Resolved: In the United States, organized political lobbying does more harm than good.
NEG
Lobbies were an integral part in the framework of American Democracy
Madison Federalist 10: Factions (READ IT!)
This is probably one of the most important federalist documents.
The basic argument is that in order for democracy to avoid the danger of tyranny and usurpation (and thus cease to be a democracy), it needs to occupy a large area of space in order to increase the number of factions (essentially lobbies) competing for primacy
The more lobbies/factions you have, the less likely one is going to be dominate another.
This is good for democracy because it ensures that the government is influenced by a large number of factions and is representative to those factions
When the founding fathers designed the constitution, they designed it to maximize the responsiveness of American democracy to factions
Example: Congress is made up of representatives from each state. Each representative is selected from a specified region in a state. Each representative, in order to be selected, must appeal to the interests within their region. By appealing to those interests, they act on the wants of their constituents. Assuming that every region is not the same (and it’s not), each representative will be accountable to a different, unique interest set. And in congress, each representative’s vote is the same. Thus, each interest set is weighted equally within Congress. This means that each faction (based on region) is given equal importance in Congress
The founding fathers worked very hard to make sure that equality is given to factions in the setting up of the Constitutional framework
Factions = lobbies
Modern lobbies are a concept that clearly were not anticipated by the founding fathers (as were many other things like planes, nuclear weapons, etc)
Lobbies, however, are essentially very specific forms of factions
Here, you just need to be creative with your definitions of both lobbies and factions
I define factions as any group that represents a specific interest set (so.. anything). I would then define lobbies as specifically commercial interests sets that can also be ideological
This point is very important for this main argument because you need to link Lobbying to Factions in order to make it fly
Lobbies are crucial for the functioning of American Democracy
Lobbies consolidate information and present that information to congressional members
There are bunches of info out there, and even with all their aides, Congressional members do not have the time to consolidate info into real world meanings
Lobbies are useful because they take lots of information and organize it into coherent applications and impacts. Then they present these impacts to congress
Without Lobbies, it would be impossible for congress members to make fully informed decisions on every single subject that comes to a congressional hearing.
Lobbies are a quick and easy way to measure popular support for various causes
Generally, the larger a lobby, the more people support it.
The more people who support a lobby, the more you should probably listen to what they have to say
It’s easier to measure a lobby’s size (and therefore infer popularity) than to do a census.
This provides useful information for congressional members and politicians when they are deciding on sides to vote for
Ex: If you are from Alabama, and 50% of your constituents are part of the NRA, then you probably shouldn’t vote on a bill that limits gun use.
Lobbies condense information and present coherent arguments to the public
What the lobbies do for congressional members, they do for the public.
Add all the benefits to congress here
By providing information, Lobbies help ensure American democracy functions of fully informed decisions
We think making decisions based on evidence and facts is good.
Lobbies are an important method of grassroots political action that is essential for the legitimacy of American democracy
Anyone can join a lobby. Anyone can start a lobby. Not everyone can join congress
Because CONGRESS makes laws, there are few ways for ordinary citizens have to impact the law making process (actually, there are 4)
Running for Office and joining Congress
This is very hard, and very few people can do it much less succeed.
Voting
This also includes participating in election activities like getting other people to vote a certain way, etc.
This, while easier than option 1, does not guarantee the desired results. For example, you might vote for candidate X in order to have Law Y passed. Just because you vote X into office doesn’t mean Y will pass
IT’s less specific. When you vote for a candidate, you have to accept all his policy views (even if you don’t agree with all of them). Therefore, putting candidate X in office means that while you get Law Y passed, you also get Law Z passed which you don’t like very much
Litigation
Probably the most famous form of bottom up political action
You can sue/battle the government until they change a law
Every supreme court case is based on this sort of bottom up political action, and most supreme court cases have an effect on a specific law.
This type of political action is very time consuming, hard to complete, and costly
Lobbying
Not necessarily as easy as voting, but pretty easy
Provides a permanent source of political action that the other 3 methods do not. Lobbying occurs ALL the time. Voting and running for office occurs once every 2 years, and Litigation lasts for however long the case lasts (generally, 5 years if your successful).
