You guys are so boring. I’m going for a walk.
Answering this in a partisan neutral manner.
- A lifetime lobbying ban for presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress, federal judges, and Cabinet secretaries.
Absolutely oppose. I would support up to an 8 year lobbying ban for past Presidents and up to 4 years for Congress, Cabinet Secretaries. For all intents and purposes, irrelevant to federal judges as only a tiny handful of federal judges terminate their service prior to death and as long as they even remain in inactive senior status, they are legally barred from all lobbying and in fact any type of political participation beyond voting.
A lifetime ban is far too much and would not survive a First Amendment challenge.
- Applying conflict-of-interest laws to the president and vice president, requiring them to place businesses into a blind trust to be sold off. They would also have to place assets that could present a conflict of interest — including real estate — in a blind trust and sell them off.
Far too harsh. Candidates for President and Vice President should be required to disclose all assets prior to formally organizing a campaign committee and would be required to dispose ONLY of potentially CoI assets such as defense industry stocks. All assets would remain in a blind trust only either 90 days after the candidate has been defeated or withdrawn from the election or after a President has left office. A President or Vice President leaving office would be required to wait 365 days before acquiring or reacquiring certain assets such as defense industry stock.
- Multi-year lobbying bans for federal employees (both Congressional staffers and employees of federal agencies). The span of time would be at least two years and six years for those wishing to become corporate lobbyists.
Two years across the board, no more.
- Banning members of Congress and senior congressional staff from serving on corporate boards. The plan would also ban senior administration officials and members of Congress from serving on for-profit boards, no matter if they receive compensation for it or not.
I could support this as is.
- Ban lobbyists from all fundraising activities, including political fundraisers or campaign bundling, and strengthen criminal anti-corruption statutes by redefining an “official act” to make politicians unable to accept gifts or payments in exchange for government action.
Not needed.
- Requiring the IRS to release eight years of tax returns for all presidential and vice-presidential candidates as well as requiring them to release tax returns during each year in office. The IRS would also have to release two years of tax returns for members of Congress, and require them to release tax returns for each lawmaker’s year in office.
I would require the IRS to release ALL available tax returns for Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates and 8 years for Members of Congress and require release of returns for each year and office and for the two years after leaving office.
- Banning members of Congress, Cabinet secretaries, federal judges, White House staff, senior congressional staff, and other officials from owning or trading individual stocks while in office.
Agree, other than for federal judges, who generally have a built in recusal mechanism if they own a stock involved in a matter coming before them.
- Changing the rulemaking process of federal agencies to severely restrict the ability of corporations or industry to delay or influence rulemaking. Warren’s plan would restrict studies funded by groups with conflict-of-interest problems being considered in the rulemaking process, unless they go under a lengthy peer review.
Agree IF AND ONLY IF the conflict of interest includes groups that are pushing a point of view, such as new environmental laws.
- Broadening the definition of a “thing of value” in campaign finance laws to go beyond money. Under the new definition, it could include opposition research from foreign governments.
This I would have to give further consideration to before commenting.
- Creating a new independent US Office of Public Integrity, which would enforce the nation’s ethics laws and investigate any potential violations. The office would also try to strengthen open records laws, making records more easily accessible to the public and the press.
Oppose, strengthen Inspector Generals instead.
- Banning forced arbitration clauses and class action waivers for all employment, consumer protection, antitrust, and civil rights cases.
Agree, as long as this includes a ban on forced arbitration in regards to first time union contracts. I would like to see greater restrictions placed on class action litigation, which tends to benefit the law firms conducting the litigation but generally results in only modest benefits to the class involved.
- Boosting transparency in certain court cases by prohibiting courts from using sealed settlements to conceal evidence in cases that involve public health or safety.
Agree on principle, would have to see exactly how this would work in practice.
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BTW, a lobbyist is not an evil thing, not in the slightest. I lobby from time to time, mostly for agri-business issues.
For those of you Joe Sixpacks who members of unions, you may be surprised that you are paying for lobbyists to represent YOUR interests in Washington, D.C. and your State Capitol.
A lobbyist is nothing more than somebody exercising the First Amendment rights as a proxy for a larger group.
The fact that we have lobbyists should be celebrated as proof of a free and vigorous democratic society, not derided as some evil.
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Thank you for a reasoned, well thought out critique. I agree more with you than I thought I would.
I agree with this as well.
Lobbyists can do much good, in ensuring different industries are well represented.
It is when they actually write the laws, that can favor certain industries or corporations over others…that can be a problem.
So screw it? Accept it?
Look at our history…corruption has actually been worse in our government.
It took Pols with guts to make the much needed changes.
We can’t do that again?
There are a few good things in there, but most of it reeks of a dictatorship.
I agree some are a bit over the top. But, with the cluster ■■■■ we have right now…something needs to be done.
I disagree.
All can be dealt with using legislation, that would meet constitutional requirements.
We cannot ban lobbying, due to the 1st, but we can limit on whom can be lobbyists, and how they operate within the system.
If only. Everything is fun and games until money changes hands. Let me guess, you’re one of those “money is speech” people.
Moronic labeling.
Money is not speech.
Money facilities the transmission of speech.
Lets at least not engage in total non sequiturs.
Now that we have dispensed with the above stupid label.
I DO support certain limits on campaign contributions. I do NOT support certain limits on campaign contributions and other contributions that would make it hard for an entity to get its message across.
Television and other media ads must be paid for and venues must be booked and paid for. That requires money.
I support PRUDENT limits on campaign financing, but not overly draconian limits.
Well that’s totally baseless. Despite all the wailing and handwriting not a single claim of corruption against Trump during this administration has had any truth to it or even foundation.
You rules you make for current officals will be applied to all of them in the future and it would start an immediate and continuing “tit for tat”.
I disagree. Any money greasing palms means only those with money get influence. Get money out of politics. Our representatives are supposed to be representing ALL of their Constituents, not just the ones who can afford to pay for the privilege.
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Well I agree with the conditions.
That certainly isn’t true or we’d have never had a law passed that benefited the whole or even the bulk of the country.
You cannot get money out of politics. Directly or indirectly it’s going to be there to the tune of billions of dollars every campaign season and attempting to do so would violate the most basic tenets of the First Amendment.
I was not referring to Trump as the cluster ■■■■■ it is the system.
It needs to be fixed.
The current SCOTUS agrees with your interpretation, but campaign finance laws are constitutional. We just need to implement more effective means to control the imbalance in how the monies are put into play.
Media bias is worth more than all the money private and other corporate sources contributes to all campaigns particularly in the campaign season.
The level playing field cannot exist because we could never control the media to the extent that they only reported verifiable facts and do so fairly and evenly.
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I oppose quid pro quos, but the reality is that getting a message out requires money and that requires some contributions. I would favor laws that provide for greater transparency in contributions and expenditures of political funds and that would provide for the more effective prosecution of quid pro quos. It is not realistic to think that you can create a totally clean process. But it is possible with measured and prudent campaign finance laws to reduce corruption.
I would also support a reasonable limit so that wealth itself cannot buy and dominate the coverage/advertising etc but only if there are some actual limits on truth in reporting as well.
The networks have more media power than all of the advertisers combined in any political season.
