U.S. sets 5-year and lifetime lobbying ban for officials | Hacker News Reader

U.S. sets 5-year and lifetime lobbying ban for officials

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68 pointsrandomname252 comments

As a former lobbyist in DC, I support this. The revolving door makes perfect sense in a closed loop of Washington, but in my experience it has led to corruption and carrying the status quo. As far as lobbying for foreign governments, while not having worked on that directly, I do know foreign governments pay a tremendous amounts of money to hire former members of congress. If you're curious look up the lobbying disclosure database. [1]

1. http://disclosures.house.gov/ld/ldsearch.aspx

> Trump is allowed to waive any of the restrictions.

That is an important exception. The fact it exists basically means this is a fig leaf he might rescind on his last day in office.

It's also a really nice carrot-and-stick mechanism for currying favor!

"Another provision sets a two-year period during which appointees must avoid working on issues involving former employers or clients.

Trump is allowed to waive any of the restrictions. ...snip... Trump said Obama's order was "full of loopholes.""

So, this provision just has one gigantic loophole.

That is true of any Executive Order. And any future Executive can rescind or otherwise modify that order.

I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing in this particular case, but people sometimes forget that law created via EO only exists, persists, is enforced or not enforced at the whim of POTUS.

Not everything Trump does is bad. The media will either spin this as ineffective, or simply won't report it, since this is a positive thing that Trump did and those kinds of stories simply won't be tolerated in today's mainstream media environment. But it is nice to see him carrying out the promises that he made to his base, even if we don't all agree with them. That is rare among politicians.

It's not that the media is not reporting good stuff Trump is doing, it's that he's not doing much good stuff.

Stealth edit. You claimed the title did not mention Trump as evidence of media bias. The title explicitly does.

> The media will either spin this as ineffective, or simply won't report it

The media will not report it? Then how are we seeing this story?

Nope, not a stealth edit. I deleted that part of it within seconds. The HN title is U.S. sets 5-year and lifetime lobbying ban for officials. The moment I realized that this was not the title of the article itself, and before you posted your comment, I deleted that part of it.

The media will not report it? Then how are we seeing this story?

Most people do not get their news straight from the AP. It will be fascinating to see this story get spun and spun again by the likes of CNN, MSNBC, etc.

It has already been reported on news sites. Just to name a few. Not much "spin" that I can tell:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-sets-5-year-lifeti...

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/trump-sets-year-lif...

http://time.com/4652703/president-trump-lobbying-ban/

Here's CNN's attempt at spin [1]:

"However, Trump's move to ban his aides from cashing in on their current jobs may be easier said than done. Lobbying can be ambiguously titled in practice, and while former staffers may not become registered lobbyists, they could potentially trade influence and government experience for a hefty paycheck all the same."

They also buried the story among many negative ones on their home page.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/donald-trump-executiv...

> That is rare among politicians.

It's not rare at all. Many politicians who are from gerrymandered seats cater exclusively to their base. Because that is the only constituency that matters to their re-election.

Trump is supposed to be the President of ALL Americans. Not just the 25% odd percent who voted for him. And the fact that his popularity and approval rating is dropping daily attests to this.

I suppose I should have said that's rare among Presidents. Obama, for example, flat-out lied to his base about his stance on privacy rights, forever harming the ability of US tech companies to compete with those in privacy-minded countries. When it came to light that he had authorized even more invasive government surveillance programs than any of his predecessors, including George W. Bush, he didn't even bother apologizing.

Of course it is rare among Presidents. It's stupid and counter productive. Presidents should be governing based on the national interest and educated, considered advice of the public servants. Not the ever changing, populist, ignorant whims of a minority of the country. I mean that from the left or right of the electorate.

And no have not seen any indication the US tech companies are struggling to compete with anyone due specifically to privacy concerns. Apple is still arguably the leader in privacy, even yesterday they widely deployed differential privacy across iCloud analytics.

You're honestly going to argue that the whole NSA debacle didn't hurt American technology companies?

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/business/fallout-from-sno...

https://phys.org/news/2015-06-snowden-revelations-costly-tec...

Yes because that didn't happen, check the dates and profit reports.

You realize this is the media, reporting it?

