the Lobbying Machine

This post is not meant to add to the incitefulness of the political climate. But most likely will. It comes from a personal quest into career, but ultimately leads me back into the political arena that seems so corrupt and toxic right now.

 If you have had conversations with me lately - you know that I'm re-evaluating where I fit into the non profit world and am trying to bring new skills of advocacy & negotiation to the table. They are traits that have always been there, I am just making sure they play a more important role where I land next.

For some additional training I took a worthwhile webinar this week on the topic of Lobbying. And while it is a VAST umbrella, the main intent was to make sure that us participants were able to grasp the distinction between advocacy vs. lobbying. In short, Advocacy is where you have a strong investment in any civic cause and want to make sure you are giving it support in your daily actions. By contrast, Lobbying is more specific where you are aiming that voice to a specific piece of Legislation and trying to sway votes in your court. A key point made, was that any elected official can not possibly know everything in detail about every issue that might cross their path. So in effect, the concept of lobbying, when well intentioned, should be a legal avenue to educate them. And along with this, there are also very black & white legalities over what is ethical and what crosses a line.

Ironically, at this same time I have been informed of the existence of ALEC - the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is surprisingly a non profit itself. On paper it looks fine. It is a meeting ground where lobbyists from paid corporations (with an obvious interest in laws) can have table talks with actual legislators to "educate" them on a broad spectrum of topics; Education, Tax Reform, Agriculture - all the heavy hitters have a place here. But to me, the kicker is that all these conversations take place behind closed doors. So rather than a transparent, public forum, these Senators and Congressmen are being spoon fed language that is meant to favor the corporate side of the conversation who has money. In many cases the elected are not even paying for that spot at the conferences, but it is all catered for them as "resource scholarships" taking place at resorts or conference hotels. Also not surprising, are that the elected representatives in the MN contingent are from a certain Republican party as are most, which does make the bipartisan aspect of lobbying fair by any margin. What is crafted over these discussions is Boiler Plate language already pre-drafted, which has been shown in many cases to have been taken directly back to their Congresses and ultimately resulted in Bills on the floor that are verbatim. This smacks of corruption at the most basic level. Watch this expose from an ALEC meeting in GA and tell if you cannot see the conflict of interest. This is what we are up against!

American Legislative Exchange Council