending in December. According to the data, that's 2.3 times more than the House average of $11,651.' That's average. Actual amounts that the 28 received over a two year period ranged from $109,250 (Greg Walden, R-OR) to $0 (Nick Rahall, D-WV). Look at the list yourselves, and find your representative to determine how much legitimacy can be attributed to their stated concerns for the public."

Comments

US is an oligarchy, not a democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

Let's reclassify Lobbying as Bribery and

[Anonymous Coward]

make it illegal.

Re:Let's reclassify Lobbying as Bribery and

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as your lobbying doesn't include giving money or favours, fine. Lobbying should amount to a written letter explaining your reasoning for changes in law and how they benefit society.

Re:Let's reclassify Lobbying as Bribery and

[sumdumass]

Actually, although it is hardly ever prosecuted when it is openly and know, offering a bribe is against the law too.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/usc...

It seems that if you offer a bribe, you can be fined 3 times the monetary equivalent amount of the bribe and be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison as well as being disqualified to ever hold any pubic office or work for the government.

But Tom Steyer who recently announced he would give donations totaling 100 million dollars to candidates promising to support rejecting the keystone XL pipeline and support global warming efforts will likely never be prosecuted despite those acts specifically matching the first paragraph in the law

(1) directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official or person who has been selected to be a public official, or offers or promises any public official or any person who has been selected to be a public official to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intentâ"
(A) to influence any official act; or

This is because for some reasons, campaign donations don't seem to count as bribery. Maybe they should when they have purposely stated attachments to them instead of simply amplifying already existing convictions or the politicians. Maybe we should just accept it and move on knowing that there are problems.

I don't believe it!

[Anonymous Coward]

All this is, is confirmation of what everyone already knew in their gut, but try to ignore on a daily basis. This is just for something as "small" as net neutrality, use your imagination for more important issues.

Greg Walden

[Todd Palin]

My congressman, Greg Walden, is in a rock solid Republican district. He gets re-elected no matter what he does. As long as he can stay out of jail and avoid a primary challenge he wins by 2 to 1 in every race. He can take money from the highest bidder and get away with it. He is "congressman for life".

Pretty much

[rsilvergun]

one of the nasty parts of our history they don't teach is that large sections of our Constitution and the basis of our Representative government were designed to keep poor people from voting themselves the land that the wealthy had already claimed. It's all right there is books and documents from the time. There really wasn't any reason to hide it since if you were literate you were probably rich.

Re:Pretty much

[ArmoredDragon]

I don't think it was intended to protect the wealthy so much as it was intended to protect against mob mentality. Even in cases where it protects land you own, you didn't have to be wealthy to own land.

The most important thing was that they didn't like (and indeed just escaped from) a situation where lords and kings could just take anything you owned at any time they wanted because it was their "divine right." They certainly didn't want to replace that with a new government that was every bit as capable of doing the same thing, otherwise what the fuck was the point? Whether people voted you away from your land, or a king just demanded you relinquish it, is ultimately the same kind of injustice.

Just because "the people" want it, doesn't make it any more right. Remember that "the people" also supported slavery, indeed certain items like California Prop 8 won with a majority of voters.

Re:Pretty much

[amiga3D]

I actually look at what money candidates receive and who paid it. If the people lavishing money on them are my enemy then I tend to vote for the other candidate. All too often though the other candidate is also taking big payouts from the same bastards. It's hard to win when both candidates are bought.

Re:Pretty much

[knightghost]

Dollars do not win elections.

IMHO that statement is 100% false and the example is a cherry picked outlier. Dollars are by far the most important thing in an election - especially the bigger elections. They pay for strategy and marketing to craft the proper lie then buy commercials to brainwash the populace.

Re:Pretty much

[guises]

According to Politifact, it's only mostly false. The candidate who spends the most money wins 80+% of the time (98% for the house in 2004), but exactly how often they win varies by election.

Re:Pretty much

[DoofusOfDeath]

Instead we have eminent domain, which is effectively the same thing.

Civil forfeiture is even more terrifying.

um

[Charliemopps]

So... donating to the campaigns of congressmen that'll vote for things you want is now bribery?

Look at their own god damned quoted data: http://maplight.org/us-congres...
They donated to 397 members of the house out of 435 members which is 91%

Letter 1 was signed by 4
Letter 2 was signed by 20
Letter 3 was signed by 4
So we have a total of 28 signers.
So just random statistical chance would mean 91% * 28 = 26 of them would have received contributions.
27 received contributions, so the total is only off by 1 member or 3%.
Give me a break. Arstechnica is worse than FoxNews. Why does anyone even read that garbage?

I despise ALL politicians, and I fully support net neutrality, but this "story" is a joke.

The Money Primary

[PopeRatzo]

The issue is not just that lawmakers are given money by corporate interests and then vote for their benefit. It's that someone cannot even participate in the election process without getting vetted by monied interests. Long before a politician runs for office, or even in a primary, he has to present himself to a roomful of rich people who will then determine that the politician will work on their behalf. The party doesn't matter, the process is the same. I don't care if they ran as a left-leaning democrat or a tea party Republican, they have to be vetted by the $30,000/plate club before they can take the first steps toward holding office.

By the time they get into office, it's already assured that they will find a way to make sure the 1%'s interests are taken care of. Whether they take the extra step like writing a letter to the head of the FCC or sponsoring a bill, well, that's negotiable later for a price, but you already know for sure that they're predisposed to protect the wealthy and powerful.

As someone above has pointed out, the US Constitution was founded as a plutocracy, and despite all the flowery language about liberty and equality, we were designed to be a country that was run by the wealthy.

Cultural Literacy

[westlake]

Large sections of our Constitution and the basis of our Representative government were designed to keep poor people from voting themselves the land that the wealthy had already claimed... There really wasn't any reason to hide it since if you were literate you were probably rich.

A dangerous assumption to make.

In 1776, one book, written in complex language, sold over 120,000 copies in Colonial America.

First convert 120,000 into a fraction of the U.S. population in 1776: compared to the population at the time of 2.5 million, 120,000 is roughly 1 in 20, or 5%. Today's U.S. population is about 300 million --- of which 5% is 15 million.

Fifteen million copies today! More surprisingly, Common Sense by Thomas Paine sold this equivalent in just three months. In its first year, it sold 500,000 copies, or 20% of the colonial population.

Today's equivalent is 60 million copies.

Were Colonial Americans More Literate than Americans Today?. ''Every Man Able to Read''

In the late colonial and early federal era, disputes over land ownership centered on the opening of the western frontiers to settlement and the abolition of feudal tenures. The Last Patroon

The Library of America's two volume "The Debate on the Constitution" can be found in most public libraries.

For Americans this is Shakespeare, and more. Not only is it wonderful writing, it is wonderful thinking. -- Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio

Yeah,

[rayk_sland]

Industry lobbyists exert control over Congress through bribery, Congress exerts control over the US through law, US exerts control over as much as the world as possible through sheer bullying. Americans unimpressed by the lack of voice in Congress? What about all the rest of us that have to put up with a world marred by industry lobbyists? America's lack of democracy poisons the planet. -- Guess we'l have to start teaching our children about Anthropogenic Global Insanity...