Most people do not get their news from the AP. They will see the spun version on CNN, MSNBC, etc. Or perhaps in this case, they won't see it at all.

Here's the CNN version. What's the spin?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/donald-trump-executiv...

Not much new here.

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/28/512201631/trumps-executive-ord...

From the same article: Clinton ended up revoking the order (so his order basically did nothing), and Obama gave waivers even to the previous, watered down 2-year version.

This new order has considerably more teeth than anything that came before, though of course it remains to be seen if Trump grants any exemptions, or follows what was promised on the campaign trail to the letter. If he does, and if he manages to get congressional term limits passed as well, DC will be in a much healthier state once the current crop of entrenched geezers vacates the premises.

Or, he could do what the previous presidents have done, rescind the order once he leaves office.

For better or worse, he's not like the previous presidents in nearly every way.

> If he does, and if he manages to get congressional term limits passed as well, DC will be in a much healthier state once the current crop of entrenched geezers vacates the premises.

Why would an arbitrary restriction on representative government = a healthier state? Look, I think there are grand problems in the electoral process that lead to the same people getting elected forever. That produces an environment conducive to career politics and incites people to pursue that path over public service.

But the public voting for representation is not the problem. The baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater.

Whether or not one agrees with it, the idea of arbitrary restrictions on representative government is at least as old as George Washington himself.

Were the USA a direct democracy it would be pretty easy to refute the idea of term limits, but as it's a democratic republic, the issue becomes far less clear cut.

Even direct democracies have restrictions; it's the arbitrary ones that need some real validation to support. Just cause "throw all the bums out" feels good does not mean it's sound policy for a republic.

It was arbitrary for George Washington to decline to run for a third term as President, feeling that two terms ought to be enough for anybody. And it took over a century for that wisdom to be codified into the 22nd Amendment.

It doesn't require much abstract thinking to see how legislators (and chief executives) could craft policy to guarantee their reelection. Places without term limits are good examples of how policy can ensure reelection.

Whether or not one agrees with it, the concept, at least, of term limits, isn't wholly without merit. It may be feckless, it may be antithetical to the direct democracy many Americans inaccurately assume they live in, but it isn't inherently just some partisan, feel-good policy.

This particular implementation of the concept may be, but that's a separate conversation.

Congressional representatives are chosen directly by the people in their districts. Aside from judges, are there any federal office holders or appointments that don't have term limits or serve at the pleasure of the current administration?

Head of CFPB? Can't be removed by the President. Also, President can't fire SEC commissioners

From the wiki page: "The CFPB was initially established as an independent agency but it effectively became an executive agency after a federal appeals court found that the President of the United States' power to remove the CFPB Director had been unconstitutionally limited."

And while the president can't fire an SEC commissioner, there are only five and one comes up for reappointment every year. By the end of his first term Trump will have the opportunity to replace four of them.

The CFPB ruling will (is?) certainly to be appealed.

Besides the SEC, you also have the FTC, FCC, CFTC, CPSC, PCAOB etc run by groups of Directors who can't be fired at will. The FHFA and OCC are led by single Directors.

See the "Ground for Removal" section in

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43391.pdf

Grounds for Removal

Although not always specified in statute, it appears that the heads of financial regulators, in contrast with Cabinet Secretaries, typically do not serve at the pleasure of the President (“at will”). Instead, most regulators may be removed only if a higher “for cause” threshold is met. The one clear statutory exception is the OCC’s Comptroller of the Currency, who “shall hold his office for a term of five years unless sooner removed by the President, upon reasons to be communicated by him to the Senate.” “For cause” removal limits the ability of a President to remove, or threaten to remove, an appointee solely for political reasons. According to one law review article, “The distinguishing feature of [independent] agencies is that their principal officers are protected against presidential removal at will.” According to another,

A requirement that members serve a fixed term of years is an essential element of independence, but alone is not sufficient. The critical element of independence is the protection—conferred explicitly by statute or reasonably implied—against removal except “for cause.”

So I used to oppose term limits for Congress until I saw a very interesting argument:

The longer you have been in power, the longer the list of prior decisions and positions that you must defend, or else admit you were wrong. And so you end up clinging to bad positions, opposing good laws and good repeals, or supporting bad laws and bad repeals, because your own political fortunes are tied up in having been correct the first time around.

