We, the people, wish to end the dependency

The members of Congress, those men and women elected to do our will, are nowtossing about ways to restrict lobbyists. This recent flurry of integritywas sparked by the Abramoff scandal. Abramoff was a lobbyist who paid$50,000 to kill a bill to limit Internet gambling and he also admitted todefrauding four clients out of millions of dollars.

A lobbyist is hired to influence lawmaking in the interests of his/heremployer. Our politicians rely on lobbyists to contribute to their campaignsto in order to be re-elected. However, these are the same lawmakers whoactually regulate lobbying.

There lies the conflict of interest. Because it falls to the politicians(who need campaign contributions) to regulate lobbying, it is therefore nosurprise that lawmaker's would have difficulty saying, "No. We do not wantlobbyist's money and gifts. We want to act with complete integrity."According to PublicIntegrity.Org, a lobbying watch-group, 14,000 lobbyingdocuments that should have been filed with the Senate Office are missing.Furthermore, lobbyist led campaign committees have spent more than $525million to influence the political process since 1998.

If someone were to give you $5,100 in gifts and for re-election, would yoube so naïve to believe that there are absolutely no strings attached? Wouldyou just assume that the lobbyist just cares about supporting you with nothought to what the client will get in return? You don't buy it, do you?Yet, this is business-as-usual in Washington, D.C.

We, the people, need to call for an end to the financial and gifting side oflobbying. Lobbyists' roles should not include leading a politician'scampaign committee. Our congressional representatives should not befinancially dependent upon a special interest. Please e-mail, call, or writeto your congressional representatives and ask to fully end the dependency.Thomas Jefferson would say that Congress should not represent the will ofthe lobbyists, but instead it should represent the wishes of the people.