LOBBYISTS: THE GOLDEN SCOURGE OF WASHINGTON

If you think that your vote counts, well, then, think again.  Not only is there voter fraud, bloc voting, hanging chads and gerrymandering of districts according to considerations of race and ethnicity, your senator or representative in Congress is likely in thrall to certain organizations or entities, owing to the billions of dollars spent in an effort to influence votes on Capitol Hill by professional lobbyists.

Yes, dear readers, there is a golden triangle in the District of Columbia, not to be confused with the "Golden Triangle" of the drug trade in Indochina.  The golden triangle to which I refer is made up of intersecting interests of business, industry, labor, education and so-called public interest organizations on one arm of the triangle and members of Congress and lobbyists on the other two.

Former senators and members of Congress now working as lobbyists number 421.  During 2012, Blue Cross/Blue Shield spent more than 22 million dollars to further their cause in D.C.,  General Electric had lobbying costs of 21 million, while Verizon made the lobbyists 15 million richer and, as a group, education interests parted with 90 million..  Not to be outdone, organized labor chalked up a bill for more than 40 million in lobbying expenses.  All told, 3.3 billion dollars were spent last year by lobbyists in their efforts to influence legislation crafted by your public servants in Washington.

Ever wonder what ever happened to senators Chris Dodd, Trent Lott, Blanche Lincoln, Mel Matinez, and Robert Bennett?  All of these former members of the 111th Congress are actively serving various interests in one lobbying capacity or another.  Not only can we speak of a golden triangle, but there is also pretty much of a revolving door in D.C. for former members of Congress moving into lobbying firms.

Recently, news of senatorial jockeying on the immigration bill included reports that some senators were including as amendments (none of which have anything to do with immigration)  add-ons worth millions of dollars to be spent in various home-state pork projects, such as shrimp-farming in Alaska and tourism in Nevada. Obviously, lobbyists were busily working Senator Reid of Nevada and Senator Mulkowski of Alaska. In a brazen move, again not at all related to immigration, Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut threatened to insert a gun-control amendment in the immigration bill. And so goes the tortured process of law-making in Washington, aided and abetted by the highly-paid lobbyists of K Street.  To borrow a phrase from Lou Dobbs, "We have the finest government money can buy."

Dear readers, I dare you to write to your senators, or to your representative in Congress, perhaps in the following manner:

Dear Senator/Representative________:

In view of the fact that you are working for me as my representative in the District of Columbia, I feel that it is only right that you, as an employee, inform me of all of the contacts that you have had from lobbyists during the last fiscal year. Please be sure to include all meals, trips, gifts or any other types of consideration rendered to you by professional lobbyists.  I shall expect such information to be forwarded to me within the next two weeks.

Thanking you in advance, I am

Sincerely,


John Q. Citizen

If all of us would take merely a few minutes to send the above as an email, letter or fax, we could just be on to something that might make a difference.

*Please note that much information for this post was gathered from www.opensecrets.com
You will find this website chock-full of incredible information on the lobbying industry in our nation's capital.