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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

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Speaker 1: Clark and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant and Crickets. So weird. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're doing this um ghost style. Yeah, So what happened

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Speaker 1: was and I didn't you explain to me? But I

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Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe my mind was elsewhere and I didn't

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Speaker 1: fully understand. But what happened is guest producer Noel got

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Speaker 1: the record, He put them mouse on the hamster wheel,

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Speaker 1: got the computer running and left And now you're a

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Speaker 1: little freaked out. Well, it's this is out of close

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Speaker 1: to eight shows, this is literally the first time it's

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Speaker 1: ever just been you and me in a room. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: isn't that crazy? Yeah? It really is, isn't it. It's

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Speaker 1: I feel like I don't know, I feel like there

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Speaker 1: with no one in here, even though no one ever

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Speaker 1: guides us that we should just I don't know that

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Speaker 1: we're gonna cut up and curse. And it's like when

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Speaker 1: the teacher has left the room, it feels like there's

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Speaker 1: a vast field, a portal to another dimension to my

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Speaker 1: right where Jerry usually said. So I had no idea

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Speaker 1: what that extra silent human three ft from this meant

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Speaker 1: I think now, this means that we've been put out

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Speaker 1: to pastor Wow, this is disconcerting. Alright, I feel like

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Speaker 1: you're gonna like knife me or something. I could right

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Speaker 1: now and no one whatever now until we published the episode. Nope,

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Speaker 1: no one would ever know. Wow. Man, that's gruesome. All right,

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Speaker 1: this is just weird. Let's let's do it. Are you ready? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Good choice. By the way, Yeah, I don't remember what

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Speaker 1: episode we picked this in. We were talking about something

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Speaker 1: and lobbying came up, where like, we should just do

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Speaker 1: one on lobbying. Well, here it is. Yeah, it's it's

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Speaker 1: I'm glad we're doing this because we'll clear up some misconceptions. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's not always evil, just the time maybe more. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: um yeah, I remember when we said we were going

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Speaker 1: to do a lobbying one. We got a lot of

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Speaker 1: emails from lobbyists who were like, please, please, please, don't

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Speaker 1: just trash our profession like we ever would. Um, they're

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Speaker 1: they were like, lobbyings, actually, it can be a really

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Speaker 1: good thing, and sure, that's why. So we got a

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Speaker 1: lot of feedback before this thing even came out, which

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Speaker 1: hopefully will help us. Well, they're understandably a very defensive group. Yes,

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Speaker 1: everyone thinks it's just rotten and corrupt across all channels,

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Speaker 1: rotten to the core. Um. And the reason I and

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Speaker 1: just about everyone else walking the planet thinks that lobbyists

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Speaker 1: are rotten, it's because of some very high profile cases

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Speaker 1: like remember Jack Abramoff, who can forget what a and

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Speaker 1: I usually don't publicly trash people, but that guy was

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Speaker 1: a pile of garbage. You know, there's really no I

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Speaker 1: was trying to find some other way around it. It

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Speaker 1: was like, no, he was awful and just ripped people off, unabashedly,

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Speaker 1: ripped off Indian tribe, bribed officials, bribe people, pocketed money.

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Speaker 1: And he was a highly highly successful, obvious people he

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Speaker 1: was working for, he was He's not a good fellow, no,

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Speaker 1: but again, he was a successful lobbyist. He was at

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Speaker 1: the top of his field for many years actually, um.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't until two thousand and six when he

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Speaker 1: was convicted of I believe, like bribery and corruption and

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Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff, all kinds of stuff. Yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: And I ended up serving three three years. I think

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Speaker 1: he did three three years in the Pokey yeah, and

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Speaker 1: supposedly had to pay a lot of restitution and tax fines. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but who knows how that stuff works out. No one

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Speaker 1: ever follows up to see, you know, we just say, oh,

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Speaker 1: he got a he's supposed to pay all these people back.

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Speaker 1: Sure it happened. Yeah, who knows. He probably found a

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Speaker 1: loophole to work on. He's probably working on a lawsuit

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Speaker 1: against us right this moment. Chuck, Oh, can you not

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Speaker 1: publicly call someone garbage? I think you can. Okay, can

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Speaker 1: we find out? Can we read this opening statement from

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, Yeah, because I think it makes a

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Speaker 1: pretty good point that Jack Abramoff wasn't the first despised lobbyist. No,

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Speaker 1: this is written by Emily Edson Briggs, who was a

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Speaker 1: Washington D c. Newspaper correspondent um at a time where

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Speaker 1: there weren't a lot of women doing that, which is

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Speaker 1: kind of cool. And I think she was the first

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Speaker 1: allowed into the congressional press room. Yeah, they said let her,

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Speaker 1: and she'll never say anything bad because we gave her

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Speaker 1: this job, and she's like, he fell from my big

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Speaker 1: cookies plan. So she wrote a column talk called the

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Speaker 1: Dragons of the Lobby. So you probably know where this

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Speaker 1: is headed. And the opening line of the column said,

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Speaker 1: winding in and out through the long, devious basement passage,

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Speaker 1: crawling through the corridors, trailing at slimy length from gallery

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Speaker 1: to committee room. At last it lies stretched at full

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Speaker 1: length on the floor of the Congress, this dazzling reptile,

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Speaker 1: this huge scaly serpent of the lobby. That could have

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Speaker 1: been our Halloween episode. You really could have. Maybe we

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Speaker 1: should gus see that up increas with a little bit

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Speaker 1: of sound effects. Yeah, that was in eighteen sixty nine. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: not very flattering. Um. And it was actually I think

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Speaker 1: it did come um at a time when lobbying and

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Speaker 1: lobbyists were really getting a chokehold on um on Congress,

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Speaker 1: on legislation, on sweetheart deals from the federal government. Um.

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Speaker 1: But lobbying goes further back than that, and lobbyists have

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Speaker 1: been despised even further back than that as a matter

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Speaker 1: of fact. Yeah, and it's uh again, it's something this

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Speaker 1: article makes. I thought, this is a really well written article. Actually, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this was the day US article and he did a

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Speaker 1: good job. Um. He points out that the knee drug

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Speaker 1: reaction for your average person might be to say just

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Speaker 1: make it all illegal, get rid of the lobby because

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Speaker 1: it's awful. But he makes a good point that it

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Speaker 1: is it is necessary. The First Amendment in our own

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Speaker 1: Constitution says the right of the people to petition the

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Speaker 1: government for a redress of grievances. Is that necessary and

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Speaker 1: constitutional and mandatory. Yeah, and that's what lobbyists do, is Uh.

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Speaker 1: It's not always a huge corporation. A lot of times

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Speaker 1: they'll speak for the Girl Scouts or the Boy Scouts

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Speaker 1: or you know, all kinds of special interest groups, and

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Speaker 1: we all have them, so you me, everyone listening in

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Speaker 1: America has a constitutional right to go and petition Congress

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Speaker 1: to say, hey, guys, you guys aren't paying enough attention

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Speaker 1: to government waste, or NASA deserves way more funding than

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Speaker 1: you're giving it. Whatever, you can go do that. That's

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Speaker 1: lobbying technically, but unfortunately, almost from the beginning, UH, corporate

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Speaker 1: and big business special interest groups figured out a way

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Speaker 1: to basically exploit that to their to their own benefit. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's uh. Ruz also points out, and we'll get

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Speaker 1: to this later, uh, which is one of the big problems.

