The folks who brought us "Harry and Louise" are back, and they’ve taken out the long knives again. They killed the Clinton health plan, and now they’re getting ready to kill the Obama plan. And the Obama plan itself was watered down to begin with to appease the machine. What most Americans really want, i.e. "single payer," isn’t even on the table, just a pale imitation in the form of a government run plan that would compete with the private system to keep it honest. But even that is being treated like scrofula, like the royal road to socialism. What about the fact that virtually all other advanced countries in the world have this nefarious "socialized medicine?" Forget it. Irrelevant. We’re Americans—and that gives us the right to bend over for lobbyists like no other people in the world.
Oh, we scorn Iranian democracy because they rig the vote. We Americans know that one thing we can rely on here in our great system is that at least the person who gets the most votes wins—with a few costly exceptions, of course. But what plagues our democracy time and time again is that when we elect people to effect important changes they don’t do what they promise. Americans elected a Democratic Congress in 2006 to end the war in Iraq. What happened? The surge. President Ahmadenijad of Iran and Osama bin Laden himself were both quoted as pointing to this "oxymoron" as proof that American democracy itself is a joke. But it’s in domestic policy – everything from pharmaceuticals to credit cards to bank bailouts – where we most clearly see our legislature utterly abandoning the public interest and succumbing time and again to the ground and pound of the lobbyists.
How can we take back American democracy from lobbyists? First, forget about piecemeal reform like limiting meals to $50 or limiting gifts or trips, et cetera, ad nauseum. The only way to kill lobbying is to understand the nature of the evil. The point I wish to make here is somehow universally ignored and therefore I will put it in capitals: IT IS UNETHICAL FOR A PUBLIC OFFICIAL TO TALK OFF THE RECORD ABOUT A PENDING MATTER WITH A PRIVATE PARTY WHO HAS A DIRECT INTEREST IN THAT MATTER. It is unethical, for example, for judges to engage in such conversations. It violates their codes of ethics. A contact between a judge and a private party with an interest in a pending matter is called "ex parte communication," and every judge in America is barred by his or her code of ethics from engaging in such communication FOR OBVIOUS REASONS. Furthermore, it is not only the judicial branch where ex parte communication is prohibited. Such prohibitions have spread in recent decades to apply broadly to the executive branch as well, so that for example an FCC commissioner or a member of a local zoning board or a racing commission is strictly enjoined from engaging in ex parte communications. You can’t lobby a judge—or an FCC commissioner. Why not? Can anyone prove that such private contacts lead to actual corruption? Doesn’t matter, the courts say. Even without proof of corruption such prohibitions against off-the-record discussions are absolutely necessary to preserve what is known as the APPEARANCE OF FAIRNESS. (Hence the name of the legal doctrine under which prohibitions against ex parte communication have spread in recent decades to quasi-judicial executive branch bodies like zoning commissions; it is called "the Appearance of Fairness Doctrine.")
Congress, however, is drowning in ex parte communication. There in the hallowed halls we see not just the appearance of unfairness but the actuality manifest in the smorgasbord of markups and tax breaks and sweetheart legislation. Senators and representativcs are surrounded on every side by private petitioners striving to give them money and favors just for a chance to argue their private cause, perhaps over golf in Scotland or at a skybox at a Senators game with a Johnny Walker Gold and a splash. This endless swirl of deluxe ex parte communication is killing democracy. And none of this private communication is necessary – simply because it could all be on the record and accomplish any important informational task which may be claimed as the virtue of such communications.
So the question is: when are we Americans going to get mad? When are we going to say to Congress: no more ex parte communication? Let the lobbyists in the thousand-dollar suits present their information in public hearings or public documents. Keep it on the record, or get your ass kicked out of Congress. When will we demand this elementary ethical principle from our legislators?