White House Refuses To Comment On Petition To Investigate Chris Dodd

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/02/01/0218206/white-house-refuses-to-comment-on-petition-to-investigate-chris-dodd

by chunky1994 • 14 years ago

74 67 14 years ago

politics.slashdot.org

jasonkolb• 14 years ago

And people wonder why I'm cynical about politics. If Dodd was investigated for this it would lead to an investigation of 99% of elected representatives--including, presumably, the ones doing the investigating (I assume a congressional investigation would be required). This is the way politics works in our country, we just like to pretend it has more integrity.

This might happen if we ever get campaign finance reform and term limits, right after hell freezes over.

a_a_r_o_n2• 14 years ago

If Dodd was investigated for this, the MPAA bribery faucet would be turned off.

Craiggybear• 14 years ago

Yeah it'll never happen. Too many people with too much to lose. There will be no investigation.

maerek• 14 years ago

Hate to say it, but that WH petition site is just bread and circuses.

Has any petition there led to an actionable response from the WH? Curious.

crikli2• 14 years ago

Depends on how you're defining "actionable."

I signed a petition against the White House's plan to put airport usage fees in place for general aviation, effectively charging pilots to talk to air traffic control. This is a Really Bad Idea (I'm happy to delineiate why in future comments if there is interest but for now I'll play the "I'm a pilot, trust me" card).

The response was just a politely verbose version of "f*ck you, we're going to do it anyway."

So I joined the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association PAC and started contributing money that I'm sure will be used to bribe the right people. Sad that it came to that, but the White House has decided that they have a good idea, logic be damned, so they're bulling ahead.

srl• 14 years ago

> I signed a petition against the White House's plan to put airport usage fees in place for general aviation, effectively charging pilots to talk to air traffic control. This is a Really Bad Idea (I'm happy to delineiate why in future comments if there is interest but for now I'll play the "I'm a pilot, trust me" card).

Well, I'm interested.

The obvious guess that comes to mind is that pilots are now incentivized to avoid communication with ATC, consequentially reducing ATC's effectiveness. Is there something more subtle going on?

More interesting question is why the WH thought it was a good idea. Who was lobbying for it? I was under the impression that whatever union or union-like organization is built around ATC folks is pretty adamant about promoting safety stuff, and would never tolerate something like this.

CWuestefeld• 14 years ago

I'm genuinely conflicted about the Dodd controversy. Like so many other people, I was quick to condemn him for his statement/threat.

However, it was comments here on HN that made me question just how different it is from, say, me deciding not to contribute to a politician's campaign because I don't like what he has supported. My final feelings are that there's a sliver of difference because (a) I believe that my actions are for the greater good rather than my own self interest, and (b) I'm looking at a larger picture than lobbying over a single issue. But in the end, I've not been able to prove to myself that those differences are sufficiently objective and measurable to be able to sustain the complaint against Dodd.

joshuahedlund2• 14 years ago

There's a difference between saying "You did stuff I didn't like so I won't give you money" and "You didn't do stuff for my industry that I was explicitly expecting ONLY because of my earlier contributions so I'm not going to continue to give you money"

sequoia2• 14 years ago

What's the difference between you and the MPAA? Well, how many 1m dollar bills do you have in your back pocket? ;)

Yes, I am saying there is a fundamental difference between an entity giving $100 to a campaign and e.g. $5m (if you add in the RIAA). To ignore that would be like... like saying it would be fair to pit you against Boeing in an airplane building contest. (Kind of a weak simile, sorry.) The point is the field is not level and, most importantly, they are not supposed to offer quid pro quo.

kbutler• 14 years ago

The difference is the "quid pro quo" - I give you something if you give me something.

It's perfectly fine ethically and legally to provide financial support to candidates who support causes you believe in.

The problem is when there is an express or implied exchange of official acts for the contribution, as when one says, "Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake,"

That is an exchange of contributions for official acts. That is unethical and illegal.

jlarocco• 14 years ago

"I believe that my actions are for the greater good rather than my own self interest,"

I don't see how that's a good thing. I'd rather you look out for yourself and leave my best interests to me.