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Speaker 1: It's necessary because Congress and their staff don't have time

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Speaker 1: to Uh, that's well again, we'll get to that later.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to spoil it, but they don't have

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Speaker 1: time to go through the myriad request and and uh information,

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Speaker 1: deluge of information that's necessary to make an educated decision,

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Speaker 1: and so much so that Senator John F. Kennedy in said,

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Speaker 1: uh that we are in many cases expert technicians capable

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Speaker 1: of exact not we are, I'm sorry. Lobbyists are in

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Speaker 1: many cases, I'm sorry, are in many cases expert technicians

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Speaker 1: capable of examining complex and difficult subjects and a clear,

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Speaker 1: understandable fashion. So that's the reason we need them in

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Speaker 1: many cases is to literally explain stuff too congress people

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Speaker 1: and staff strapped for time and resources. It should be said, though,

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Speaker 1: that um when Kennedy wrote that in the mid fifties,

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Speaker 1: lobbying was not much of a thing. It had like

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Speaker 1: it was established, had been established for a couple hundred years.

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Speaker 1: People hated lobbyists. There were huge um lobbyists scandals in

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Speaker 1: the Gilded Age from the Civil War to the nineteenth century.

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Speaker 1: But in the mid fifties, lobbying was not a huge thing.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't so um. What he said, though, is accurate

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Speaker 1: and it's still is accurate today. If you are an

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Speaker 1: incoming congress person, Um, you make your name both to

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Speaker 1: your constituency and in your party by getting bills passed,

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Speaker 1: by coming up with bills and passing them. Right, look

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Speaker 1: at all the work I accomplished. And then if you

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Speaker 1: um get enough, you may end up on a nice committee,

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Speaker 1: maybe even a committee chair, and then eventually a party leader.

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Speaker 1: And all that is because you introduced legislation that was

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Speaker 1: favored and got passed. The thing is, you don't have

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Speaker 1: the time or the staff to research and write legislation,

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Speaker 1: so you have to you have to turn to lobbyists

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Speaker 1: lobbying groups and say, hey, you guys are literally experts

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Speaker 1: on this topic. I need your help, uh educate me,

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Speaker 1: help me write this, and then um, we'll we'll be friends.

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Speaker 1: The problem is is there's not a there's not a

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Speaker 1: special interest group like you said, whether it's the Girl

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Speaker 1: Scouts or whether it's uh the Chamber of Commerce that

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Speaker 1: doesn't have a slamt that isn't going to try to

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Speaker 1: slamp that legislation in their favor. So that means that

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Speaker 1: the laws that are written in this country today are

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Speaker 1: the legislative equivalents of avertorials, you know, kind of thin

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Speaker 1: on actual content and really heavy on stuff that benefits

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Speaker 1: the corporations running the show. You know, who would make

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Speaker 1: good lobbyists? Who they're in this room right now? Oh

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Speaker 1: you think so? I was just thinking, like generally unbiased

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Speaker 1: research presented so someone can make a decision. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: kind of what we do, except we're not paid like

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Speaker 1: lobbyists just make a lot of dough. Uh. In fact,

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Speaker 1: and to thousand fourteen lobbyists and these are people that

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Speaker 1: are officially registered as lobbyists, which we'll get to. There

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Speaker 1: are a lot more people doing lobby esque work that

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Speaker 1: aren't officially registered, but official registered lobbyists. Uh, we're paid

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Speaker 1: out to three point two four billion dollars in two

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Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, and that is only divided among how many people?

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Speaker 1: Was it about ten thousand, six hundred people? What are

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Speaker 1: you kidding? That's how many registered lobbyists there were and

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Speaker 1: this year and that's but again just the registered one

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Speaker 1: from a high of about fourteen and change. And when

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Speaker 1: was that two thousand six or seven? And two two

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Speaker 1: thousand seven changes came along, and it's not because there

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Speaker 1: are fewer lobbyists there there that just gave rise to people,

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Speaker 1: or gave people the ability to be like, oh, I'm

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Speaker 1: not a lobbyists anymore. Because here's the thing. If you

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Speaker 1: are a registered lobbyist, you are subject to some very

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Speaker 1: strict i think old guidelines, legal guidelines, scrutiny of your

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Speaker 1: business practices, and there's a lot of stuff you can't do.

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Speaker 1: You just you're just completely outlawed from doing certain things.

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Speaker 1: If if you can just skirt the definition of a lobbyist,

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Speaker 1: it's like open season. Man, it's the wild West on

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Speaker 1: Capitol Hill for you, and you can make as much

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Speaker 1: money as you possibly can while doing the same things

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Speaker 1: just not having to register as a lobbyist. All right,

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Speaker 1: But that's a lot of teasing. This is the like.

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Speaker 1: But this is the current state of the American legislative process.

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Speaker 1: Our legislators rely on special interest groups almost entirely to

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Speaker 1: tell them what they need to know from their slant

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Speaker 1: and then actually writing the legislation for them to go

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Speaker 1: take the Congress and be like, God, I got I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna make my name with this. All right. There's one

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Speaker 1: other thing too that we should say, and this is

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Speaker 1: a this is one reason why lobbying is so pernicious. Um,

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Speaker 1: lobbyists also as major fundraisers for the very politicians that

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Speaker 1: they're lobbying. Yeah, Like, I didn't give them money. I

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Speaker 1: just called a fundraiser that raised four and a half

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Speaker 1: million dollars at you know, three thousand dollars a plate.

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Speaker 1: But hey, they they gave him the money. Right, they

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Speaker 1: don't know me anything. I'm just doing this because I'm

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Speaker 1: a patriotic citizen of the United States and I'll see

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Speaker 1: you Monday, and I like to overcharge for salmon. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: isn't that crazy? So that's the current state, everybody. Let's

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Speaker 1: go back to the beginning, because lobbyists have been around

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Speaker 1: basically as long as America has. Yeah, let's take a

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Speaker 1: little break and then we'll we'll get to the tease

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Speaker 1: stuff and start off with a little bit of history. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: all right. Uh, there's some misconceptions about the history of

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Speaker 1: the word itself. Laure says that it was invented uh

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Speaker 1: in the Willard Hotel in Washington, d C. In that

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Speaker 1: lobby when uh Ulystas Grant would kick back and have

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Speaker 1: a drink like he so like to do, uh and

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Speaker 1: would get disgusted by what he called those damn lobbyists

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Speaker 1: that we're hanging out there, Yeah, asking him for stuff. Gimme, gimme, gimme. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And while that may have, um, that may have given

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Speaker 1: rise to the term popularity wise here, but you can

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Speaker 1: trace it back to England, uh in the sixteen forties,

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Speaker 1: when they talked about the lobby in the House of Commons,

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Speaker 1: where you could go right up to your representatives and

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Speaker 1: in your cute little wig and say, here's what I

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Speaker 1: think you should do, right, and here's some here's some

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Speaker 1: good old fashioned English pounds in your pocket. And I

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Speaker 1: mean that's always just gone with it, part and parcel. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, if not outright bribery, at least favors or

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Speaker 1: quid pro quo or tip for tad or it's the

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Speaker 1: jackal and hide Beyonce tickets, all sorts of stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: first class or not first class. No one flies first class.

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Speaker 1: Talking about the lear jet, the true first class, the

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Speaker 1: private jet. Didn't they do away with first class? Announcesis

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Speaker 1: called business class because of class resentment in the United States. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and now they've well depends on the airline. There's all

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Speaker 1: sorts of new rules and special things. You can pay

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Speaker 1: for alright. So uh, in the United States, from the

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Speaker 1: very first session of Congress, there were lobbying efforts and

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Speaker 1: people treating congress. Uh. I'm gonna say congressmen for this one,

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Speaker 1: because this was in We're gonna say congress person for

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Speaker 1: later on. The women were at home brewing beer in

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Speaker 1: their households, but they were applying congressmen with treats and dinners.

