Quote:
Originally posted by techweenie
Would you support, say, an 8-year moratorium on lobbying activities for any elected or appointed senior Federal official?
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Lobbying is petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. So even a one-year moratorium (current law) seems to me to be a gross violation of the First Amendment. The real problem is the largesse the government controls and is able to hand out to the smartest players. Just ask Microsoft. Before they got slammed, they had zero lobbying presence in Washington because they didn't think they needed it. Now they have an army. You gotsta pay your protection money to keep the government off your back. As long as the gov't. can pick and choose which businesses they want to go after or reward, there will always be lobbying. And no ban or registration law or moratorium will make a bit of difference. Plenty of elected reps. have seven figure offers before they even leave office and that's with the current one-year ban in place.