Being called a "flip-flopper" guarantees one cannot learn from experience.

It's amazing how a potentially valuable human attribute has been branded as a political handicap.

Well it depends.. if you vote someone for his current stance towards something I would expect he keep it whether he personally has changed view or not . If you vote for someone on their ability to think and act , for thier character I would expect them to change.

Usually it a combination of both so there is no simple answer

Also, you want these people for their good foresight. Hindsight isn't quite as useful.

Look at how the presidents behave in the 2nd term. They know that they don't need to get reelected so are willing to do the right thing more than pandering to their donors. Currently other elected officials have to balance what their voters want with what their donors want and side with the donors. But the biggest problem with US currently is two party system where their is huge us against them mentality republicans vote republican and Democrats vote democrat. So politicians from both sides are unwilling to vote across party lines as that would kill their chance of getting reelected. If they don't need to run again they will be more willing to compromise.

Ok, got it, you want Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell running things forever. It's a bold strategy, let's see how it works out for you.

Holy Fallacy of the Excluded Middle, Batman!

You just don't hate those two particular geezers enough. One ran the Democratic Party into the ground (and got rewarded for it with another term as the leader of House Democrats), and another makes Emperor Palpatine look like Mother Theresa. One is 76 years old, another is 74. They should long have retired if they had any decency whatsoever. Anything that shows them where the exit door is will receive my enthusiastic support.

That's fine but what does it say about their constituents? First it's a handful voting for each in their respective primaries; second a substantial number of eligible voters who do not care enough to participate in that primary. And then more than half of the eligible voters who don't care enough to participate in the general election. So why disable the ability of those willing to participate to re-elect the person they want?

It says that their constituents don't really give a shit about the finer points of things. It also doesn't help that the longer the congress critter stays in congress, the more power they seem to amass, Frank Underwood style. So after 15-20 years they bring in a ton of pork barrel cash to their district, and ensure indefinite reelection until they keel over and die. That's might seem like a good deal for that district, but it's, IMO, not a good deal for the country as a whole.

This is similar to how most eligible voters don't give a shit about electing the president. If Obama could run indefinitely, assuming he managed to not screw up really badly, it'd be a piece of cake for him to get re-elected in perpetuity a-la Putin, simply because it's much easier for the incumbent to win (even goddamn Dubya won!), and he'd be able to adjust the laws to his liking with the support of his party in Congress when they have the majority.

Both term limits and lobbying bans for officials shift the balance of power, experience, and skill to private lobbies and away from the people doing public work, and so would leave Washington in worse shape in terms of ability to serve the public interest than the atrocious status quo.

The root of the current problems is in the way the structure of the electoral system fails to achieve effective representation, and none of those address that one bit. They are naive solutions that appeal to people who have a shallow understanding of the symptoms but no grasp of the problem.

> Both term limits and lobbying bans for officials shift the balance of power, experience, and skill to private lobbies and away from the people doing public work

This is clear to me for term limits, but how does it apply to lobbying bans? (Not arguing that it doesn't, but would like to understand.)

Most political appointees expected term of office is tied to their party controlling the appointed office (and often times the person that appointed them doing so, as even another person from the same party will want to bring in their own people.)

Thus, people who consider taking these offices need to have the ability to get other work need to have work they can do in between political appointments, so if you ban them for an extended period from the broad class of out-of-government jobs that the experience and skills developed and used in their public work would be most applicable, then people with viable alternatives are just not going to work in the public sector at all, unless they are so independently wealthy that they don't need work at all.

Interesting.

I think overall this is a good idea, but it's important to consider the temporary nature of it as an executive order. And of course the use of exceptions.

My question, that I have not seen discussed and am too lazy to do the math on, is this: In the next four years, how many democrats vs republicans are likely to retire / leave office? Will this have any partisan benefit?

This goes for term limits as well, which I think also could be a good idea pending execution.

One of the few good Trump policies.

We'll see in a year... It's only been a few days.

Could this be negated through some freedom of speech rights argument later on once they leave office?

It's an EO, and therefore could be completely scrapped by any future POTUS.

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