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Speaker 1: And that was a direct quote from Pennsylvania Senator William

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Speaker 1: maclay from the very first session of Congress. He was saying, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're lobbyists here. They're basically trying to bribe people. They're

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Speaker 1: trying to install the terrifact of nine, which established um

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Speaker 1: Congress's ability to basically extract duties and taxes on goods

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Speaker 1: in the United States in order to support the government.

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Speaker 1: Let's go out to dinner instead. And the New York

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Speaker 1: merchants were like, you don't want to do that. Let

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Speaker 1: me get you hammered three ways from Sunday. What are

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Speaker 1: you doing later? Yeah, I'll tell you what you're doing.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna finish. It. Can't get wrong in one sitting. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Then apparently the Bank of the United States was one

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Speaker 1: of the first big corrupt organizations as far as literally

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Speaker 1: having politicians in their pocket paying the money. Yeah, like, um,

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Speaker 1: the United States used to have things like like an

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Speaker 1: actual centralized bank. And Andrew Jackson came along. It's like,

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Speaker 1: this thing is just way too corrupt. We need to

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Speaker 1: get it of it and put me on your money. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but the the scandals associated with it where things like, um,

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Speaker 1: the National Bank had on its board as board members

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Speaker 1: who are being paid by the bank, sitting congressman who

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Speaker 1: were writing legislation in favor of the bank. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: quote is the best. Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster sent a

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Speaker 1: letter to the Bank of the United States that said this,

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Speaker 1: among other things. Since I arrived here, I have had

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Speaker 1: an application to be concerned professionally against the bank, which

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Speaker 1: I've declined. Of course, although I believe my retainer has

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Speaker 1: not been renewed or refreshed as usual. Uh, if it

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Speaker 1: be wished that my relation to the bank should be continued,

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Speaker 1: it may be well to send me the usual retainer.

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Speaker 1: In other words, I've noticed that you're not paying me.

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Speaker 1: Now people are telling me to write legislation against you.

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Speaker 1: I'm turning them down for now. You may want to

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Speaker 1: send that money again if you would like this, love Daniel. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like he flat out said, the bribes have sort of

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Speaker 1: dried up. I've noticed, so why don't you start sending

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Speaker 1: this again? Unbelievable history. So you talked about the Gilded

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Speaker 1: Age post Civil War, it's all the close of the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century. We like to think that America's railroads were

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Speaker 1: built on grit and determination, but in fact it was

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Speaker 1: rife with insider deals and uh scandal, what was it

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Speaker 1: called the credit mobil your scandal? Yeah, I looked into

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Speaker 1: this a little bit. It's mind boggling. Basically, Um, Union

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Speaker 1: Pacific bogging. How overt it was, Yeah, you know. But

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Speaker 1: but even just like, it was not just crooked in

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Speaker 1: one way. It was crooked in a number of ways

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Speaker 1: that formed one big, huge, crooked thing that Congress was

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Speaker 1: involved in. The Union Pacific Railroad started a company that

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Speaker 1: served as the soul agent of building and managing the

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Speaker 1: Union Pacific Railroad. Okay, um, And then they issued stock

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Speaker 1: in this stuff, and they used the Credit Mobile Mobilier

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Speaker 1: and um, Union Pacific itself to basically over charge and

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Speaker 1: overpay one another so that the value of the stock

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Speaker 1: went through the roof Okay, so it's a stock massaging

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Speaker 1: scheme to begin with, like an insider deal with yourself

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Speaker 1: to raise the value artificially of your stock. Right. And

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Speaker 1: then they took these these shares in this company and

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Speaker 1: started handing them out to Congress at a discounted price.

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Speaker 1: It's all Congress did it was go sell them on

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Speaker 1: the market for their face value, which was again artificially inflated,

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Speaker 1: and they made a bunch of cash. And they were

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Speaker 1: taking these as bribes for giving like um land grants

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Speaker 1: or breaking treaties with Native Americans so that the Union

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Speaker 1: Pacific Railroad could build their railroad across the Western States. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this was they did this because, believe it or not,

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Speaker 1: at the time, there wasn't a lot of private investors

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Speaker 1: ponying up money for this railroad because it was sort

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Speaker 1: of a new thing. And yeah, they didn't know although

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Speaker 1: it was a great idea, they didn't know. Like all investors,

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Speaker 1: what they care about is getting their money back in

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Speaker 1: quick fashion, and they just didn't know if that was

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Speaker 1: going to be possible. And I mean, there's definitely something

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Speaker 1: to be said for the federal government to step in

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Speaker 1: and be like, look, we think that this is really

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Speaker 1: going to help things out. We really want to fund it,

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Speaker 1: But does it have to be totally fought with corruption

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Speaker 1: while that happens, you know, no is the answer. Not yet. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then there was the famous Gilded Age lobby is

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Speaker 1: Sam Ward, who um, he basically invented the social lobby.

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Speaker 1: So while he wouldn't we'll get into direct lobby versus

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Speaker 1: social lobby, but social lobby is basically in Sam Ward's case,

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Speaker 1: he was a great chef, and he was like, I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna throw these great parties. I'm gonna have great food

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Speaker 1: and fine wine. I'm gonna invite uh, special interest groups

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Speaker 1: and corporation heads and politicians and get him in the

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Speaker 1: same room. But we're not going to talk about that

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Speaker 1: stuff directly. We're just all gonna get hammered together and

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Speaker 1: have a great time, become friends. That was that was

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Speaker 1: his job, friends do things for one another. Right. Yeah, Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't think we ever even said what K Street was.

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Speaker 1: By the way, K Street is literally K the letter

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Speaker 1: K Street where all just about every lobby in the

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Speaker 1: country has an office. So that explains that if people

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Speaker 1: are other ones, Yeah, you're right, but it's like saying, um,

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Speaker 1: Madison Avenue when you refer to advertising or Wall Street. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: so lobbying just kind of after the guilded, Asia America

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Speaker 1: was sick to death of lobbying and lobbyists and didn't

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Speaker 1: want to have anything to do with it. Um. So

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Speaker 1: lobbying went. Didn't go away, but it fell to the

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Speaker 1: wayside a little bit. It was still a thing, um

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Speaker 1: throughout the twentieth century, it just kind of waxed. And

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Speaker 1: Wayne in the mid forties, I believe Congress was like,

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Speaker 1: we actually kind of need these guys, so let's set

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Speaker 1: up some rules for dealing with them. Um. Because at

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Speaker 1: this time already what John Kennedy was writing about was true.

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Speaker 1: You had a brain drain going on from Capitol Hill

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Speaker 1: to K Street where people would go and um, become

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Speaker 1: an aid to a senator or a congress person and

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Speaker 1: make contacts, get a little bit of experience, and then

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Speaker 1: after a couple of years they would move on over

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Speaker 1: to K Street to a lobbying firm, make anywhere between

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Speaker 1: five to ten times what they were as the congressional aid.

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Speaker 1: And um, K Street was sucking the talent away from Congress.

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Speaker 1: And so these congress people in the forties said, hey, um,

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Speaker 1: we need to work with these people because we need them,

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Speaker 1: so let's make up some rules. Even still, lobbying was

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Speaker 1: nothing like you would recognize it today. It wasn't until

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Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties when business did an about face

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Speaker 1: of dealing with the government. Up to that point, it

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Speaker 1: was like, government, stay, just stay out of our business.

