Survey: Fear Of Negative Ads Funded By Corporate Dollars Scares Congressional Staffers Into Bowing To Lobbyists
Swell. So Democratic Congressional staffers are going to be even more obsequious than usual to lobbyists? We have to get the corporate money out of politics, and it’s going to take a Constitutional amendment to do it: WASHINGTON — Democratic congressional staffers are increasingly wary of alienating corporate lobbyists for fear of inciting a massive advertising blitz against their bosses , according to an informal survey by the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen. Almost 60 percent of the Democratic staffers responding to the survey said that the influence of lobbyists in the policymaking process has been strengthened by the 2010 “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision, which unleashed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political advertising — in some cases, anonymously. Nine out of the 56 Democratic staffers who responded to the survey said they now feel a need to “respond differently” to lobbyists. “The prospect of a massive donation to an outside organization that would run ads against my boss and not have any identifying information about who is behind them has a chilling effect on our decision-making,” wrote one Democratic legislative director, in response to the survey’s open-ended question.
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on May 12, 2011. Filed under