My repeated wish/suggestion for political reform.

[TahitiNut]

Over the years, I've posted this wish quite a few times within various threads. It seems particularly relevant today.

I'd like to see a law passed that made it a felony for any elected or appointed (with Senate advice and consent) federal official, or member of his/her immediate family, to engage in any fund-raising or for-pay activity of any kind whatsoever other than his/her elected or appointed position, for the entire term of their office. Immediate family members could only continue in whatever job or profession they held prior to their office-holder's ascension to office.

That would mean no campaign fund-raising, no fund-raising for charity (not even a bake sale), no 'honoraria' for speechifying, no $100/plate dinners (for anyone), no 'deferred compensation,' from any company or firm. Nothing.

I'm sick and tired of people who don't seem to think they can "make it" on less than $130,000/year holding any federal office, elected or appointed (with Senate advice and consent). They don't live in my world and I don't want them in lead federal roles.

Whaddya think?

[rateyes]

1. Works for me!

When lawmakers spend $7,000,000 to get elected to a job paying $130,000 makes me think they aren't in it to "serve" US. That's for sure.

[wtmusic]

2. So only rich newcomers could launch a successful campaign?

Where does that leave the less-endowed but qualified candidates?

[TahitiNut]

3. Someone NOT ALREADY HOLDING OFFICE - no problem.

Please read what I said, OK? Thanks.

Want term limits? Want campaign reform? This would help.

Furthermore, there's nothing to say that others couldn't do the campaign fund-raising for the office-holder ... and there's nothing to prohibit public campaign financing. This proposal is broader than mere campaigning.

[wtmusic]

5. Not particularly clear, but OK

No campaign fund-raising, but others could do campaign fund-raising? So the campaign can hold $100/plate dinners if the candidate doesn't show up?

You'd have problems with that "family member" proviso, too...better to eliminate all private campaign financing, period.

[TahitiNut]

8. Neither the candidate nor any other elected or appointed official.

You keep narrowing and reducing what I've proposed and characterizing it as simply campaign fund-raising for one's own re-election. Not so!! No appointee would be permitted to do fund-raising either! Not of any kind. Not for the Red Cross. Not for their local church. Not for any reason. Period.

[oasis]

4. Felony? This is the USA not the NCAA.

:-)

[sweetheart]

6. so you don't see money as free speech then.

Should such a thing only be federal? If we're doing election reform, then i have 4:

1. paper ballots and runoffs for polls decided within the margin-of-error.
2. total print and electronic news media blackout of all political advertizing
within 6 weeks of an election. This would then bring elections up to the standard
already used in the stock market with earnings announcements. To think the stock
market better regulated than elections... :eyes:

3. All electoral districts should be redrawn using an international grid standard
administered by a panel of impartial judges. This would once again make most american
districts competetive, and return the country to some semblance of centrist democracy.
As only 30 seats in the house are competetive due to gerrymandering, parties are more
pressured to satisfy their own extremists, as the party primary is more important than
the runoff in a safe seat.

4. End corporate personhood, and *ANY* corresponding rights of "free speech" by those
persons on political matters.

But if your initiative was on a ballot, i'd vote yes.

[TahitiNut]

7. Not when it's pocketed by politicians to skew representation. Nope.

Nor are bribery statutes an infringement on 'free speech'!!

The public is perfectly free to spend money in advocacy 'speech' as much as they want. What I'm advocating is no different than many corporate employment agreements or personal service agreements. It's not at all unusual for a corporation to prohibit key emplyees and officers from taking money for any other interest - of any kind. Elected and appointed federal officials are perfectly free to resign and seek employment elsewhere. (I'd suggest China or India.)


You might notice tha my proposal is not strictly election-related. It's about making it crystal clear than elected and appointed officials have one and only one fiduciary interest: public service.

Other than that, I'm in general agreement with your other proposals. I might add that I'd strongly argue for "the 11th amendment" that would prohibit any corporation from owning any other corporation. All corporations should and must be owned by identified individuals - human beings. The bullshit of Enron's 'shell game' of being a combination of over 500 different corporations, both onshore and offshore, should be regarded as an illegal abomination.

[sweetheart]

9. It is the corporate standard, isn't it

I see your point, that it is way beyond elections, an anti-corruption measure.

Then perhaps there should add a phrase like: "all persons holding public office
may not take employment or "any" remuneration from any company with public contracts
within 10 years of leaving office." The public should not be paying to give these
guys cush revolving door jobs... and this whole, leave office, move to "k" street
thing has got to end.

[TahitiNut]

10. While I believe there should be prohibitions on lobbying (there are) and

... other ways in which politicians use the revolving door, I'm wary of draconian prohibitions. We supposedly already have a 1-year moratorium on lobbying after leaving federal service. It doesn't seem to work.

A huge part of the problem is the degree to which federal functions are "privatized." I'm 100% opposed to contracting ongoing federal functions and operations to private corporations. It's done to serve profiteering interests and dis-serve employees who receive less compensation and less job security (exposing them to greater coercion). The Department of Energy, for example, is almost completely 'privatized' -- I call it privateering (piracy). The various Management and Operations contracts are licenses to plunder the Treasury, punish whistle-blowers, and promulgate 'pseudo-science' (science-for-hire, spun to serve corporatist interests).

We're seeing the wholesale 'privatization' of the Department of Defense. The 'bang-for-the-public-buck' is dropping like a stone, but the DOD is probably the LEAST measurable in terms of performance vs. cost. It's no accident that we pay as much as the rest of the world combined on military expenditures yet seem incapable of dealing with the military occupation of two countries at the same time we're deployed around the world. It's no accident that the DOD can't account for TRILLIONS in taxpayer funds. It's one thing to have a federal contract for some service that's routinely measurable in terms of performance. It's quite another to create contracts-for-plunder that don't even receive public scrutiny.