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Comment by tommu | Hacker News Reader

I would rather that they simply were not allowed conflicts of interest during and after office. No joining companies lobbying for the industry you were supposedly regulating when in office. ETC.

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Not allowing conflicts of interests is almost impossible for most politicians: they all have friends in different industries because they need financial support (or popular support anyway). The least you can ask for is transparency and disclosure of ties/relationships/friendships.

Right now they have no chance of being elected unless they spend obscene sums. Remove that need through campaign finance regulations and you will remove an enormous source of leverage. I would be happy to see a 50% mix of public money and 50% individual capped donations making up a cursory figure. Legally require large networks to give free and equal airtime to each candidate with enough support to justify inclusion. It simply cannot be impossible to remove the biggest sources un-democratic influence.

How can you enforce the "after office" clause?

I think there can be some simple regulation. IE take this public office and you must remain impartial for the rest of your career. It should be a privilege to serve.

Take a look at Aspartame controversies. In essence the US Attorney charged with opening a grand jury into their research withdrew and took a job working for Searle, manufacturers of Aspartame. The Grand Jury never occurred. A few years later the FDA Commissioner who gave Aspartame the green light went on to work for their PR company. To this day people don't trust Aspartame even though (debatably) the research shows it's safe.

So even perceived conflicts of interest can adversely affect public perspectives on the objectivity of scientific research. That's not good in a democracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame#Safety_and_approval_c...

Isn't this just being more strict about the "no bribes" rule?

Both enforcing it and observing the spirit of the law would work for me. There is space for continuous deployment of no bribe regulation here.

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