Legislation and Lobbyists…
Article publisher:
The Conservative Treehouse
Article date:
17 November 2017
Article category:
National News
Medium
Article Body:
There are many people taking notice of modern politics for the first time in their lives. There is also some confusion noticed between two groups who talk above and around each other. Two groups communicating from two entirely different sets of understanding. Perhaps it is valuable to reset the larger frames of reference and provide clarity.
Many, heck, most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past.
There is not a single congress person who writes legislation or laws...
Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body. Here’s how it works right now...
Once the corporation or representative organizational entity has written the law they want to see passed – they hand it off to the lobbyists. The lobbyists are people who have deep contacts within the political bodies of the legislative branch, usually former House/Senate staff or former House/Senate politicians themselves.
The lobbyist takes the written brief, the legislative construct, and it’s their job to go to congress and sell it.
“Selling it” means finding politicians who will accept the brief, sponsor their bill and eventually get it to a vote and passage. The lobbyist does this by visiting the politician in their office, or, most currently familiar, by inviting the politician to an event they are hosting. The event is called a junket when it involves travel...
If your frame of reference is not established in this basic understanding you can often fall into the trap of viewing a politician, or political vote, through a false prism. The modern origin of all legislative constructs is not within congress.
“we’ll have to pass the bill to, well, find out what is in the bill” etc. ~ Nancy Pelosi 2009
“We rely upon the stupidity of the American voter” ~ Johnathan Gruber 2011, 2012
Now, think about this reality against the backdrop of the 2016 Presidential Election. The entire system within DC was not structurally set-up to receive a Donald Trump presidency...