LOBBYISTS CALLS FOR AN END TO EARMARKS IN THE 112TH CONGRESS
Yesterday we spoke of a lobbyist claiming the high moral ground of espousing virtue in contemporary politics. Today this lobbyist calls for an end to earmarks in the 112th Congress. Now is the time for lobbyists to support the ban and convince their own clients and support Members of Congress who believe appropriated money should only be spent for the public good and not on private interest.
An ethical lobbyist must convince the Member that the request he or she is making on behalf of his or her client is in the public good. The Member must sit as a disinterested judge, placing the private interest or the interest of the district or state being represented aside. It is the Members’ sworn duty to sacrifice private opinions and the interest of his or her district for the public good. James Madison writing as Publius in Federalist #10 argued how to guard or control faction of private interest against the interest of the whole community. Madison said,
A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischief’s of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.
The 112th Congress is at a tipping point” where the negative effects of private interests and entitlements are draining the public treasury. Madison advocated a Republic or a representative form of democracy as opposed to the direct democracy. Today some advocate “direct democracy, rather than having our representative vote on our behalf, we create a system of having all citizens posting a yea or nay on the Internet on specific legislation.
To protect against the possible destructive nature of private interest Madison called for legislators to embrace the character of impartial judges rising above parochial interest. His ideal legislator was one who knew how to “reason in a public spirit of justice,” rather than a “private spirit of faction.” Unfortunately, many of the legislators today are less worried about having character and more worried about being the character on cable news.