Independent studies show both parties receive huge amounts of money from the lobby groups and the winners allegiance will be to multinational corporations. How can the public benefit from an election if the lobbyists are not eliminated?

Independent studies show both parties receive huge amounts of money from the lobby groups and the winners allegiance will be to multinational corporations. How can the public benefit from an election if the lobbyists are not eliminated?
Asked by: Ernest Paviour from

Asked of All U.S. Representatives on Feb 9th, 2008

Categories: Campaign 2008 · Civil Liberties · Economy · Environment · Ethics · Foreign Policy · Globalization · Immigration · Money & Politics · Regulation · Taxes. Tags: All impacted by lobby groups.

Answer from: U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)

Well, I think that we do need to reduce the influence of lobbyist on the electoral process and on the hill, in terms of increasing transparency, prohibiting lobbyist from winning and dining members of Congress, reducing travel. Common Cause, Public Interest, other groups, other public watch dog groups, hailed it as a landmark piece of legislation. It dramatically limits the influence of lobbyist in terms of their winning and dining of legislators, no traveling with lobbyist. It sets up some very important firewalls in the process. I do believe that we need to go farther with respect to campaign finance reform. And I believe we should have a system where there is much more of a public funding component to reduce the influence of money generally.

Answered on Feb 20th, 2008