Forum Post: One Idea with Broad Appeal to Open Our Government
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 9, 2011, 9:20 p.m. EST by ILikeDemocracy
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One Common Interest: End Corporate Lobbyists
from there all these other issues can be raised, debated, and voted on based on our representative government weighted one vote per one citizen.
Corporate lobbyists serve the interests of perhaps 1 in 1,000 of us. with those numbers I can imagine an end to the practice. One issue, one focus nearly all of us will agree on that will open the door to all the other issues being negotiated with our common interest in the forefront. This is not an attack on capitalism. If corporate lobbyist money is taken out of the government, so too should go labor union money.
I think the next step in this process is for a single potent idea with broad support to emerge. Agree with ending corporate lobbyists? Post so here. have another idea you think will do the job? Post your idea and encourage others to post their agreement.
If one idea surfaces, it will eventually draw media coverage, people will eventually stop panning it as childish, consider the idea, and if it has broad appeal, it can create change.
Diogenes, if I understand you, I am agreeable to corporations having the same freedom of speech as an individual, I just want the money taken out of the equation so their voice is not a firehouse compared to a drop of rain for a citizen. I think we are on the same page.
I believe corporations should have the right to lobby, but they should not have the right to donate campaign money (certainly not unlimited quantities).
Corporations are legal entities, but have no right to vote in elections. And since spending/giving money represents financial voting, corporations should not be provided the means of exercising a financial vote that is disproportionate to the electoral voting constituency.
But corporations should have the right to petition for regulatory relief based upon the merits of their case, not the huge amounts of money they can donate.