Zephyr Teachout: How the Founding Fathers would clean up K Street
[Zephyr Teachout is a visiting assistant professor at Duke Law School. She was previously the National Director of the Sunlight Foundation and the Director of Online Organizing for Howard Dean's Presidential Campaign.]
... Lobbying today is at the heart of what the Founding Fathers would call "corruption." This is not corruption in the legal sense of "bribery," but the deeper sense, in which public officials and citizens use public channels to serve private ends.
Lobbying as it currently exists was not part of the nation imagined by the Founding Fathers. However, as the debate notes from the Constitutional Convention show, they were electrified by the fear of money influencing politics, and they went to great lengths to structure the Constitution to protect against financial interests’ takeover of the democratic structures. During the months they spent in Philadelphia, corruption was a constant topic of conversation, talked about one out of every four days–almost half the days in which there were issues of substance debated. As Alexander Hamilton explained in the Federalist Papers, for those at the Convention "[n]othing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption." When they spoke about corruption, it was clear they were not merely talking about crimes, but abuses of power, brought on by temptation. The specter of a corrupt Europe, and to some degree corrupted Greece and Rome, hung over dozens of conversations. The bogeyman was Britain; above all, the Framers and their contemporaries feared creating a structure that invited the sort of plunder of democracy by economic interests that they saw in the British empire. Thomas Paine considered Britain "teeming with corruption." Patrick Henry wrote, "Look at Britain–see there the bolts and bars of power–see bribery and corruption defiling the fairest fabric that ever nature reared." In place of this culture of plunder, where the king and parliament acted for private gain instead of the public good, the American Framers wanted a system that limited the temptations placed in front of public servants.
Two issues in particular concerned the Framers: the way foreign nations might use their financial clout to influence domestic politics and the way members of Congress might create powerful offices they then could fill themselves. In both cases, the Framers not only created structures that leveraged people’s self-interest in the public interest, but they also attempted to shape what would be considered self-interest in the first place. They not only tried to leverage selfishness, but cultivate virtue.
The fear of foreigners was explicitly tied to the fear of Congress being bought. George Mason, for example, urged that the three-year-residency requirement for Congress be switched to seven years, because "it might also happen that a rich foreign Nation, for example Great Britain, might send over her tools who might bribe their way into the Legislature for insidious purposes." Hamilton worried that "foreign powers also will not be idle spectators. They will interpose, the confusion will increase, and a dissolution of the Union ensue." Elbridge Gerry recommended that only natives be allowed to run for office, because "foreign powers will intermeddle in our affairs, and spare no expence to influence them . . . Every one knows the vast sums laid out in Europe for secret services."
Moreover, the two-thirds requirement for a treaty was included in part because, as James Madison said, "The power of foreign nations to obstruct our retaliating measures on them by a corrupt influence would also be less if a majority sh[ould] be made competent than if 2/3 of each House sh[ould] be required to Legislative acts in this case." There was a history of foreign involvement in other countries affairs–as there is now–and the particular fear related to the idea that actors unconstrained by patriotism and love of country, love of the American public good, would be more likely to try to manipulate the system for self-serving ends.
The most passionate and intense discussions about corruption involved the scope of the emoluments clause and the ineligibility clause, the two parts of Article 1, Section 6. These clauses prevent members of Congress from holding civil office while serving as a legislator, or from being appointed to offices that had been created–or in which the compensation was increased–during their tenure. While these clauses now gets relatively little attention, Mason considered them the "cornerstone" of the republic. In England at the time, ambitious citizens would seek out public office in order to create lucrative positions, which they would then later fill themselves. Since government work was stable and could be very easy, elected officials would basically launder their popularity and votes into a reliable, comfortable, post-elected life civil service job with few demands. Mason argued that the primary source of corruption in the British politics is "the sole power of appointing the increased officers of government."...
Read entire article at Democracy
... Lobbying today is at the heart of what the Founding Fathers would call "corruption." This is not corruption in the legal sense of "bribery," but the deeper sense, in which public officials and citizens use public channels to serve private ends.
Lobbying as it currently exists was not part of the nation imagined by the Founding Fathers. However, as the debate notes from the Constitutional Convention show, they were electrified by the fear of money influencing politics, and they went to great lengths to structure the Constitution to protect against financial interests’ takeover of the democratic structures. During the months they spent in Philadelphia, corruption was a constant topic of conversation, talked about one out of every four days–almost half the days in which there were issues of substance debated. As Alexander Hamilton explained in the Federalist Papers, for those at the Convention "[n]othing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption." When they spoke about corruption, it was clear they were not merely talking about crimes, but abuses of power, brought on by temptation. The specter of a corrupt Europe, and to some degree corrupted Greece and Rome, hung over dozens of conversations. The bogeyman was Britain; above all, the Framers and their contemporaries feared creating a structure that invited the sort of plunder of democracy by economic interests that they saw in the British empire. Thomas Paine considered Britain "teeming with corruption." Patrick Henry wrote, "Look at Britain–see there the bolts and bars of power–see bribery and corruption defiling the fairest fabric that ever nature reared." In place of this culture of plunder, where the king and parliament acted for private gain instead of the public good, the American Framers wanted a system that limited the temptations placed in front of public servants.
Two issues in particular concerned the Framers: the way foreign nations might use their financial clout to influence domestic politics and the way members of Congress might create powerful offices they then could fill themselves. In both cases, the Framers not only created structures that leveraged people’s self-interest in the public interest, but they also attempted to shape what would be considered self-interest in the first place. They not only tried to leverage selfishness, but cultivate virtue.
The fear of foreigners was explicitly tied to the fear of Congress being bought. George Mason, for example, urged that the three-year-residency requirement for Congress be switched to seven years, because "it might also happen that a rich foreign Nation, for example Great Britain, might send over her tools who might bribe their way into the Legislature for insidious purposes." Hamilton worried that "foreign powers also will not be idle spectators. They will interpose, the confusion will increase, and a dissolution of the Union ensue." Elbridge Gerry recommended that only natives be allowed to run for office, because "foreign powers will intermeddle in our affairs, and spare no expence to influence them . . . Every one knows the vast sums laid out in Europe for secret services."
Moreover, the two-thirds requirement for a treaty was included in part because, as James Madison said, "The power of foreign nations to obstruct our retaliating measures on them by a corrupt influence would also be less if a majority sh[ould] be made competent than if 2/3 of each House sh[ould] be required to Legislative acts in this case." There was a history of foreign involvement in other countries affairs–as there is now–and the particular fear related to the idea that actors unconstrained by patriotism and love of country, love of the American public good, would be more likely to try to manipulate the system for self-serving ends.
The most passionate and intense discussions about corruption involved the scope of the emoluments clause and the ineligibility clause, the two parts of Article 1, Section 6. These clauses prevent members of Congress from holding civil office while serving as a legislator, or from being appointed to offices that had been created–or in which the compensation was increased–during their tenure. While these clauses now gets relatively little attention, Mason considered them the "cornerstone" of the republic. In England at the time, ambitious citizens would seek out public office in order to create lucrative positions, which they would then later fill themselves. Since government work was stable and could be very easy, elected officials would basically launder their popularity and votes into a reliable, comfortable, post-elected life civil service job with few demands. Mason argued that the primary source of corruption in the British politics is "the sole power of appointing the increased officers of government."...