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Speaker 1: That's the lobbying we want to do, is to keep

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Speaker 1: you off of our backs, keep you from regulating our stuff,

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Speaker 1: to stay out of our business. And then at some point,

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Speaker 1: and I'm not exactly sure who figured this out, but

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Speaker 1: some lobbyists convinced corporations like, hey, guys, you're doing this

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Speaker 1: all wrong. You guys could get mind boggling amounts of

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Speaker 1: money from the government in the form of subsidies or

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Speaker 1: great contracts or sweetheart deals just by using our services

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Speaker 1: and lobbying exploded and would just take comparatively a tiny

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Speaker 1: bit of that. Right, even though it's a ton of

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Speaker 1: money for individual lobbyists, it's nothing to these corporations, right exactly.

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Speaker 1: And I yeah, like the the Dave Ruse gave a

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Speaker 1: really great example of um Northrop Gumman Grumman in uh

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and twelve or something like that, I

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Speaker 1: believe under Mifflin. Yeah, they spent a hundred and seventies

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Speaker 1: six million dollars from from in fourteen years from twelve,

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Speaker 1: which that's nothing to them because in that time, in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve itself, Northrop Grumman got a hundreds

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Speaker 1: have any six million dollar or or no, a hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighty nine million dollar contract for a cybersecurity system

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Speaker 1: for the d O D. So that that one contract

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Speaker 1: paid for fourteen years of lobbying expenses, right, Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: then they got a one point seven billion dollar contract

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Speaker 1: to build five drones and that's just Northrop Growman. Like,

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Speaker 1: you can't really pick on them. The reason why we

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Speaker 1: we called them out is because during twelve they were

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Speaker 1: the ninth biggest spender on lobbying, not just corporations but

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Speaker 1: industry as well. UM. General Electric was the the single

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Speaker 1: entity that spent the most. Yeah this um as far

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Speaker 1: as the corporation goes. Uh, there's a great website if

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Speaker 1: you want just good information and stats called open secrets

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Speaker 1: dot org. And this past year two thou fourteen, the

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Speaker 1: top ten spenders were the US Chamber of Commerce, which

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Speaker 1: is always number one by a long shot because they

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Speaker 1: represent a lot of businesses. The nash On Association of

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Speaker 1: Realtors was number two, Blue Cross Blue Shield was number three.

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Speaker 1: American Hospital Association for American Medical Association five. Seeing a

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Speaker 1: trend here, I wonder why National Association of Broadcasters, National

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Speaker 1: Cable and telecom Comcast Again, it's you can literally look

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Speaker 1: at the years where there's the most spending and what's

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Speaker 1: going on in those industries. Uh, and then Google and

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Speaker 1: Boeing round out the top ten at just a sixteen

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Speaker 1: million each. And so and I mean, like the amount

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Speaker 1: of money spent has um I believe tripled in the

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Speaker 1: last few years, right, yeah, I think so so so

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Speaker 1: this is fairly new, but but it's not new. It's

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Speaker 1: basically a return to the lobbying of the Gilded Age.

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Speaker 1: The amount of money, attention time, questionable stuff that's been

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Speaker 1: going on is just a replay of what happened a

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Speaker 1: hundred something years ago, right, um. And one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons that we've we've it's become so rampant, it's been

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Speaker 1: ratcheted up so much you can actually lay it at

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Speaker 1: the feet of New Gingrich. So New Gingridge. Chuckers was

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Speaker 1: speaker of the House in the nineties when Clinton was president,

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Speaker 1: if you'll remember, and he decided that Congress was doing

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Speaker 1: too much. Oh yeah, so he cut staffs, which means

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Speaker 1: that lawmakers um that that were able to they did

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Speaker 1: have enough of his staff or enough resources to write

423
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 1: their own legislation could definitely could not any longer. He

424
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:36,879
Speaker 1: also cut staff at some resources that are dedicated to

425
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 1: providing research for Congress, like the Congressional Budget Office, the

426
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 1: Congressional Research Service. All of these things um that have

427
00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:48,640
Speaker 1: been built up in response to dealing with lobbyists from

428
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: like the forties on were cut by Gingrich, and all

429
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 1: of a sudden, our our lawmakers are relying strictly on

430
00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 1: lobbyists for money. Yeah, and that's there's a correlation. I know, people,

431
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 1: you know, you hear about government spending. Let's cut government spending,

432
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:07,880
Speaker 1: which in theory sounds great. Sure, let's cut government spending.

433
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,680
Speaker 1: But what that means is now you don't have staff

434
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:15,160
Speaker 1: to do unbiased research and get the facts, like you said,

435
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:18,080
Speaker 1: You've got lobbyists to do that, right exactly. And the

436
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 1: idea behind that tactic by Gingrich, if if it was

437
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:26,120
Speaker 1: just based on I'm cutting government spending by cutting jobs

438
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: or I think government is doing too much. There's actually

439
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:33,640
Speaker 1: a misstep because another UM senator from Oklahoma, his name

440
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 1: escapes me right now, he had the Congressional Budget Office

441
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 1: do an annual report starting in two thousand eleven, and

442
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 1: they found that the Congressional Budget Office found that for

443
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 1: every dollar spent on the Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional

444
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 1: Budget Office managed to come up with ninety dollars of

445
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 1: recommended cuts to government waste. So for every dollar you spent,

446
00:26:57,119 --> 00:26:59,639
Speaker 1: you made you saved eighty nine dollars just from the

447
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 1: congres Sational Budget Office. So cutting their staff is the

448
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 1: opposite of what you want to do here against like bloated,

449
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 1: wasteful government. It's pretty interesting on its specifically as interesting

450
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 1: as far as new Gingridge goes to because him cutting

451
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 1: Congress's ability to not rely on lobbyists really left a

452
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:21,679
Speaker 1: sour taste in a lot of people's mouths during the

453
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 1: two twelve primaries because he was like, he refused to

454
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 1: admit that he was a lobbyist. Well yeah, and he's

455
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:32,400
Speaker 1: he's not registered as a lobbyist. What he has is, ah, well,

456
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: one of the things he does, he has a health

457
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: care consulting firm where you can pay two hundred thousand

458
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:40,639
Speaker 1: dollars to become a member quote unquote, which you're not

459
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: a client, you're a member. It's a membership group. So

460
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:46,679
Speaker 1: it's and he's not the only one. I mean, I

461
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: think they have in here that they call it the

462
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: revolving door. Basically, when you leave your position as a

463
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 1: congress person or a senator, you go directly to the lobby. Uh.

464
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 1: The New York Times says they're more than four hundred

465
00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: former legislators who worked as lobbyists in the past decade.

466
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: It's just like, let me go make some real money now.

