Thu, 25 Jan 2007

Transparency in Government

I caught part of a story on NPR this moring titled Senate Bill Ignores 'Astroturf' Lobbying on Morning Edition . It was about:

The Senate's new ethics bill leaves so-called "astroturf" lobbying alone. The term describes efforts to mobilize "grassroots" work by advocacy groups who aren't required to disclose their spending.

This looks, to me, like politicians giving in to powerful groups, "grassroots" or otherwise. Some of these conservative and liberal "grass roots" organizations are no more grass roots than the corporate lobbies. They are highly organized, well-funded organizations with large influence on politicians. You can't tell me that some organization which is able to mount television and radio programs and advertising is grass roots.

My feeling from the moderate position is that all organizations should play by the same rules. The voters should have complete transparency in government on this. We should know all groups which are lobbying our representatives in order to make a more informed decision about those representatives in future elections. I want to know just as much about a "religious" organization lobbying my representative as I do about a corporate group.

I think that money has too much influence in our society, especially politics. I think that one of the ways to fight this influence is to make aure that all groups lobbying our representatives are made to report their efforts so that the American people (whoever they are) can make a determination for themselves of the effectiveness of their representatives in government.

posted 10:10 [/Politics] permanent link