HOW TO CURE LOBBYING
by Peter Moss

In a column on lobbying ethics, Burlington columnist Peter Freyne said: "Most of the distinguished hired-gun, contract business lobbyists who buzz through the Statehouse honeycomb on a daily basis readily acknowledge that their role is similar to that of whores. They provide a service for a price and do their best to keep the customer satisfied." I agree with Mr. Freyne as far as he went, but I would add three crucially important distinctions.

Sexual whoring is at worst a victimless crime. In Nevada, and in most other countries, it is no crime at all. Not so lobbying, which is prohibited by the U.S. penal code which provides up to 15 years and/or $40,000 for the bribery of office holders and candidates. It does not matter whether the lobbyist buys the target lunch, a trip, or offers or provides campaign financing or cash in hand. It is the intent to bribe that counts. Unfortunately every politician and almost every candidate sells political favors, and the lobbyist insulates the big business johns and officials and candidates from the statutory penalties. It has been decades since the FBI made color videos of the bribery of a senator from New Jersey.

The second distinction is that sexual whores are generally treated with contempt and condescension. Not so big business lobbyists. Mr. Freyne even calls them distinguished. Ugh! His kind of judgment is based on three piece suits and three martini lunches, not moral considerations. Without exaggeration, the lobbyists enforce the will of the dictatorial plutocracy, negating one-person-one-vote and the very possibility of democracy itself. As a result the enrons write energy policy, foreign policy and economic policy, Detroit writes transportation policy, the military contractors write procurement policy, and all the polluters together write environmental policy. It's like the greyhounds would set the speed on the electric rabbit who would inevitably come in last on the track. Why are most people disgusted with politics!?

The third and most important distinction is that lobbying (unlike the innate sex drive) is an economic crime and all such can be solved by making it counter-economical. Lobbying and bribery would cease if only a few dozen bribe givers and bribe takers were fined in effective deterrent amount and then jailed for 15 years. It would not take too many if they were well publicized over 15 years. Many tax cheats still remember Al Capone in Alcatraz.