The front page has an absolutely must see TED talk by Lawrence Lessig. If you haven't seen it yet, stop reading this, go to the front page and scroll down until you find it. Watch, then come back here. We need ideas on how to fix the problem, not just discuss the problem itself. And that's what I hope you will do after you see Lessig's talk.
Lessig does a superb job of identifying the problem we--both left and right-have. The vast amount of political money comes from a tiny minority. Politicians, like everyone else, seek maximum effect for minimum effort, therefore those with the money they need to win elections dominate their every waking moment. And these bought politicians then sell their influence and networks back to this same moneyed minority on K Street as lobbyists. Consequently, we have lost the Republic the Founders gave us, and the Democracy we the people won by giving blood, sweat and tears from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement. So how do we fix our Republic and get back our Democracy?
First, discovering what the problem is, and acknowledging we (all of us who aren't among the moneyed tiny minority, both left and right) have it and must do something about it, is at least half the battle.
So what can we do to end the money dominance of the tiny elite? One thing we are already doing is what we do here at Daily Kos. We band together on Act Blue and Moving On and elsewhere and pool our money to go toward politicians who recognize us as a convenient means to gain substantial financial support. This is, as it were, fighting fire with fire. Economically this simply diverts even more money into the political system, making money even more important within it. So this is not the best way forward but it is the only one we currently have.
We must develop others. So here is my idea, and I hope you will comment on it and add your own. We are smart people. Many of us are politically experienced. Surely we can take Lessig's diagnosis of the cancer that threatens our country and find a cure.
We must amend the constitution to fix this. Now, before you turn away saying amending the constitution is completely hopeless given the money problem, hear me out on how we must do what we must do.
First, what we must do.
We can solve the largest part of this problem by having 3/4s of the states support an amendment banning all elected Federal officials from EVER working for any form of pay as a lobbyist, and from EVER working for any industry they supervised as Chair of a Federal legislative committee. Ever. Any. All Federal officials. The amendment should also ban any senior member of a legislative staff from working as a Federal lobbyist or as an officer in a company that is in an industry they drafted legislation for, for a period of no less than 5 years after they leave Federal employment. Again, they can lobby for no pay or serve as an officer of, say, an NGO, but again, for no direct pay for 5 years after they leave employment as a senior legislative aide.
Why would state officials support such an amendment to the Federal Constitution? Why, of course, it means the rich must then look to the states to make their influence felt, particularly if a Federal Congress person or Senator or President discovers that if they lose office or after they leave it, they must return to the real world to make a living, the one they either made better or worse by their votes. More on the state gambit below. That is the How we must do it.
Back to the what we must do for a moment.
If former Federal elected officials (particularly Chairs of Committees and Sub-Committees) can't go to work for Big Pharma or Wall Street after fixing the rules to favor them, then where's their payoff for being loyal little lapdogs to industry and the rich?
No reward. Possible wrath of those who might employ them. Possible impact on themselves of the fruits of their selling out.
Their Federal retirement benefits should be pegged to this. That is, any violation of the ban would result in loss of their Federal legislative service retirement benefits.
Force the former Federal politicians to work as unpaid lobbyists for things they really care about. I would exclude royalties on books or speaker's fees that are limited to no more than the equivalent of $100 per person in the direct audience addressed (and peg that to inflation if and only if the minimum wage is also pegged to inflation).
Now, on the how. The states can amend the constitution if 3/4s of the states pass an amendment. If only state level officials can become paid lobbyists, then their state level expertise and network becomes more valuable to potential donors. What this amendment means is that the political sell-outs sell out before they become Federal officials, not afterwards. This amendment would reduce the amount of harm politicians can do while raising the cost of what they do for the rich a great deal.
By doing this via the states we would appeal to the very veniality the very rich use to get their way. The state level political sell outs would sell out in order to sell out Federal legislators at a greater profit to themselves. So, amending the constitution to do this, and doing it via the states seems one way forward that actually might work to win us back our representative system and our democracy, at least at the Federal level. I suspect it would very much reduce the ability of lobbyists, even if they were former state governors, to persuade Federal officials to act in venial ways. But the good thing is it would persuade ill intentioned state level officials to sell out early, before they rise to state level (like Jim DeMint) and gain even more capability to inflict harm on all of us.