Is Our Democracy in Jeopardy?

Our democracy is in jeopardy because it is no longer representation by the people, but by corporations and big moneyed interest. This is because congressmen are on a perpetual campaign to get reelected. Our congress is bicameral and made up of both senators and representatives.

The house of representatives has 435 members with each member representing a district within his or her state. House seats are allocated among the states by population. Each representative serves a two-year term.

Each state, regardless of population, has two senators; since there are fifty states, there are one hundred senators, each serving six-year terms. The terms are staggered, so every two years, approximately one-third of the Senate is up for election. Most incumbents seek re-election, and their historical likelihood of winning subsequent elections exceeds 90%.

Therefore, every two years, there is a large sum of congressman who are up for reelection. Studies show that a large percentage of congressman spend 30 to 70% of their time finding donors and raising money for their next campaign. There is a constant interaction between lobbyist, congressman, corporations and big moneyed interest that influences the decision making, our laws, and the outcomes in Washington . It can be thought of as a Triangle of Influence.

In general, here is how it works. Corporations and big moneyed interest pay a handsome salary to lobbyist. The lobbyists in turn provide contributions and perks to congressman to support the lobbyists. Congressman do favors for the lobbyist. Congressman cut deals with the corporations and big money interests, who then provide funding for campaign contributions. There are other forms of interaction but this diagram is presented to just give you an overview of how congress is being influenced by the dependency for campaign funding.

What's wrong with this picture?... It's missing you and me.

We get these congressman elected based on what they pledge they are going to do for us. However, they are so pre-occupied and distracted with raising money for their perpetual campaigns, our issues are ignored, because they are beholden to their funders in one form or another and become dependant upon them to get re-elected. You noticed, I have not mentioned any political parties because, this applies to all of them.

Having said that, there are some individual exceptions that I'm aware of: Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, who caucuses with the democrats does not play this game; and Buddy Roemer, a republican who is running for President, has limited the contributions that he receives from citizens to $100.00. He will not accept any donations from lobbyists, PACS or Super PACS.

There is also a revolving door that exists between congressman and lobbyists that influences the thinking of the congressman. The average salary for a congressman is about $160,00. a year. Lobbyist can make three to ten times that amount. So there is the incentive for congressman to focus on what the lobbyist want. Someday, they could become lobbyists as well and earn that dream salary.

Up until this point, I have been speaking in generalities. But now lets apply this triangle of influence to specifics. To do this, just replace Big Corporations and Moneyed Interests with actual entities and issues. Here are the ones I'm going to cover:

• Banks and investments companies
• Health insurance and pharmaceuticals
• Tax reform
• Candidates not yet elected to office

in 1999, the banks and investment companies lobbied heavily to have the Glass-Stegal Act removed. This law provided regulations preventing banks and investment companies from commingling their assets. That means that banks could act as investment companies and investment companies could act as banks. This opened the door for all kinds of creative financing that led to our current financial meltdown. it is beyond the scope of this hub to go into the details, but you can read my hub on What Caused the Financial Meltdown to get the details.

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The health insurance companies and big Pharma, lobbied to get the Medicare Prescription Drug Act passed which became Medicare Part D, the prescription drug program. It turns out it was a $49.3 billion gift to big Pharma that was never funded by congress. Health care reform was a $250 billion gift to the insurance industry. All of this was possible because of the mutual financial dependency between members of congress and the lobbyists.

We all hear abut tax reform, but does anything ever get done? The right does not want to raise taxes period. The left wants to raise taxes on the wealthy. If you go behind the scenes, it's actually congress who uses this game as leverage to get more campaign cash. Changes on the left get stopped because lobbyists representing powerful private interest use their leverage to block changes to the status-quo. Change on the right gets blocked because of strong, powerful public interests. Therefore, congress works to block any change that would weaken their fund- raising machine.

The triangle of influence even works for candidates who are running for office, but who are not yet elected. Newt Gingrich was losing his standing in the republican debates. But then along came Las Vegas casino billionaire, Sheldon Adelson to give 5 million, not to Newt Gingrich, but to a super PAC (Political Action Committee) to create attack ads against Mitt Romney. All of sudden, Newt's standing sky-rocketed. Why did Adleson, give this money to a Super PAC? Because he expects Newt to remove gaming restrictions if he gets into office...and the cycle begins.

The Super PAC is a direct result of the Supreme Court's ruling on Citizens United. You can tell a Super PAC ad because it does not state: "I am (politician's name) and I approve this ad." Thanks to the Supreme Court, they do not have to disclose source or amount of funding. At the end of this hub, I have provided a link to another hubbers hub about Citizens United that does an excellent job on explaining it.

Miriam Adelson, the wife of Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson, is giving $5 million to Winning Our Future, a super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich's presidential bid. The Adelson associate was not free to discuss the matter publicly and disclosed the contribution on condition of anonymity. Between the husband and wife, that's 10 million, in less than a week!

I have given you some concrete examples of how the triangle of influence works. The next time things don't seem right to you when it comes to political issues, try applying the triangle of influence and see if it doesn't make sense. Here are some examples that have clarified the issues for me.

• BP oil spill - lobbied for their own quality control checks
• Salmonella in eggs - lobbied to remove restrictions on USDA control
• Mining disaster - lobbied to remove safety controls
• Corn producers - lobbied to have high content fructose added to food products as a sweetner.

I hope this has given you some insight as to what goes on behind the scenes. The public needs to be informed as to how the real system works. There is power in information and the more people who know about this, the more power we will have to bring about change. Thank you for reading this and please spread the word. I think people are beginning to understand by the Occupy movements and hearing more about Citizens United on shows and news broadcasts. They sense there is something wrong, but they just can't put their finger on it. I'm sure this is just one aspect of a total picture, but by understanding this piece, I think will help.

Here is the link to Citizens United by Jillian Barclay. She does an excellent job explaining it. Be sure to watch the cartoon, it also is excellent.

I have also provided a RSS news feed below of the status of bills in congress. It is automatically updated as the status changes.