Senator Elizabeth Warren advocates a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress, Presidents, and agency heads and banning foreign lobbying and lobbyists donations to candidates and members of congress.
Warren stated “The trial of Donald Trump’s campaign manager has exposed how foreign governments hide their efforts to influence the american government through lobbying. We should ban Americans from getting paid to lobby for foreign governments- period. If foreign governments want to express their views, they can use their diplomats.”
Warren’s bill seeks to eliminate both the appearance and the potential for financial conflicts of interest by banning members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, federal judges, and other senior government officials from owning and trading individual stock, including requiring the Supreme court follow the ethics rule applicable to all other federal judges.
What do you think? Do you agree with Warren’s bill?
I usually disagree with Senator Warren on many things, but I think I'd agree with this bill. Even though I disagree with her on pretty much every reason she has to justify this legislation, I still think that she has a good point here. I completely agree with her, for instance, that we need to prohibit Americans from lobbying for foreign governments, as I've heard some...sketchy outcomes of lobbying for other governments. As she notes, we have diplomats for a reason.
ReplyDeleteThis legislation would make it much harder for government officials to exploit lobbying and government positions for corrupt purposes, which I think I would support. I understand that this is probably not the most popular issue to talk about now, but I do see it as important, and I like that I can largely agree with Warren for perhaps the first time with this proposition.