If the bribe is paid as a "campaign contribution" to a politician or to a group that runs ads to get a politician elected, it is "free speech" according to SCOTUS in Citizens United v. FEC. If it is paid directly to a politician or to a politician's friend, it is illegal bribery.
It would also be perfectly legal to hire a politician or regulator who advanced your interests once he's no longer in office. There is, in fact, a revolving door between many industries and the agencies that regulate them. But you can't explicitly promise these individuals a job while they're still in office or you committed illegal bribery. A politician also can't sell a Senate appointment (as the governor of Illinois infamously tried to do after Obama was elected president) but he can give it to one of his political allies as a favor and reasonably expect that the favor will be repaid in the future.
Of course, these differences aren't particularly meaningful in reality but they're very important under the law and anybody who is stupid enough to execute their bribes the wrong way will probably be punished for bribery even though it would have been perfectly legal if they'd done it the right way.
This is an incredibly reductive take. Campaign contributions are carefully monitored. So you can't, like, buy yourself a house in Martha's Vineyard with campaign contributions. In fact, it's illegal for a politician to even be in contact with a super PAC (even though they may be campaigning for them). There have been many lawsuits that have settled this.
Citizens United is problematic not because "money is free speech" (which, frankly, it is, as we live in a capitalist society) but rather because corporations (specifically when donating to Super PACs) have no caps on donation sizes. Fun fact: that money is not taxable income, by the way. So they can (in a roundabout way) essentially fill a friendly politician's coffers "for free."
This is an incredibly naive take. There's countless ways and examples of how to get campaign funds into your own pocket. Speaking fees, books, your campaign hiring family members or friends, buying goods and services for your campaign from your own companies, etc. It happens all the time.
Plus winning an election means you're more likely to get those opportunities to make money. Most members of Congress are millionaires [0] and it has nothing to do with their salaries (which barely cover the cost of maintaining 2 residences given how high cost of living is in DC) or their pre-existing wealth before they run for office.
> There's countless ways and examples of how to get campaign funds into your own pocket.
I mean, while this is technically true, it's also a bit silly to think it's untraceable--many people that attempt to do this get in trouble for it[1]. As someone that owns a Super PAC, while I don't consider myself some kind of absolute authority, I do know some of the regulatory hurdles one must go through. I get it, you watched John Oliver do his little song and dance, but reality is a bit more complicated.
[1] Just to cite a famous-ish case: read about Conservative Strikeforce Super PAC.
If you could point to exactly where I said it was untraceable or that people don't get caught doing it....? Yeah. Please don't put words in my mouth.
I'm fully aware it's by no means a risk free or foolproof venture, but you're the one being silly if you think the amount of cases where people are caught committing crimes is anything but a small percentage of people actually committing said crimes, especially white collar crimes like this. They're just the ones that were unlucky and/or not smart enough to get away with it.
And honestly you're being more than a bit condescending and not really arguing in good faith, so not interested in continuing this conversation. You have a nice day though :)
And that's why Citizens united should have focused on citizens, not corporations.
Corporations have not votes. Citizens do. A step forward could be to bar corporations from any action in the voting process (their constituent citizens like employees, owners, board etc can do what they wish as citizens, if they're citizens) .
Are you trying to say that bribery is common in US politics? I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but no, bribery is not common nor is it legal. People like to meme about lobbyists and PACs and all that. And, while it may be true that the system might need tweaks, all of that money is required to be reported through the FEC in the case of campaign contributions, or via D-2 forms in the case of lobbying.
The problem with under-the-table bribes is that you can't "follow the money" so to speak.
Lobbying is legalized bribery, and it's not just companies doing the lobbying/bribing, it's foreign countries doing it as well[1]. Also, lobbyists don't just influence policy, they also influence who gets elected in the first place[2]. The most common issue that lobbyist money is spent on has to do with the appropriating money from the federal budget[3], so in many cases it's likely that the money spent lobbying is used to redirect taxpayer funds to pay for more lobbying. In other words lobbying is so corrupt that it's easy for any citizen to see the corruption--yet people say, "Nah, it's fine because it's legal."
This is blatantly anti-democratic. It's a huge mess of conflicts of interest. It should not be legal.
That's an unhelpful take. Bribery as defined by law is inherently illegal, and lobbying is defined by law as legal, so legalized bribery is nonsensical. It can't exist.
On the other hand, there are certainly arguments to be made for why lobbying can feel anti-democratic. But they come smack up against rights to freedom of speech, association, etc.
It's incredibly difficult to draw the lines here for what is "democratic" and "anti-democratic", where "legitimate democratic politics" turns into "corruption". All of democracy is about individuals and groups trying to influence candidates and politicians, and providing or withholding support to do so, and candidates and politicians actively seeking support of individuals and groups via policy.