No lobbying means that you take away the ONLY CONSTANT bottom-up political action available
Often, bottom up political action employs all of the methods above. Taking away one method of action greatly hurts the ability of the general public to influence the law making process
The more you restrict the public’s perceived ability to influence law the more you delegitimize the government
American political ideology rests on the idea that legitimate gov is derived from popular consent.
Locke’s Social Contract (you all should know this by now)
The less people feel involved with the decision making process, the more people get upset with the gov.
Ex: current financial crisis. People feel it was due to the Bankers and that people in general have no say in the economic direction of the US. This lead to huge, negative, feelings toward Congress and the Bankers.
Delegitimizing the gov is BAD
The more a gov is viewed as “delegitimate”, the more people will stop listening to it.
It doesn’t matter if Locke’s Social Contract is “correct”. What matters is what the population believes. And we’ve been taught from an early age that gov is consent derived.
If people believe a certain thing, they will act on that belief
Ex: People used to believe that the world was flat and ended at some point. Thus, sailors who believed in this did not travel very far in the ocean for fear of falling off the world
This “social Kritik” applies to gov. When people feel that the gov is not responding to their consent, or not representative of their consent, they stop listening
Look at all the freaks in the past who have tried to start a revolution (the confederates)
If people don’t listen to the gov, we get anarchy
Anarchy is bad
While it’s hard to imagine complete anarchy coming about from removing lobbies, we can imagine milder forms of anarchy like, less political participation, increased threats of internal terrorism, increased revolutionary talk.
All this is bad. Do your own impacts.
A Rebuttal point: The organization of lobbying is necessary in order to facilitate political action
Aff might argue that Lobbying in its theory is good but in it’s current organized form is bad.
This rebuttal basically kritiks Aff’s assumptions about the current political system
Aff assumptions:
The system is completely fair and it’s Lobbies that aren’t
If lobbies were made more fair (less organized), then the system would function perfectly
The Status Quo system (American Politics) presents a high degree of organization in parts other than the lobbies
Ex: Political parties, Bureaucracy
There are large amounts of organization in the American Political system
Overall System Organization requires higher degrees of organization for political action to be successful
Basically, the more organized a system is, the more organized its parts are required to be in order to make a difference
Ex: Convincing your study group to meet on Tuesdays (low to No organization) vs convincing the entire school to meet on Tuesday (medium to high organization)
“The organized few can dominate the unorganized many” : Walter Bagehot, “The English Constitution”
In order to deal with system organization, you must be organized
In order to get through the tax bureaucracy, the individual must become organized to the point where most of us employ a vast amount of resources to help us.
It is false to assume that unorganized political lobbying is a viable alternative and any sort of argument that constrain overall lobbying benefits to “unorganized” lobbying and harms to “organized lobbying” is false because it ignores the overall SYSTEM organization.
Aff Burden: they need to prove that organized lobbying as a whole has a net negative benefit
If NEg can prove that the harms and benefits are equal, NEg carries the round
Aff cannot win by proving this, they can only win by proving there is more harm than good
Before you use aff burden, ask your judge what they think about aff burden (particularly if they look like an experienced judge)
Lobbies represent an important mediating avenue between the government and various groups
It is a mediator to gain compromise.
Expand it yourself, I’m tired.
AFF
Lobbying theory is incompatible within a purely capitalistic system. (This entire point could be it’s own case if you structure it well).
The theory behind Lobbying does not accurately reflect the practice involved with Lobbying
Theory is all in Neg. If you hit any of this theory stuff, accept the theory and then argue from a practical standpoint
The resolution talks about the practical harms and benefits from lobbying making theory debates null and void
Lobbying theory (see above), basically says that lobbying is good because it provides a bottom-up, political action, option for the masses
In practice, it does not actually do this because in American Democracy, Lobbying operates in a mostly, unmediated capitalistic system
There are few regulations on lobbying
The capitalistic system that lobbying operates in favors quantity of wealth over quantity of voice
In democratic theory, the majority voice wins.