The MPAA can say they're going for the greater good, too.

anamax2• 14 years ago

While I don't much like Chris Dodd, what, exactly has he done wrong?

Yes, he's said that MPAA members are going to be less likely to make campaign contributions to folks who don't vote the way the MPAA . So what?

Do any of you contribute to candidates who do things that you don't like? Or, do you contribute only to those who do things that you do like?

Why should MPAA members be any different?

I note that candidates make promises like "if elected, I'll work to repeal DADT" and organizations do fundraisers for candidates based on said promises.

How is this any different?

kmfrk2• 14 years ago

There's nothing illegal about it. That's why it's annoying as hell that people waste time on pointless crusades instead of focusing on real solutions.

thebrokencube• 14 years ago

I think most of us realize that the petitions are pointless (though then again, it takes like 3 seconds to sign it so enough people do it), but how would you suggest we fix this problem? Because although this is legal, pretty much everyone can sense that there's something fishy about it and needs to be changed.

Duff• 14 years ago

Chris Dodd is a crooked politician, and legislators of ilk are an malevolent force that is damaging american democracy.

After publicly proclaiming that he would not be working as a lobbyist, he became the MPAA's lobbyist for $1.5M. As you can see from the history of SOPA/PIPA, his influence peddling was nearly successful in ramming this legislation through with little or no substantive debate.

Before that, he was the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. While Chairman, he refinanced his homes in Washington, DC and Connecticut with below market rates reserved for "friends" of the Countrywide Mortgage CEO. Note that Countrywide was one of the biggest issuers of fraudulent sub-prime mortgages. He asserted that he had no idea that he was receiving special treatment.

Before that, he bought a vacation house in Ireland with a Bear Sterns executive who was convicted of insider trading. He used his influence with President Clinton to help obtain a pardon for his partner. He subsequently purchased his partner's share at a significant discount.

The fact that behavior like this typifies career politicians does not make the behavior ok. This guy should retire and be thankful that he doesn't live in an era where his actions would have landed him in prison.

anamax2• 14 years ago

> Chris Dodd is a crooked politician, and legislators of ilk are an malevolent force that is damaging american democracy.

> After publicly proclaiming that he would not be working as a lobbyist, he became the MPAA's lobbyist for $1.5M. As you can see from the history of SOPA/PIPA, his influence peddling was nearly successful in ramming this legislation through with little or no substantive debate.

Yes, but we're discussing whether it's wrong for the MPAA to announce that they're not donating any more money because SOPA wasn't passed.

The fact that Dodd was a corrupt politician is irrelevant to that discussion.

BTW - Dodd is arguably violating the law by being a lobbyist within two years of leaving office. But, that's off-topic.

nyellin• 14 years ago

I agree with you, despite creating Politician Market to protest the issue.

The real question is how we can increase public representation in politics and ensure that politicians are knowledgable about areas they propose legislation in.

You can't effectively remove corporations from politics without lessening the influence of individuals. Focus on what you can change instead.

joshuahedlund2• 14 years ago

I note that candidates make promises like "if elected, I'll work to repeal DADT" and organizations do fundraisers for candidates based on said promises.

How is this any different?

Cause and effect.

Fundraising based on a promise goes like this: Candidate says they support this -> I want them to do this -> I give them money so they can get elected and do this. (The plan causes the money.)

MPAA lobbying goes like this. Candidate is not already promising to do this -> I want them to do this -> I give them lots of money so that they will do this. (The money causes the plan.)

snowwrestler2• 14 years ago

In this case Congress killed the bills first, then Dodd said his members were unhappy and might not give any money to politicians who jumped off the SOPA ship. That seems more like your first chain than your second.

mjwalshe2• 14 years ago

Well with my parliamentary wonk hat on they did not write their prop (the petition) within the rules that apply.

It could have been written to ask "why the appropriate law enforcement body is not taking action after MR X admitted committing bribery" which satisfies the "to address a problem" criteria

Though the we the people site is doing a useless job of having the rules front and centre and explaining then in plain english for non insiders.

knowtheory2• 14 years ago

The reaction to this frustrates me immensely, because Obama is doing the right thing.

