Democracy Over Dollars
Public service is meant to be a sacrifice, not a steppingstone to wealth.
Damon’s Priority: A Government That Works for Kansans — Not Special Interests
While most of us struggle to keep up with the priorities of our daily lives, our politicians are busy making money and creating more loopholes that allow them to get even more money and stay in power indefinitely.
Politicians like Roger “Doc” Marshall have no interest in bringing us together, nor solving our problems. They thrive when we are divided, distracted and disinterested. We can make our government work for us, but it starts with fixing the system that turned it into a piggy bank for our politicians, corporations and billionaires.
This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. This is an American issue.
How Big Money is Destroying Democracy
Lobbying
When a member of the Executive Branch or Congress knows their next job is with a lobbying firm, whose interests are they going to serve while in office?
We all lobby anytime we call, visit or write to our Congressperson. That’s not the problem.
The forms of lobbying by big money that are legally taking place today are the problems:
40% of all Congress members go directly into lobbying after leaving office.
The “Low end” of pay when a former member of Congress goes into lobbying is $450K a year, with a growing list of lobbyists now making $1 million+ a year.
55% of Executive Branch employees go directly into lobbying after leaving office.
The average lobbyist salary for former Executive Branch employees is generally considered to be a minimum of $160K more a year from their previous salary in government, with a growing list of those making over $1 million/year.
Former members of our government that move into lobbying have access to our halls of power in ways that give them one-on-one time with our Congresspeople; access the average American will never have.
Because our members of Congress are so busy raising money, oftentimes legislation that goes up to vote is crafted by the interests of lobbyists, think tanks and consultants. And we never know.
Political Action Committees a.k.a. PACs
PACs are a major problem within our political system. Dark Money PACs and Leadership PACs serve the interests of those with the most money.
Both PACs types are a means to keep money flowing through the system so the interests of those with the most money are put ahead of the average American.
The average Congressperson spends more than 25% of their time working to raise money. Competitive races increase that time to over 50%. Time that should be spent working on our behalf is, instead, being spent listening to donors.
With very little oversight, Dark Money PACs can “buy” an election. And the laws of our country purposefully try to hide who is behind the money.
Leadership PACs function as a loophole around the “personal use” ban that applies to campaign funds, allowing lawmakers to finance country club dues, expensive trips and similar benefits. Less than half the funds in today’s Leadership PACs are used to support other candidates, as intended.
95% of our Congresspeople have a Leadership PAC.
We hope this campaign causes you to dig deeper and do your own research. Use a search engine and start asking your own questions. The problems and fixes are both out there for us to see.
Hopefully, with your support, more candidates will focus on this broken “system” that causes our dysfunction before blindly promising programs and policies that will never be enacted without first making sure their donors approve.
Let’s get to work and put our Democracy Over Dollars!