467
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:08,680
Speaker 1: And that's just legislators either like them. There was very

468
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:12,920
Speaker 1: famously a guy who was running the the Pentagon, I

469
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 1: believe ed Aldridge, and he was a longtime critic of Boeing,

470
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: and then Bowing hired him, and on his way out

471
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:22,920
Speaker 1: he approved a three billion dollar contract to Boeing. That's

472
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 1: the revolving door at work. There was a Massachusetts representative

473
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:30,440
Speaker 1: named William Dela Hunt and um, he took a job

474
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:34,160
Speaker 1: lobbying for a wind project that he had just earmarked

475
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 1: a bunch of money for right before he left. Yeah,

476
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: so I mean this revolving door. People say like, well,

477
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: let's just shut the revolving door, and it is a

478
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:44,920
Speaker 1: it's a proposal. But at the same time, if you

479
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: do that, then then your anti job and you can't

480
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 1: you can't even appear anti job. So there's other solutions

481
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 1: that I think are better for dealing with the lobby

482
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:57,239
Speaker 1: and crisis. I guess you could call it. Yeah, and

483
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: uh well we'll get to that later. That great article

484
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: sent um. You know what show actually does a really

485
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 1: great job realistically with this is Veep. I haven't seen

486
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: a second of that. It's fantastic, man, I mean it

487
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: really shows you, like for Best Actress, yeah she won,

488
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: and Veep one. And I think the writing team one.

489
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: I think it's the best written show on TV right now.

490
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 1: But or the best written comedy. Oh have you seen

491
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 1: Narcos yet? No? You canna check that out. Okay, but

492
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 1: VP is really even though it's a comedy, really like

493
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: shows that everything in d C is just about deals

494
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 1: being made, like, well, you do this for me and

495
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 1: I'll give you support on this bill and they're pulling

496
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 1: that bill And what did that lobby say? Because they

497
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: were my friend and it's all it's all just it's

498
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: such an insider's game. It's staggering. And and that's a

499
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: comedy written by uh, English people, which is, yeah, the

500
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: producers got there and they're all like from from England,

501
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 1: and that's I don't know, for some reason, that's so interesting.

502
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 1: And they even in their Emmy speech said, you know,

503
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny to be able to make fun

504
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 1: of the American political system being English folks. But thank

505
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: you for this sword for that. Uh. All right, so

506
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about we keep saying registered lobbyists.

507
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: Since eighteen seventy six, Congress is required that all professional

508
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 1: lobbyist register with the Office of the Clerk of the House,

509
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: and uh since nineteen with the Lobbying Disclosure Act. In

510
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 1: two thousand seven Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of

511
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, UH, they narrowly defined a lobbyist as

512
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: someone who has one paid by client to services include

513
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: more than one lobbying contact, and three whose lobbying activities

514
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: constitute or more of their time on behalf of that

515
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 1: client during any three month period. So that's actually it

516
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: seems broad. That's actually you're really narrow definition of a lobbyist. Yeah,

517
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: and it's so narrow as it turns out that it's

518
00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 1: really easy to skirt those rules and not register because

519
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 1: there are many ways you can say you can really

520
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 1: budget your time and say no, I worked twenty point

521
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 1: nine percent in this three month period for this firm,

522
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 1: or I have so many people I work for, I

523
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: only spent about ten fifteent of my time, right. Or

524
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: if you're like on any one group right, Or if

525
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 1: you're like new g Rich, you're you're not working for

526
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: a client, says client. I got members, so I'm doing

527
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: all this, but it's for members, not clients. Or if

528
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: it's educational, it's not called lobbying. So hey, let me

529
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 1: just hire this former senator, pay him a lot of

530
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: money to go around and give speeches on education that

531
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:41,120
Speaker 1: are really trying to generate interest in legislation, or to

532
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: educate the government on why um the thirty seven and

533
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 1: a half billion dollars in fossil fuel subsidies that shelled

534
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:50,480
Speaker 1: out in two thousand fourteen is a good thing to

535
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: redo and then double. But that's just education, that's not lobbying.

536
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: So those are just some of the ways you can

537
00:31:56,440 --> 00:32:00,480
Speaker 1: skirt officially registering as a lobbyist. And actually, chuck, so

538
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 1: you said that that was from the two thousand seven Act. Total,

539
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 1: it was two thousand seven rights. And in two thousand

540
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 1: seven when they added I guess they added that third

541
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 1: one about the tent the time measure, like three thousand

542
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 1: lobbyists de registered loophole. Oh, really, all I have to

543
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: do is account for my time in this way, and

544
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:26,479
Speaker 1: now all the rules don't apply to me. And so

545
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:30,480
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, um, the American Bar Association said,

546
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: if you just just get rid of that third one,

547
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 1: the time thing, that would help a lot. And actually,

548
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 1: when Congress first started to deal with um, lobbying, uh, well,

549
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say first, because it was the nineteenth century,

550
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: but in ninety five or six, when they passed an

551
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: act about lobbying rules, Um, they said that a lobbyist

552
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: someone who had to register it as a lobbyist was

553
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 1: anyone who aids in the passage or defeat of legislation.

554
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: That's it. So, I mean, I'm sure there's loopholes in

555
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 1: there and ways around that too, but it was much

556
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: much more vague, which in the fact would sound it's counterintuitive,

557
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: but that's actually better to be more vague in the

558
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 1: description because you can't skirt it is easy. So let's

559
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: let's take a break and then we'll talk about all

560
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: of the stuff that lobbyists do, including some good stuff too.

561
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 1: All right, Uh, lobbyists who are lobbyists? What do they do?

562
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: They are full time Uh, as they puts it, full

563
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 1: time advocates for their clients. Yeah, that's a good way

564
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 1: to put it. There's no job description you're gonna get.

565
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 1: But you better be a people person. You better have

566
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:00,080
Speaker 1: great you better have a stuffed rollodex. You better. You

567
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: better be good at networking, be super good at networking. Uh,

568
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 1: smooth talker, Yeah, you should throw a good party, be

569
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 1: good at fundraising. Yeah. Um, and like we said, you

570
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 1: got to know a lot of good people. You've gotta

571
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: be a great communicator and persuasive. One might say slick, slick.

572
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: I think it is probably right. But um, that and

573
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:23,879
Speaker 1: that I imagine that those are good qualities that haven't

574
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:25,920
Speaker 1: just about any But I also have the impression that

575
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 1: there are lobbyists who are just like just strictly grinding

576
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 1: out research and stuff like that. Yeah. I think there's

577
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: different types of lobbyists. Some are probably like there's the

578
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 1: glad handers, yeah, like the front person maybe, and then

579
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 1: there's like walks people who are literally like technical policy

580
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:44,919
Speaker 1: experts on a certain topic. They know the ins and outs,

581
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 1: they know both sides of it, they know what senators

582
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:50,879
Speaker 1: care about it, um, they know what congress people could

583
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:55,439
Speaker 1: be persuaded maybe, like they know everything about this particular issue. Yeah,

584
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 1: and like up to the minute. Uh, they have to

585
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 1: be really up on the very very latest policies and laws.

586
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:05,720
Speaker 1: I mean they have to be experts, like you said,

587
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:09,319
Speaker 1: like inside and out because they get paid a ton

588
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: of money to do that. And there's typically three kinds

589
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,320
Speaker 1: of lobbying that people undertake. Again, whether it's the Girls

590
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 1: Scouts or Green Peace or um, the Chamber of Commerce

591
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:25,440
Speaker 1: or whoever. Um, there's direct lobbying, indirect lobbying, and the

592
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 1: grassroots lobbying. And they probably any lobbying group takes part

593
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 1: in all a combination of all these. Yeah. Direct lobbying

594
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: is when you're when you can get a meeting with

595
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 1: the congress person or senator or their aids. Yeah, and

596
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: you sit down with their staff for them and say, uh,

597
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:43,799
Speaker 1: I'm experienced clearly because I'm in the room with you.

598
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 1: And here's here's what we think is a good piece

599
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 1: of legislation. Right, it's good for the country. Wink wink. Yeah.