The Obama White House is attempting to regrow the wall between political and constituent concerns and law enforcement concerns.

The Department of Justice should operate with the most minimal of political interferences (since I don't think it's possible to avoid them all together) with the goal of maintaining its independence.

That said, I absolutely do think that what Chris Dodd has been doing is not above board. I don't know who has jurisdiction or who to inquire with further, but the White House isn't the right place. I'd be interested if someone knows who in the DoJ would be the appropriate folks to contact.

invisible• 14 years ago

Then, don't you think the White House would send a letter to the DoJ pointing them to this if they really cared?

They may not need to investigate it themselves, but helping the message get sternly to the right people should be appropriate.

knowtheory2• 14 years ago

That's not what they said though. They said they don't comment on petitions that are matters of law enforcement. They may very well have done that.

Although, yes, one would think that it'd be in their best interest to communicate that if they had in fact done so.

newbusox• 14 years ago

I would guess that the office to contact would be the US Attorney's Office for Washington, D.C., http://www.justice.gov/usao/dc/about/contact.html. They (and possibly others US Attorney's Offices) almost certainly have jurisdiction.

For those interested, the anti-bribery statutes are at 18 U.S.C. 201 (http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/11/201) and subsequent provisions within that chapter (there are also other, conceivably applicable statutes that might be charged in bribery or corruption cases). As you can see, the wording in the statutes is extremely broad so, if so inclined, it's possible to make an argument that many, many things are bribery (although, realistically, "bribery" has been significantly narrowed by the courts).

sequoia2• 14 years ago

It seems like this whole hubub is about someone stating openly what's a well known open secret in US politics: He who pays the piper calls the tune. I mean, really, EVERYONE knows this. "Why did my industry's trade association spend 1.8 million dollars on various candidates who may be voting on legislation that makes or costs us 10 times that much? Oh, no reason... we just think they are very nice ladies and gentlemen and we love to be helpful. :)"

Chris Dodd just stated more plainly what is 115% clear to all the recipients of this cash: "We are paying you to make specific legislative decisions in our favor. Stop doing that job and we stop paying." i.e. quid pro quo i.e. bribery. I'd really like to hear ideas of how we can stop this racket; I'm afraid asking Barack Goldman Sachs Obama to "look into it" isn't going to work (tho I did sign the petition).

pavel_lishin3• 14 years ago

> I'd really like to hear ideas of how we can stop this racket

The simple solution - in the sense that it's an obvious one, and a naive one - is to just forbid campaign contributions altogether.

camiller• 14 years ago

Then only independently wealthy candidates or publicly funded candidates could run.

eftpotrm2• 14 years ago

Which is why we finesse the obvious but naive solution.

Campaign contributions are becoming / have become de facto bribery, but without campaign contributions only the independently wealthy can stand for office.

How about limiting how much an individual entity can donate? We don't allow the rich more votes because they've got more assets so could we not also restrict the amount they're able to donate?

How about restricting donors to entites entitled to vote in an election? Whatever my opinion on (say) Julia Gillard, I'm not eligible to vote for her or for any of her opponents because I've got nothing to do with Australia. Logically therefore (and my knowledge of Australian electoral law is almost nil, so this point is purely hypothetical), what is the justification for allowing me to influence the election by funding candidates?

Corporations don't have votes beyond the individual votes of their owners and employees in spite of their legal personhood, and that's good. Likewise, I think there's a case to be made that as unenfranchised legal persons, they shouldn't be able to influence elections financially.

portman• 14 years ago

Larry Lessig (the same guy who single-handedly designed Creative Commons) has spent the last 4 years investigating how to "stop this racket", and summarizes his thoughts in this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/...

If you want to know what to do, a nice first step would be to buy and read Republic, Lost.

greyish_water• 14 years ago

Why not just pirate it?

bh422222• 14 years ago

The fact that it's a whole book makes me nervous.

A strategy which requires a whole book to be explained sounds like giving up on anything simple and claiming we can go through 1001 non-radical steps to eventually get to a happy place.

