 Lobbyists. Lobbyists. Lobbyists. Lobbyists. Lobbyists. You've probably heard of them before. They're kind of a go-to villain in modern politics, but what exactly are lobbyists? And more importantly, are they really buying our government out from under us? Yeah. Yeah, they really are. And here's five ways they're doing it. Number one. So, if you're a politician, you have to raise an obnoxious amount of money just to run for office, and one of the easiest ways to raise that kind of cash is by turning to lobbyists. Alright, so here's how it works. Let's say you are a big bank. Now you want to get a senator on the banking committee to vote your way on an upcoming bill. So the easiest thing you could do would be to just, like, you know, bribe him. I mean, you could give $100,000 directly to his reelection campaign, nice and clean. But unfortunately for you, that is super illegal, I think, I hope. Yep, still super illegal. So instead, you're gonna hire yourself a lobbying firm to serve as the middleman for what would in any sane universe basically just be a bribe. Your lobbyist can legally organize a swanky fundraiser that brings in $100,000 for the senator's reelection campaign, and at that fundraiser, your lobbyists can just happen to have a friendly chat with the senator's staff about your feelings on banking policy. At the end of the day, the senator is still up $100,000. He still knows exactly where that $100,000 came from, and he knows which ways to vote if he wants the money to keep on flowing. But this time, nobody's broken any laws. Pretty sweet scam, right? This is a hugely common practice, and it helps explain the next item on our list. Number two. So in many cases, lobbyists actually write our laws, literally. For example, let's take a look at the 2014 omnibus budget deal. Now, Congress used this deal to secretly put taxpayers back on the hook to bail out banks that engage in risky derivatives trading. Yes, derivatives. You might remember them from such things as, uh, causing the 2008 financial crisis, nearly destroying the economy of the United States, and almost causing Western civilization to fold in on itself. So yeah, that, that happened. Now, 70 of the 85 lines that put taxpayers back on the hook for these derivatives trades were cut and pasted word for word from model legislation that was drafted by Citigroup lobbyists. Citigroup quite literally wrote its own rules. And this isn't just a problem with the big banks, like just last week we reported on how lobbyists for the chemical industry may have authored an entire portion of a bill that shuts down efforts to crack down on toxic chemicals. This kind of behavior happens every single day. Number three. So lobbyists routinely offer members of Congress and their staffers lucrative jobs at their firms or their clients' companies once they leave office. This practice is often called the revolving door, and it works like this. When we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us, uh, I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point, you know, when you're done working on the hill, we'd very much like you to consider coming to work for us. Now, the moment I said that to them, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they're going to do. Yeah, just let that, let that sink right in. This practice has become crazily common in the 1970s, less than 5% of retiring legislators went on to become lobbyists. Now half of all retiring senators and a third of retiring House members do. And it's hard to overemphasize how tempting a revolving door gig can be. People who go on to become lobbyists get on average a 1,452% raise, 1,400%. I mean, can you imagine what that kind of raise would do for you at, say, your job? Number four. So thanks to loopholes and how federal law defines what a lobbyist actually is, many elected officials go on to take what are effectively revolving door lobbying jobs without ever having to officially register as lobbyists. Now researchers estimate that there's actually twice as much lobbying as what's publicly disclosed. That makes lobbying a $7 billion a year industry. And it means that only half of the people who are being paid to influence our elected officials are required to follow what few rules there actually are. Number five. So possibly the most upsetting part of all of this is how ridiculously effective lobbying is. A study found that for every dollar a company spends on lobbying, it gets $220 back in tax savings. I mean, that's crazy. That is a 22,000% return on investment. And it works really well for both sides of the aisle, which is why top lobbying firms raise big money for both Republicans and Democrats, usually at the same time. Like right this second, there is a lobbying firm in DC called Akin Gump. Its roster is full of former members of Congress and its clients include massive companies like the Chamber of Commerce, Monsanto, Boeing, and foreign governments like the United Arab Emirates and Japan. And Akin Gump lobbyists are, as we speak, holding fundraisers for presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich. They all work together. So all this begs a pretty obvious question. Why don't we just ban lobbying altogether? Well, constitutionally, we can't, and we really shouldn't. Lobbying itself isn't inherently evil. Like the act of lobbying is just advocating a position to an elected official, and that's not the problem. It's protected by the First Amendment for a good reason. People need to be able to make a case to their elected representatives even if they can't be there in person. The problem is that lobbyists are routinely using money, favors, gifts, and lucrative job offers to do the convincing for them. But more simply, you can lobby and you can donate money to a politician, but you should not be allowed to do both at the same time. It's like handing the referee 50 bucks before the game starts, and 50,000 dollars right after the game. Luckily, this is something that we can actually fix with a single law. Reforms to ban lobbyists from coordinating fundraisers, close the revolving door, and end shadow lobbying have already been proposed at the federal level, and they're currently picking up serious momentum in cities and states around the country. From Tallahassee, Florida to Seattle, Washington. We've got a bunch of ideas for how to keep that momentum going, and we would love your help to do it. So if you want to help us fix lobbying in, you know, the entire country, check out this link right here at the bottom of the screen, and we'll show you how. Alrighty, that is it for this week. Thank you so much for watching Follow the Money, and please, please, please do not forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you can see all of our videos instead of just the handful that your Facebook and News Feed decides to show you. Seriously, it doesn't show you all of them, I cannot emphasize that enough. If you've got any questions about money, or politics, or corruption, just send an email to mailbag at represent.us or tweet at us at represent.dotus. Alright, I'm on sore for represent us, and I will see you next time. Thanks for watching.