600
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 1: So that's direct lobbying. Uh, indirect is if you, um, well,

601
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 1: what's the difference between indirect and social? Aren't they kind

602
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:00,480
Speaker 1: of the same. Yeah, it's the same. Right. So that's

603
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 1: like we said, the Sam Ward which would throw parties

604
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 1: the king of lobby. Yeah, he invented the social lobbying

605
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:11,800
Speaker 1: and that's still true today. You though a big swanky

606
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 1: d C cocktail hour and get people in the same

607
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 1: room and just connecting folks, that's indirect lobby and goosen

608
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 1: them up with a little uh scotch maybe, and all

609
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:24,319
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're like you just sit back and

610
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, this is working. Look at them talking

611
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:30,760
Speaker 1: to each other. I love myself. And then there's grassroots lobbying,

612
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 1: which is kind of misleading actually because it can be

613
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:40,359
Speaker 1: employed by uh deep deeply entrenched, deep pocketed interests. But

614
00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 1: you know, it still appears grassroots and folksy things like

615
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: UM paying somebody who's an expert in a field or

616
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:53,239
Speaker 1: UM a recognized figure, maybe a former UM congress person

617
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:56,000
Speaker 1: or whatever to write an op ed. Yeah, And I

618
00:36:56,040 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: mean name recognition counts for just about anything, so even

619
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:04,360
Speaker 1: op eds. And if if somebody's saying, if a former

620
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:07,400
Speaker 1: Treasury secretary is like, this is a really bad idea,

621
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: we shouldn't pass this legislation, that's going to inform voters minds. Yeah,

622
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 1: I think it also is a huge message to the

623
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 1: legislators who are also reading it that like Washington Post

624
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:23,319
Speaker 1: published this, so a lot of people just read you

625
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:25,319
Speaker 1: may want to listen to what I just said. Yeah.

626
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 1: Or grassroots in the purest sense of the word, in

627
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:31,399
Speaker 1: the more traditional sense is uh could be a small

628
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:35,040
Speaker 1: little ngo that's all they can afford his grassroots campaigns

629
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 1: and uh, sadly it's it's uh. The dog that barks

630
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 1: the loudest is the one that's going to get the

631
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:44,360
Speaker 1: most attention. And you're barking the loudest if you have

632
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:48,320
Speaker 1: the resources, too, I guess, get a bunch of dogs

633
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: barking at once. Which is a really good point, Chuck,

634
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 1: because and this this article goes to great pains to

635
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:58,920
Speaker 1: make it clear that you know, not all lobbying is bad,

636
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 1: that lobbying in and of itself isn't necessarily bad um,

637
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 1: and that there are plenty of public interest groups that

638
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: are dedicated to serving the common good that engage in lobbying.

639
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:14,680
Speaker 1: So it shouldn't be outlawed, it shouldn't be cut off.

640
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 1: We should figure out how to fix it. Um. The

641
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 1: thing is is they found that for every dollar that

642
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:26,960
Speaker 1: a union and public interest group combined spents, corporations or

643
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:32,000
Speaker 1: big business spent thirty four dollars of the top one

644
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: spenders were all corporate or corporate interests. Um. So it's

645
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,920
Speaker 1: the field is very much skewed towards whoever has the

646
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: most money or whoever is willing to spend the most. Uh.

647
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 1: So to be two registers a lobbyists, which was required,

648
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 1: like I said, since eighteen seventy six, and then a

649
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: few years after that they required that members of the

650
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:56,879
Speaker 1: press register because with the House and Senate because they

651
00:38:56,920 --> 00:39:00,880
Speaker 1: were had lobbyists posing as journalists, so they had to

652
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 1: take care of that pretty early on. But if you

653
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 1: are registered, uh, there are some things that you have

654
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:09,799
Speaker 1: to do according to the law. Um. Well, first of all,

655
00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 1: you can't give gifts blatantly give gifts. Yeah, that's one

656
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:15,800
Speaker 1: of the things that Abram often trouble all sorts of

657
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 1: ways around this, of course, but you can't blatantly give gifts.

658
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 1: You have to register. You have to file quarterly reports

659
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: that detail the contacts you've made with elected officials. You

660
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:29,239
Speaker 1: have to disclose how much money you were paid. Uh.

661
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:33,280
Speaker 1: You have to file semi annual reports at list contributions

662
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 1: UH made to political campaigns. See that. I have a

663
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 1: question about that, because from what I understand, if in

664
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: on the federal level, if you're a registered lobbyists, you

665
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:46,440
Speaker 1: cannot contribute to a political campaign. Yeah. Maybe it's has

666
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:49,840
Speaker 1: to do with like these three thousand dollar plate dinners

667
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know. Yeah, I wasn't sure about

668
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: that either. Actually, but you mentioned the American Bar Association.

669
00:39:55,560 --> 00:40:02,360
Speaker 1: They a lot of attorneys are lobbyists, um off and

670
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:04,680
Speaker 1: on during their career. My uncle was actually a lobbyist,

671
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah, Congressman, my congressman uncle. Really he

672
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 1: went through the revolving door. Huh. Yeah. I don't know

673
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:15,319
Speaker 1: much about it, but um oh man, you gotta ask him.

674
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 1: Yeah I should, And I will say this, even though

675
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: we were not on the same side of the political spectrum,

676
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:24,799
Speaker 1: which I won't even say, who's who. He's a Democrat. Huh.

677
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 1: But he's a good dude and an honest person. So

678
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:32,280
Speaker 1: even though we don't agree on things, I always felt

679
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:35,279
Speaker 1: like he, you know, he's not taking kickbacks. He's not

680
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:37,960
Speaker 1: one of those guys. And I really believe that he's

681
00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: a man pure of heart and so so in no

682
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 1: way disparaging your uncle for going through the revolving door.

683
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:46,719
Speaker 1: One of the problems with that revolving door is not

684
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:50,720
Speaker 1: just that it causes this brain drain from UM Capitol

685
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 1: Hill to the lobbying companies or the law law firms,

686
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 1: but um, it also makes Congress not really interested in

687
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:02,720
Speaker 1: passing any kind of lobbying reform or revolving door reform

688
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:05,359
Speaker 1: because pretty soon their term is going to be up

689
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 1: and they can go get that job. Exactly. Yeah, because

690
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:10,319
Speaker 1: you don't as a public servant, I mean, you don't

691
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:12,920
Speaker 1: make a lot of money. No, you don't, and especially

692
00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:15,719
Speaker 1: well we'll get to this in a second, but finishing

693
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 1: on the A B A UM. The American Bar Association

694
00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 1: has a real interest in trying to keep lobbying as

695
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:25,640
Speaker 1: above board as possible because a lot of them want

696
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:27,800
Speaker 1: to be lobbyist and they don't want to be tarnished

697
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:31,320
Speaker 1: and so, like you said earlier, they think the biggest

698
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:35,240
Speaker 1: thing you can do is to separate and have really

699
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 1: strict lines drawn between fundraising and lobbying. They think that's

700
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: where it's the most corrupt. So get rid of the time,

701
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 1: the time requirement of your time to be a registered

702
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:54,359
Speaker 1: lobbyist and just separate fundraising from from um lobbying. Yeah,

703
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:56,320
Speaker 1: I get the idea that that's where most of the

704
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: hinky stuff is going on. So the thing is like

705
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:01,840
Speaker 1: that makes sense, but it's also kind of like trying

706
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 1: to remove a hornet's nest by picking the hornets out

707
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:08,359
Speaker 1: one by one. Not the best idea, um, and need

708
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 1: to smash it and set it on fire pretty much

709
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: and then p on the ashes. Actually, I believe you

710
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 1: should leave a hornet's nest. You should never destroy hornet's nest.

