Despite efforts to prevent elected officials who leave elected office from becoming "Instant Lobbyists", the lobbyists now simply take jobs as the top staffers for elected officials and then proceed to write legislation which is then made law. Most of the recently elected Republican officials in Washington have been loading their offices up with lobbyists:
"In many cases, those hiring lobbyists were Tea Party candidates who vowed to end business as usual in Washington. As The Washington Post reported, when Ron Johnson ran against Wisconsin’s Senator Russ Feingold, he accused Mr. Feingold of being “on the side of special interests and lobbyists.” Now that he is a senator, Mr. Johnson has hired as his chief of staff Donald Kent, whose firms have lobbied for casinos, defense industries and homeland security companies."
Southern Beale also notes how "grass roots" groups of just ordinary Americans are really nothing more than highly paid agents of propaganda working at the state and local levels.
No comments:
Post a Comment