" If you want to be heard by your senator, you'd better hire a lobbyist!!!!"
By KEVIN STODA
PUBLIC CITIZEN has written its readers recently of an important experiment for political scientists to follow-up on.
Will political scientists follow-up on this?
I DOUBT IT. I raised the issues pertinent to the findings of the experiment with a circle political scientists (experts in American Institutions) several years ago. They just snickered--as though they didn't have any business in doing anything but reporting on the U.S. government and creating a theory about how it functions.
Will Progressives get a bigger stick and get American governments to change the status-Quo?
THE ONLY WAY TO CHANGE THE SYSTEM is to reform the outdated U.S.A. Constitution. This will require state level constitution en masse in 2011. Are progressives ready to act?
THE ARTICLE
" Want an appointment with a senator?
Better hope you're a lobbyist
A Colorado business consultant tried a little experiment during the health care debate: He called senators' office and asked for an appointment. Sometimes he called as a private citizen, sometimes as a business lobbyist. As a lobbyist, he got meetings with senators nearly four times as often as when he was seeking a meeting as a concerned citizen. As a lobbyist, he scored 25 meetings with staffers and two with senators; but as a citizen, not a single senator would meet with him to discuss the health care bill."
This story was revealed on NBC Washington in-full in a piece named, "Senators Welcome Lobbyists, Shun Citizens".
The FULL STORY began: "What would happen if an average citizen, a complete unknown, were to contact the office of every U.S. senator and ask for a meeting to discuss a certain Senate bill of interest? And then what would happen if that same unknown were to register as a federal lobbyist, contact each Senate office again, and request a meeting to discuss the same bill?"
"That's the intriguing question that business consultant Josh Brodbeck of Colorado set out to answer. What did he find? Exactly what you'd expect ."
The bottom line for Josh Brodbeck and we millions of private American citizens is "[f]or now, though, if you want to be heard by your senator, you'd better hire a lobbyist."
THE EXPERIMENT
"Last April, Brodbeck contacted each of the 100 senators' offices, seeking a meeting to discuss then-pending health care legislation as an everyday American. A month later, he contacted each office again -- this time as a registered federal lobbyist. All other variables remained unchanged."
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