711
00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:21,439
Speaker 1: So uh, I know, apex predators and all um. So

712
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: the the the other idea to just shut the revolving

713
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 1: door or to just outlaw a lobbying all together. Again,

714
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:32,880
Speaker 1: not only is that a bad idea, especially if you

715
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 1: just did it wholesale out of the gate. You can't

716
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 1: do that, but it's also unconstitutional, right, So we read

717
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 1: this really great article um Man that was good in

718
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 1: Washington Monthly. So who wrote this thing lead Drootman or Drutman,

719
00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:48,840
Speaker 1: probably Drutman and Steven tell Us. They wrote it in

720
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: Washington Monthly. Is called a New Agenda for Political Reform.

721
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:56,560
Speaker 1: It was a great article, lengthy, but it just and

722
00:42:56,600 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 1: it's made a really good sense to me. Yeah, and

723
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 1: it's not too wonky. But I mean, these guys clearly

724
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: know what they're talking about people, the long and short

725
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 1: of it, and what they think is the problem is

726
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:12,359
Speaker 1: what we touched on earlier, which is staffing of congressional

727
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: offices has been cut and slash so much and there

728
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 1: are so much more information now to ingest than there

729
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 1: used to be. They just can't do it. There are

730
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 1: not the resources to do it, so that we have

731
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 1: no choice but to turn to lobbyists to act as

732
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:30,480
Speaker 1: the experts and to write legislation. So they propose and

733
00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 1: we have some stats in here actually that I thought

734
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 1: were pretty striking. In the eighties, around nineteen eight is

735
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 1: when they started cutting everything. The Government Accountability Office and

736
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 1: the Congressional Research Services. What they do is they provide

737
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 1: nonpartisan policy and program analysis to lawmakers. Right there are

738
00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:54,960
Speaker 1: fewer now than in nineteen seventy nine. And those are

739
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 1: the very experts that were dedicated to serving Congress in

740
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:01,480
Speaker 1: a nonpartisan way so that they had all the information

741
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:05,760
Speaker 1: they needed to create legislation to actually make the government

742
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 1: operate fewer than the nineteen seventies. Yeah, so gone gone.

743
00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:13,239
Speaker 1: Starting in the eighties and then again uh in the

744
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:17,200
Speaker 1: mid nineties, Gingrich cut congressional staff. Yeah. And while this

745
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: is going on, it's a two way street. Lobbying is

746
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 1: increasing by it's staggering how much lobbying has increased in

747
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: money and just human power. And then one of the

748
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 1: things about lobbying is that lobbying begets lobbying. The more

749
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:36,759
Speaker 1: a lobbyist can get legislation pushed through, the larger the

750
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: federal register grows, the less ability any given congress person

751
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: has to read and ingest and understand federal law. So

752
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 1: the more they need lobbyists who do understand it. Yeah.

753
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:51,800
Speaker 1: And so what you get is what we talked about

754
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:57,279
Speaker 1: the revolving door. Well, actually that's politicians themselves going to lobby. Well,

755
00:44:57,280 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 1: but there's a brain drink because their aids are being

756
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 1: sucked away K Street as well. There's another cycle where

757
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:06,600
Speaker 1: there's no incentive to be a congressional staffer for very

758
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: long because you're not gonna make much money. I think

759
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:13,320
Speaker 1: they said the top ninety percentile of a congressional staff

760
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:17,400
Speaker 1: makes hundred thousand dollars a year. That's the top ninety percentile,

761
00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:20,880
Speaker 1: which sounds like six figures. That's good. DC is not cheap, no,

762
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: and take out taxes and everything. That the median income

763
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 1: was fifty grand, so you're making what like thirty five

764
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:29,800
Speaker 1: after taxes. You can't live on thirty dollars in d C.

765
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 1: And they found that the median income for a lobbyist

766
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. Median is three hundred thousand, and

767
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: that's pretty attractive, especially if you're in your twenties and

768
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:42,040
Speaker 1: all of a sudden can go double or triple your income,

769
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 1: like right out of the gate. Well, it's the career path,

770
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:46,960
Speaker 1: like it's laid out there for everyone. Here's what you do.

771
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:50,120
Speaker 1: Go work on the staff for a little while, make contacts,

772
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: which is invaluable, that's why you do it for not

773
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 1: a whole lot of money, and then boom, you can

774
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 1: get rich, make a lot of money as a lobbyist.

775
00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:00,840
Speaker 1: So Drumpman and tell us UM suggest first and foremost

776
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 1: that the solution to the lobbying conundrum that we have

777
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 1: now is basically equipped Congress with the UM information, research

778
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: and policy experts that they need and that they can

779
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:16,279
Speaker 1: get the stuff that they're currently getting from obbyoists. And

780
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:20,200
Speaker 1: the way you do that start is just increased salaries.

781
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 1: And they make a really good point that you don't

782
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 1: have to necessarily increase the salaries to to be completely

783
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 1: on par with what UM K Streets offering, because K

784
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 1: Street would probably just try to start to outspend the

785
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 1: just raised salaries UM. But if you can do it

786
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:39,319
Speaker 1: so that a person could make a pretty decent living UM,

787
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 1: they would possibly choose congressional work over K Street because

788
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,839
Speaker 1: with congressional work, they're in there, they're like part of

789
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 1: this machine that's really making decisions and policies and laws

790
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:55,319
Speaker 1: that are affecting the country, rather than working for a

791
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 1: law firm that's trying to get some some legislation pass

792
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 1: that will benef fit this one corporate client. So so

793
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:05,879
Speaker 1: if you just factor in idealism along with a really

794
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:08,799
Speaker 1: good salary, these guys say, you could attract the right

795
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 1: talent that you need. So their recommendation simply. I mean

796
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 1: it's multi fold. But they say double committee staff, triple

797
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 1: the money that they make, and you might be stepping

798
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:20,840
Speaker 1: in the right direction. Yeah. And again if you're like

799
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 1: wholl whoa, that's a lot of taxpayer money. Well again,

800
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:27,760
Speaker 1: if you if you look at what the CBO alone,

801
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 1: spending a dollar on the CBO comes up with ninety

802
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 1: dollars worth of places to cut government waste. These are

803
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 1: these are these are good things to spend money on. Yeah.

804
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:40,880
Speaker 1: And you may have a cleaner, more legitimate government as

805
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 1: a result too, And that's priceless. Yeah. I mean, they

806
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:47,439
Speaker 1: made some some excellent case that in the seventies when

807
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:50,560
Speaker 1: the government had a lot of staff that was smart,

808
00:47:50,640 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 1: that had a lot of institutional memory and knowledge that

809
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 1: they got things done, like the Church Committee, um and

810
00:47:57,320 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: the Pike Committee, both of which revealed a massive horrible

811
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:04,920
Speaker 1: stuff that the CIA was doing, like dosing unsuspecting Americans

812
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:07,880
Speaker 1: with LSC that came out at congressional investigations that you

813
00:48:07,920 --> 00:48:11,320
Speaker 1: do not see any longer. Um. If you had committee

814
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 1: staff that were well paid, um, they would hang around

815
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:18,880
Speaker 1: and you would have a lot more laws being passed,

816
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: a lot more deliberations being passed. Right now. It's all

817
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:25,920
Speaker 1: fundraising going on. That's what your legislators do. They get elected,

818
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:28,160
Speaker 1: they come to Washington, have their picture taken there, and

819
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 1: then they go back out and start raising money for reelection,

820
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:34,560
Speaker 1: right and they're raising money from the very people who

821
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 1: are working as lobbyists. So yeah, all you have to

822
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: do is create good jobs aggressional researchers, and you've got

823
00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:47,320
Speaker 1: your lobbying problem largely licked. Yeah. I agree, man, I

824
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 1: don't see any problem with this idea. It's it's sad

825
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,719
Speaker 1: whenever we dig into stuff like this. How Like I

826
00:48:53,760 --> 00:48:56,960
Speaker 1: talked about the Insiders Club, how I don't know. It

827
00:48:57,000 --> 00:48:59,880
Speaker 1: just seems like it's such a broken, messed up system.

