[insulanus]

That seems like a very real effect, but the votes need to be disclosed after they occur. Otherwise, the lobbyists have even more power, because the committee has an incentive to collude with the lobbyists, if their individual votes are not known, and they accept bribes. (I agree that having their votes be unknown helps if they do not accept bribes).

The only foolproof solution is to remove power from the lobbyists.

[jimkleiber]

James and the CRI go more in depth with this, but from what I recall, the idea is to have close door for committee deliberations so that they can work with each other to come up with a bill that works, then they come out and release either their committee votes or the floor votes.

Similar to how the Supreme Court releases their final votes but doesn't show people how the deliberations are being done.

From interacting with him and reading the CRI stuff, I learned a lot about how lobbyists will sit in on the bill making process and basically monitor the lawmakers' every move in the negotiation part of the bill.

He said to me once that they were called lobbyists because they used to have to wait in the lobby before they could talk to people, now they get to sit directly in the lawmaking chambers while it's happening.

[AnthonyMouse]

> The only foolproof solution is to remove power from the lobbyists.

How do you do this though?

Suppose Facebook wants to gut privacy rules. They control which news stories get prioritized for their users. They express their policy preference in public, then penalize politicians who cross them. Even if politicians pay no attention to this, the ones who cross them are more likely to lose their seats. Assuming politicians aren't too oblivious to notice it, they comply to avoid that, without Facebook ever explicitly threatening them.

The fact that Facebook can send someone into Washington to tell the politicians what they want in person instead of publishing it on their website doesn't really change the math, does it?

[jimkleiber]

Yes it's hard to stop people from speaking and intimidating. That's why I almost see an elegance in this solution: if FB and other corps don't know who is contributing which part to a bill and they only get to look at the final answer, it's harder to know who to intimidate and who to blame. In other words, it's believing that politicians are being intimidated to decide in one direction or another and trying to give them cover to make more sound decisions.

[AnthonyMouse]

Right. Someone comes in to bribe you, you take their money, you go vote against them anyway. Then when they come to you to object, you can shrug and say it must have been someone else. There is no way to for them to verify that their bribe is having the intended effect, so they'd have to pay you on faith. And who is going to trust a politician who is accepting bribes? They could be taking them from both sides!

[jimkleiber]

Precisely.

And without knowing for certain whether that person actually voted in the committee for X or added X to the bill, it also makes it hard to know whom to intimidate, whom to threaten by being primaried out, whom to defame, etc.