UP is DOWN: Lobbying Reform an Assault on COnstitutional Rights? LOL

[elehhhhna]

Lobbying Reform: Another Assault on Constitutional Rights?


by Richard Lessner

Posted Jan 19, 2006


"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances."


--U.S. Constitution, First Amendment


The people's rights are never in greater jeopardy than when Congress is seized by one of its periodic spasms of reform. As we witnessed with so-called "campaign finance reform," such efforts typically do little to address real issues, but instead result in a further increase of government power and concomitant loss of freedom among the citizenry. Such reform hysterics are intended mostly to political effect, to implant in the mind of a supposedly gullible public the impression that Congress has "done something" to fix this or that problem that the politicians themselves created by some previous excess of reformist zeal.


Such is likely to be the outcome resulting from the Jack Abramoff scandals. The Republican leadership in the House and Senate reportedly has embraced the need for a lobbying reform measure. The hope is that by loudly thumping the tub for something styled "reform," the GOP will inoculate itself against the Democrats' partisan charges of corruption and preempt a move by the Dems to introduce their own legislation, which surely would be even more Draconian. The GOP is desperate to wrap itself in the reform mantle to neutralize the issue before the November election. The leadership also wants to checkmate a reform bill that Sen. John McCain introduced in December.


Real rights are at risk in all this. The Constitution explicitly protects the right of the people to petition the government, i.e. to lobby. This right is explicitly linked to the right of assembly and for good reason: groups of likeminded citizens are more likely to focus the attention of Congress when they petition for a redress of grievances than the lonely voices of individual citizens. The provisions in the McCain bill on "grassroots lobbying" potentially could cripple activist organizations and arguably are unconstitutional (but in the aftermath of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance decision who can say how a Supreme Court would rule even with a Roberts and an Alito sitting in judgment?)

http://www.libertymatters.org/newsservice/2006/faxback/2953_Reform.htm

[redqueen]

1. Idiots... the key words are "the right of THE PEOPLE to lobby"

not "RICH, POWERFUL CORPORATIONS", you lackeys for said corporations. :eyes:

Sorry, directing that at the "writers" of that crap, not you, elehhhhna.

[donkeyotay]

2. Have you tried to petition your government lately??????

It must be nice to have a lobbyist and be able to slip your representative a fat contribution, but if you're a regular person... hell, I don't even get those cheesy form letters any more. I don't hear squat from my representatives. It's as if my voice has been drowned out by the MONOPOLY of influence and power BRIBING Capitol Hill. Has this asshat even seen the Medicare Bill? Equality? Freedom to petition? Oh please. Get real. Only corporations and rich people have voice or rights in this country anymore.

(not you, elehhhhna. I'm yelling at this rightwing tripe about down trodden corporations.)