828
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: It is. There was another thing I read UM about

829
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 1: something called rent seeking, which is where UM, through lobbyists,

830
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: the corporation will go and just try to get a

831
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 1: piece of the pie, not for doing anything, not even

832
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:16,239
Speaker 1: necessarily a contract, but just say, like a subsidy. And

833
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:19,759
Speaker 1: like the fossil fuel subsidies are amounted to thirty seven

834
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:22,240
Speaker 1: and a half billion dollars in two thousand and fourteen.

835
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:24,959
Speaker 1: That was just stuff that the government gave, just money.

836
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:28,920
Speaker 1: The government gave UM oil and other fossil fuel companies

837
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:31,759
Speaker 1: just for existing, right, And that's called rent seeking. It

838
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:34,880
Speaker 1: doesn't do anything. They don't they're not producing anything to

839
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 1: generate that income. They're spending a bunch of income to

840
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:40,319
Speaker 1: go suck it out of the federal budget. Right. And

841
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:42,840
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to talk about wealth redistribution,

842
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:45,880
Speaker 1: that's like the the the clearest version of it you

843
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 1: can possibly imagine. And that's through lobbying. And yeah, and

844
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:52,799
Speaker 1: this is just lobbying, Like, don't get me started on

845
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 1: things like campaign finance and all the other ways. That's

846
00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 1: another one we should do. Yeah, I actually wrote that article.

847
00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:02,319
Speaker 1: Um Man, how was it? But it was depressing. It

848
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:05,160
Speaker 1: was depressing and tough, and it's probably way out of date,

849
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 1: so we will update it. Yeah, it would need a

850
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 1: lot of like our dating, let's do it. Campaign financial reform,

851
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:16,719
Speaker 1: big big thing. Remember our presidential um debates one that

852
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:20,000
Speaker 1: was eye opening. Remember there's like a whole commission that

853
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 1: has a stranglehold on presidential debates and I have got

854
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:26,920
Speaker 1: to go back to listen to it is a good one,

855
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 1: most of them. I'm like, oh yeah, I remember that.

856
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 1: All right, Uh, well, if you want to know more

857
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 1: about lobbying. You can type that word in the search

858
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:37,759
Speaker 1: part how stuff works, and it will bring up this

859
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:41,359
Speaker 1: fine article. Uh. And since I said search parts, time

860
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:46,720
Speaker 1: for listener mail. Alright, I'm gonna call this binge listening

861
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:50,359
Speaker 1: Colin newest the oldest, Uh. Dudes and Jerry. By the way,

862
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 1: I labored over that subject line like a publicist, and

863
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:57,360
Speaker 1: it's still awful. It's been bad, is what Colin said,

864
00:50:57,840 --> 00:50:59,839
Speaker 1: Dudes and Jerry. I've been slowly making my way through

865
00:50:59,840 --> 00:51:02,919
Speaker 1: the analog of episodes, and for any new listeners, I'd

866
00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:06,240
Speaker 1: like to advocate for listening through them from newest to oldest,

867
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:09,640
Speaker 1: in other words, reverse order, rather than oldest to newest,

868
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 1: which is how I assume most would listen. While the

869
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:15,879
Speaker 1: references to old episodes might be a little confusing, they

870
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:18,719
Speaker 1: also build a sense of anticipation once you get there.

871
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 1: I could see that, for example, I finally listened to

872
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:25,959
Speaker 1: the infamous episode on the Sun. You made so many

873
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:28,360
Speaker 1: references over the years to how bad that episode was

874
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:30,480
Speaker 1: that by the time I got to it, I was

875
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:33,920
Speaker 1: literally laughing from beginning to end, so it becomes like

876
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:37,520
Speaker 1: a comedy episode. At that you could almost hear Chuck's

877
00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 1: brain sizzling and melting as the episode went on. True. Uh,

878
00:51:43,080 --> 00:51:45,520
Speaker 1: if I didn't have that sense of anticipation, your agony

879
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:48,920
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been as sweet. I like this idea. I

880
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:51,239
Speaker 1: think he makes a lot of sense. I dread the

881
00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:53,719
Speaker 1: day that I run out of episodes and experience of withdrawals,

882
00:51:54,080 --> 00:51:56,799
Speaker 1: the shakes, the Jimmy legs that will inevitably come when

883
00:51:56,800 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 1: I'm jones and for new stuff. And that is Colin

884
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 1: and or Land. Oh alright, Colling, great email, terrible subject line,

885
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:08,400
Speaker 1: but totally forgivable because of the body. I didn't think

886
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:11,359
Speaker 1: it was so bad being listening to us to hold us.

887
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:16,000
Speaker 1: It's a sink. I guess it's a it's just like

888
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:21,840
Speaker 1: this the d That's fine, right, do better, Coling, But

889
00:52:22,080 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 1: great email calling. Oh but if he's listening, has he

890
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:27,960
Speaker 1: he hasn't made it all the way back? Well, if

891
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:29,799
Speaker 1: he's listening to us to old us, so does he

892
00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:32,960
Speaker 1: just make time each week to listen to the newest

893
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 1: one and then go back to wherever he loves? I

894
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:39,040
Speaker 1: don't know. We need to hear a follow up. God

895
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:41,920
Speaker 1: knows when he'll hear this, Chuck. We need to contact

896
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:44,440
Speaker 1: him directly from feeling a great since of regret. I

897
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:47,520
Speaker 1: feel bad for him because he's just heading straight for

898
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 1: disappointment Land as he goes further and further back in

899
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:52,880
Speaker 1: The cattle Man. There's some episodes I'd just like to

900
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:55,640
Speaker 1: just redo, which we have done some of them, like

901
00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:59,480
Speaker 1: when they were like five minutes then they were cool topics.

902
00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:02,439
Speaker 1: You know, should just remove those from the Internet. Let's

903
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:05,520
Speaker 1: do um. I would like to redo the trolley problem

904
00:53:05,560 --> 00:53:07,800
Speaker 1: one you and I didn't do idea with Chris Palette,

905
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:12,480
Speaker 1: and it deserves like its own, big current modern incarnation

906
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 1: of stuff. You should not like the stode. We should

907
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:16,399
Speaker 1: probably do all the ones I wasn't on. How about that,

908
00:53:17,719 --> 00:53:19,719
Speaker 1: Let's do it. We'll call it the Summer of Chuck.

909
00:53:21,160 --> 00:53:22,920
Speaker 1: If you want to be like calling and get in

910
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:25,759
Speaker 1: touch with us and let us scrutinize your words, you

911
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:27,840
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.

912
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:30,760
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff

913
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:32,480
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to

914
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:35,920
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com, and as always,

915
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:37,920
Speaker 1: join us at our home on the web, Stuff you

916
00:53:37,960 --> 00:53:45,640
Speaker 1: Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands

917
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:56,760
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com