Month: February 2023

Lobbying is an interest facet of politics, because while flat out bribery is not allowed, our country allows bribery’s cousin to slip by with no issues: lobbying.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica lobbying is “any attempt by individuals or private interest groups to influence the decisions of government”. Lobbying involves huge sums of money being “donated” to politicians to help them run their campaigns and fund election efforts. In return, politicians will allow for policies that are in the interest of large corporations or wealthy individuals who lobbied to keep the “donations” flooding in.

Lobbying is a threat to true democracy and yet barely ever gets the attention it deserves. It is assumed by the voting public that elections determine which policies get put through and which don’t make the cut. Unfortunately, this is far from the much harsher reality that lobbying has most of the influence on politicians and policies. In 2014 Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens conducted a study based on twenty years of Congress policymaking and found that the average US citizens exerts little to no influence, “The chances of a policy passing Congress was basically unaffected by how many or how few of the public supported it” (Second Rate Democracy).

The evidence that policies are now being made for the wealthy rather than the average citizen is apparent when you take a look at business tax rates in the past several years, “Since the 1950s, the share of federal revenue brought in by the corporate income tax has plummeted from 26.6 percent to 6.1 percent” (Second Rate Democracy). It is ridiculous to think that a policy for cutting business taxes will get seen and passed first before a policy on raising the federal minimum wage gets passed.

So what can we do in order for the problem of lobbying to get fixed?

Public financing of campaigns is one option, in which private institutions would be barred from donating too much to politicians. However, wealthy individuals would still have majority influence in these instances. While there has been legislation in the past to try and decrease the influence which lobbying efforts have, they have been overall ineffective. Lobbying may be a problem which we cannot get rid of, as politicians need funds for their campaigns, and wealthy individuals will always try to gain influence in the political realm.

For now, all we can do is hope that the money falls into the hands of the right cause.

The United States has a lot of weird rules and ways which we go about electing our politicians. When we step into the voting booth, we are looking for someone who will represent both our needs, and the needs of our community, but what happens when a portion of your community can’t vote? Is this true democracy anymore?

Voting is a priviledge which many of us today take for granted. Unless you were born white, affluent, and male, then your right to vote was earned through the many civil rights movements throughout American history. Thus, we should not take this right for granted, as even today this right is not gaurenteed.

One group which is still not allowed to vote in some states is former felons who have been released after seving their time. Given that the justice system and prison-industrial complex in America are incredibly corrupt (topics which could have a civic blog of its own), this fact mainly hurts minority citizens. Overall, a whoping two percent of the American population will be ineligible to vote because of this reason according to the Sentencing Project. Why should someone who has done their time, and become a reformed member of society still be banned from practicing their civic duty?

Fortunately, some state are making changes which would expand voting rights to former felons. Maine, Vermont, and Washington D.C. are the only three districts in the country in which felons do not lose their right to vote at all. In many states, felons can earn their voting rights after carrying out their sentences, but some of these policies are still set up to prevent people from voting. For example, Florida passed a bill in 2018 which would allow for most former felons to vote again (besides murderers and those who commited sex crimes). However, not too long after Republican lawmakers passed a bill requiring these former felons to complete every part of their sentences including paying court fines and fees. This directly impacts the poorest of Floridians who became involved in criminal activities, and even today the Sentencing Project estimates there are 934,500 former felons who still cannot vote because of this bill.

Voting is essential to our democracy, and restricting who gets to have a say in how their community and nation is shaped, is taking away from the freedoms which come with being an American citizen.