Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Just Showed Us Exactly How Lobbyists Influence Policymakers From Both Parties
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has taken to Twitter again to teach us exactly how corporate lobbyists continue to influence and manipulate our policymakers.
The recently elected house member shared a link to an Intercept report detailing a resort event that was attended by dozens of lawmakers from the Republican and Democratic parties. At the event, which was hosted at Salamander Resort & Spa in Virginia, attendees were schmoozed with food, wine, and lectures from healthcare industry lobbyists interested in fighting Medicare for All.
Ocasio-Cortez states that this is far from unusual in our political system, and tweeted out a thread that described just how lobbyists are able to get what they want from our leadership.
Here’s what she said:
This is how corporate lobbying works:
Lobbyists ID bills they need to kill to keep profits high (no matter the human cost), come up w/ “sensible” talking points to mask intent + say policy is “misguided,” then schmooze policymakers in secret into accepting said talking points. https://t.co/EB9TDkANYj
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 13, 2019
When I was looking at lobbying from the outside, just as a normal voting citizen, it appeared to me as more transactional in nature than it actually is.
It’s not necessarily that a lobbyist calls you and says “vote/don’t vote for this bill or we won’t donate to you again…” /2
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 13, 2019
It’s that bundle for elections, so you pick up their call,accept invites, become friends.
In practice it’s not transactional, it’s social.
So while ppl don’t see how lobbying influences votes, their whole enviro + staff has been exposed to mainly 1 point of view: lobbyists’.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 13, 2019
AOC has taken on lobbyists and PACs before, including earlier this year, when she said, “we have a system that is fundamentally broken,” in regard to our campaign finance laws.