Former Elected Officials Undermine Democracy as Big-Money Lobbyists

Headline of a troubling story about the number of former members of Congress who leave office and become lobbyists: "Hill a Steppingstone to K Street for Some"

A new study has found that 43 percent of the 198 House and Senate members who left government to join private life since 1998 have registered to lobby. Of the 36 senators who left during that period, half have joined the lobbying ranks.

[...] Congressional historians say that lawmakers rarely became lobbyists as recently as two decades ago. They considered the profession to be tainted and unworthy of once-elected officials such as themselves. And lobbying firms and trade groups were leery of hiring former members of Congress because they were reputed to be lazy as lobbyists, unwilling to ask former colleagues for favors.

But that began to change noticeably in the late 1980s. The reasons include sky-high lobbying salaries, a growing demand for lobbying services by industry, heavy turnover in Congress, and a change of control in the House of Representatives a decade ago, which opened the way for a flood of new GOP lobbyists.

Please read the story. It's one of the far-too-invisible forces that is undermining democracy at every turn, and giving even more advantage to those with money.