how do you weed out lobbyists?

[cool hand]

spend all the money as soon as you get into office and have less of a pie for these assholes to take. great plan Obama.

[FreeMason]

Tell them to GFT at the State of the Union.

Too bad Obama wasted the whole "Different Politician" bit.

[cool hand]

yes he did in one quick move he got rid of half or more the half the lobbyists in Washington. Republicans are really mad cause thier boys didn't get a piece of the pie....think about it.

[spurster]

To weed out lobbyists, you have to neutralize the effect of money (campaign contributions) on Congress. To do that, you need to have public financing that can't be run around by private financing.

1. Implement public financing for Congressional elections (a lot cheaper than the stimulus and bailout).

2. Allow candidates to choose private financing, but ensure publicly financed candidates can't be outspent.

[Wild Cobra]

Now that we have good communications capabilities, remove the law that limits the House of Representatives to 435 members. Increase their numbers to one for every 30,000 population, maybe even 100,000. It would be much harder to buy off half of 3,000 or 10,000 representatives!

Restore the senate to being appointed by the states rather than a vote of the people.

[Winehole23]

Restore the senate to being appointed by the states rather than a vote of the people.Anti-democratic on its face, but consistent with the US Constitution as we once knew it. Senators would be accountable not to the people, but to the states.

But didn't the 17th Amendment answer complaints of cronyism, corruption and inefficiency to begin with? Reverting to the original electoral scheme merely changes the venue for corruption, no?

The catalyzing event, interestingly enough, was an Illinois scandal (http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/dec/11/local/chi-blagojevich-history-11-dec11).


17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Direct Election of U.S. Senators (http://www.ourdocuments.gov/print_friendly.php?flash=false&page=&doc=58&title=17th+Amendment+to+the+U.S.+Constitution%3A+D irect+Election+of+U.S.+Senators+%281913%29) (1913)

The Constitution, as it was adopted in 1788, made the Senate an assembly where the states would have equal representation. Each state legislature would elect two senators to 6-year terms. Late in the 19th century, some state legislatures deadlocked over the election of a senator when different parties controlled different houses, and Senate vacancies could last months or years. In other cases, special interests or political machines gained control over the state legislature. Progressive reformers dismissed individuals elected by such legislatures as puppets and the Senate as a "millionaire’s club" serving powerful private interests.



One Progressive response to these concerns was the "Oregon system," which utilized a state primary election to identify the voters’ choice for Senator while pledging all candidates for the state legislature to honor the primary’s result. Over half of the states adopted the "Oregon system," but the 1912 Senate investigation of bribery and corruption in the election of Illinois Senator William Lorimer indicated that only a constitutional amendment mandating the direct election of Senators by a state’s citizenry would allay public demands for reform.

[Oh, Gee!!]

Anti-democratic on its face, but consistent with the US Constitution as we once knew it. Senators would be accountable not to the people, but to the states.

But didn't the 17th Amendment answer complaints of cronyism, corruption and inefficiency to begin with? Reverting to the original electoral scheme merely changes the venue for corruption, no?

The catalyzing event, interestingly enough, was an Illinois scandal (http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/dec/11/local/chi-blagojevich-history-11-dec11).

you're wasting your time responding to these idiots. they lost. they're bitter is all you really need to know. in other words, careful when feeding the neocons.