In a capitalistic system, greater wealth is not equal to greater voice
In some sense, the more money a lobby has, the more supporters it has
However, the amount of wealth a lobby has is not directly correlated with the number of people who support it.
Ex: Corporations have more money to spend on lobbying, though they represent a small minority of the population
In the capitalistic system, greater amounts of money means a greater success rate in lobbying efforts
Lots of stats to prove this
Thus, lobbying in an unmediated capitalistic does not fulfill its theoretical value for American democracy
It would be hard and near impossible to change the Political system to make Lobbying more representative of its theoretical responsibilities
In democratic theory, Lobbying provides its benefits mainly be providing an avenue to express popular sentiment.
In the practical Realm, Lobbying fails this theoretical benefit because it functions in a capitalistic system which favors wealth over voice.
In order to restructure the lobbying system to make it favor voice over wealth, serious changes have to be implemented.
Allowing lobbies to spend only a certain amount of money that is correlated with the number of people who support them
i.e: for every person that supports you, you can spend 10 dollars. IF you have 100 people, you can spend 1000 dollars.
Eliminating spending by lobbies all together, and creating a forum that senators are required to go to in order to hear all the lobbies’ views
Etc etc etc
Most of the changes necessary in order to make the system fair are impossible because frankly, Lobbying is a huge market that would suffer capital consequences should the system be made more fair.
Lobbying in the past was certainly no fairer than it is today
Thus, NEg cannot claim theoretical benefits because these benefits never materialized into practical benefits
The resolution deals only with the practical, not the theoretical
Organization in lobbies decrease it’s ability to accurate reflect popular sentiment
The more organized something is, the less amenable it is to change, particularly from the bottom
The more organized a lobby is, the less it’s views are a product of its supporters and the more its views creates its support
Lobbies spend money appealing to both congressional members and the public
The influence they exert on the public make it much more likely that the public adopts their views rather than creates their own
Greater organization within a lobby means greater influence
When lobbies are mostly influencing public opinion rather than being influenced they can no longer claim benefits to the democratic process
The entire theoretical value from lobbies is their ability to reflect public opinion
While it’s impossible to be completely influenced and not influencing, lobbies (theoretically) should be a greater proportion influenced than influencing in order to be democratically valuable.
The effect of organization on lobbies is creating a system in which the system itself creates its own support
This is contrary to the social contract theory
The state has no right to coerce the citizens into supporting it.
The same goes for lobbies
Since Lobbies represent a system where it creates its own popular support, then it is no longer democratic and harms the democratic process
Prevents true dissemination of information
Prevents the public from shaping their own opinions
Is resistant to changes in public opinion unless that change in public opinion is very large
The capitalization of the Lobbying Industry prevents lobbies from pursuing the “good for ideals” (or public good)
IN Madison, Factions are good because they represent the interests of minorities.
Lobbying theory says lobbies are good because they represent the interests of their supporters.
In lobbying theory, lobbies work in order to fulfill those interests
The capitalization of lobbying (which produces organization of lobbying) makes lobbies work for their own survival
Instead of working for the interests of their supporters, they work the interests of themselves
This is not equal to working for their supporters
You need to link this point with point number 8
Their interests (in terms of capital gains) means that they often work to push legislation that is contrary to both their supporter’s ideals’ interests and the interests of the public as a whole
Ex: banking lobbies, which worked ot pass legislation that gave them immediate benefits but also created the pitfalls that would cause this current recession (which hurt the banks)
Lobbying is not beneficial without completely free information flow
A major NEg rebuttal will be: People can think for themselves and make their own choices
FALSE. People can only think for themselves if they have all the information
In the current system, all the information is either 1) not available; 2) hard to access; 3) impossible to completely integrate or collect
The current system prohibits true public checks on lobbying
You can’t determine whether or not a lobby is working in your favor if you don’t have all the information available
This includes information of what the lobby is doing, what it knows, and what it’s concealing
Unless there is complete information flow, the public check on lobbying doesn’t exist. This means that there is no way to reign in the abuses of lobbying
No way to control lobbies from committing abuse
Leads to more abuse
Think FOOD INDUSTRY