Fortunately, we've decided that some lines are relatively easy to draw: politicians can solicit/receive contributions for campaigns, but not personally. But what you're arguing against doesn't have any kind of clear line. Federal money and tax breaks go to lots of different groups, and lots of different groups lobby. It's hard to see how that either of those should be illegal, or how tying them together could be made illegal, without the end result being even more anti-democratic.
I don't think the concept of legalized bribery is difficult to understand. Yes, it's legal. I'm saying that it shouldn't be.
Democracy, or more specifically representative democracy, is a form of government where elected persons represent the people. The problem with lobbying is that to the degree that lobbying happens, the people are represented less and those paying the lobbyists are represented more. This causes an obvious conflict of interests.
You might think that the degree of lobbying happening in Washington is fairly small. In 2021, $3.77B was spent on lobbyists[1], and the combined salaries of all representatives and senators was around $93m. That means that on average, each representative makes $174,000 pre-tax, and has over $7m spent to buy their vote on various issues. Every. Single. Year.
That's how stark the problem is. Solving the problem is hard of course--I think that might be your point?--and definitely something that requires a lot of thought and discussion. Even if you made lobbying illegal, a huge percentage of that money is going to go underground and find other ways of influencing Congress.
bribery - transfer of value in exchange for official action.
lobbying - communicating with an official for purposes of influencing official action, not including providing public testimony or legally required communications
Legalizing bribery would allow transfer of value. Generally information is considered free, so has no value, so lobbying is not a transfer of value and hence is not bribery (legalized or otherwise). If you want to argue that lobbyists are giving officials hot stock tips that make the officials millions, hence information has value, I suppose it's possible, but it doesn't seem like the issue you're addressing.
What you seem to dislike is that many people are paid to push laws. But this isn't much different from other forms of sales - every company has a marketing department that tries to lobby potential customers. There is no obligation to buy and similarly the politician has no obligation to enact the suggested changes. But without direct communication it seems like it would be hard to enact sound policy. I don't see any obvious alternatives to lobbying to get the required information besides a massive "big brother" government surveillance program that tries to identify potential problems with big data and solve them before they happen.
> The problem with lobbying is that to the degree that lobbying happens, the people are represented less and those paying the lobbyists are represented more... You might think that the degree of lobbying happening in Washington is fairly small.
Believe me, I know how much lobbying there is, I've studied it a bit academically. Which is why I'm taking issue with how you're characterizing it.
Corporations have legitimate democratic/governance concerns. E.g. there can be outdated regulations unfairly hampering their ability to do business or innovate. They need to be able to bring their concerns to politicians, the same way pro-choicers donate to Planned Parenthood to lobby, or environmentalists donate to Greenpeace to lobby on behalf of the environment, or gun rights advocates with the NRA.
Your claim that lobbying is in conflict with "the people" is categorically false, as "the people" lobby as well via lots of organizations, such as the ones I've just listed. "The people" also have interests in corporations not being unfairly burdened.
The notion of making lobbying illegal is utterly anti-democratic. The idea that you could outlaw voluntary domestic organizations from trying to support democratic candidates flies in the face of what makes democracy work, whether those organizations are non-profit or for-profit.
The more relevant issue seems to be more with the notion that corporations have more money to lobby with than the general population does. However even with that, some academic research suggests that the issue isn't so much to do with money, but rather the fact that corporations often lobby on behalf of niche/arcane issues such as specific corporate regulations that voters are often virtually entirely unaware of. So it's not so much corporations vs. "the people", but corporations vs. "the people don't even care", or corporations vs. other corporations.
> That's an unhelpful take. Bribery as defined by law is inherently illegal, and lobbying is defined by law as legal, so legalized bribery is nonsensical. It can't exist.
That depends on if you think getting rid of bribery laws gets rid of bribery. If you do feel that way, you're very compatible with Illinois state bribery law, which allows anything outside of a written or recorded quid pro quo. But you're out of step with people who think laws should be made for a purpose, rather than our purpose being to follow laws.
And what good does "following the money" do anyone? In a world with no consequences for politicians' conflict of interest, how is that different than flat out bribery?
It would also be perfectly legal to hire a politician or regulator who advanced your interests once he's no longer in office. There is, in fact, a revolving door between many industries and the agencies that regulate them. But you can't explicitly promise these individuals a job while they're still in office or you committed illegal bribery. A politician also can't sell a Senate appointment (as the governor of Illinois infamously tried to do after Obama was elected president) but he can give it to one of his political allies as a favor and reasonably expect that the favor will be repaid in the future.
Of course, these differences aren't particularly meaningful in reality but they're very important under the law and anybody who is stupid enough to execute their bribes the wrong way will probably be punished for bribery even though it would have been perfectly legal if they'd done it the right way.