This to me is a form of denial. You realize simple solutions can not be practically implemented and you convince yourself a marathon of tiny changes is the way to go.

(Disclaimer: I have not read that book.)

Game_Ender• 14 years ago

What is the difference between that behavior, and groups of people deciding they don't want to donate to representatives who don't represent them anymore?

drumdance• 14 years ago

Magnitude.

Osiris2• 14 years ago

I'd really like to hear ideas of how we can stop this racket

I can think of a way to get money out of congress: remove elections.

Think of it: serving in Congress could be like Jury Duty. Everyone's in the pool and every election cycle random people are selected from the pool and asked to serve.

With no elections, there are no campaigns to donate to. It would be illegal for any Congressperson to accept any gifts or money from anyone other than their paycheck from the government and a ban on working for, directly or indirectly, with any person or corporation that was affected by any bills in which the Congressperson participated or voted.

Would there still be corruption and political favors? Absolutely. People would still have a tendency to push for laws that would benefit either themselves, family, or friends or the industry in which they worked.

The lack of up-front monetary gain would likely have a significant impact but corruption is a problem of honesty and integrity which human nature tends to lack and tacks personal disciple to evolve.

Until mankind becomes entirely focused on building social welfare (what's good for all) instead of personal welfare (what's good for me), these problems will always be here.

TeMPOraL• 14 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but without elections, you also don't have democracy, right?

I of course do not mean to say that democracy is The Answer to All Problems, but this idea seems to touch the very core of the political system in place.

mjwalshe2• 14 years ago

Well Athens had that system and made some bad kneejerk descisons - for example The Mytilenian Debate.

And you would be handing much more power to unelected civil servants.

I think both parties going to OMOV and doing away with primary's go back to state delegates deciding who the presidential candidates are - Oh and I would ban mandating of delegations.

philwelch5• 14 years ago

> Until mankind becomes entirely focused on building social welfare (what's good for all) instead of personal welfare (what's good for me), these problems will always be here.

Until we start building social and political systems for humanity as it is rather than humanity as we might idealistically want it to be, we're going to have these problems -- not that I'm convinced that self-interest is really something we want to eradicate from human psychology. Markets already have features which effectively translate self-interest into the greater good, and so does democracy in the sense that if everyone voted selfishly, majority rule would benefit the majority. So let's focus on where markets and democracy aren't working the way we'd want them to and stop wringing our hands about how evil and selfish the human nature is.

mahyarm2• 14 years ago

Naive randomly selected lawmakers are just going to be pounced on by significantly more experienced and predatory lobbyists. They'll think of a way to bribe these regular people.

dugmartin• 14 years ago

I have a slight twist on this idea: make it more like a lottery where each citizen automatically gets one ticket. If you win you sit for one term in the office and are paid $10 million per year. Once you leave office you are paid $1 million per year for life. Money is always going to find its way into government - why not just do it upfront?

a_a_r_o_n2• 14 years ago

That's a great idea. Just like the draft. There could even be a Constitutional boot camp, so you can learn how to be a member of Congress.

Jeng• 14 years ago

>I'd really like to hear ideas of how we can stop this racket;

The law not only has failed, but the lawmaking process has become 100% corrupt, therefor one should consider options that are not lawful.

lhnz• 14 years ago

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

Just a simple question. Can somebody tell me how this gratifies their intellectual curiosity? It seems to be politics and is certainly not an interesting new phenomenon.

realschool• 14 years ago

As for as intellectual discourse goes, politics seems to be one standard deviation above celebrity gossip.

raganwald• 14 years ago

In all fairness, discussing political reform is in the spirit of hackery. There’s a big, complicated machine we think is malfunctioning, and we’re trying to reprogram it for better outcomes.

wcgortel• 14 years ago

Back when Mr. Dodd was in office, I and others referred to him as "the Senator from AIG." Though his recent comments set off a firestorm, I am more interested to see that relationship examined in full daylight.

White House Refuses To Comment On Petition To Investigate Chris Dodd

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