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[Taricus]

Don't the American and Australian dollars have different exchange values, though?

I like your idea though. Of course, I'm just a poor unemployed high school student, so there's not much I can do to help.

I know, and I'm in the same situation except for the fact I've finished school.

[GlyphGryph]

The problem is that no one will trust you, and likely few will give you money, especially since those so inclined are already giving to one of the already existing "citizens lobbyists groups".

And what does being a lawyer have to do with being a lobbyist anyways?

[Truean]

Don't the American and Australian dollars have different exchange values, though?

I like your idea though. Of course, I'm just a poor unemployed high school student, so there's not much I can do to help. Hand out fliers for a little bit, whatever. Real simple stuff, if it gets to that point.

I know, and I'm in the same situation except for the fact I've finished school.

Yeah but that's fine. Every large organization that's worth anything can find something for that.

The problem is that no one will trust you, and likely few will give you money, especially since those so inclined are already giving to one of the already existing "citizens lobbyists groups".

Yeah, the trainwreck of thought is, I don't trust this group/person, so I won't give them $10, which means nothing will ever get done. I will bitch about nothing getting done though.... That's easy. If it actually got off the ground I could remedy this with progress reports and accountability, which is really all I'm asking the government for.

Let's face it, if people had three less beers a year, they could pay for this. They'd rather get screwed over.

And what does being a lawyer have to do with being a lobbyist anyways?

Everything. That's kind of why all lobbyists are lawyers. They write laws and you have to understand them to effectively write them. It is far harder than you think, and don't even pull "I could do that myself," for a second. That's how some of the worst laws in history have been written and if we're fortunate, promptly overturned.

You have to be able to interpret how courts will interpret the law and how it will be applied practically in situations. You have to understand how it will interact with the Constitution and other laws as well as agency regulations. There are whole slew of complexities. Your school civics class and that "School House Rock" cartoon, didn't teach you much of the real story....

Remember that train wreck of an immigration law in Arizona. I knew that thing would die stillborn. My dad just told me I was nuts. It's called federal preemption and the drafters of that law (elected officials) didn't understand the constitution while attempting to hide behind it. Translation, bad legislator.

[Truean]

If I actually did something like this, I'd advertise and collect donations with a lot of explanation.

All money donated would be kept in a trust account and fully refundable until I raised the money required to hire a lobbyist ($70K). After that point it would go towards expenses of hiring the lobbyist and people who donated would receive e-mails and newsletters updating them on what their money is going towards and what the lobbyist is doing. I'd rinse and repeat lobbying congress and various state governments.

[Aqizzar]

Yeah, being or at least having a lawyer is basically a prerequisite for lobbying, not only because you'll have to write plausible sounding drafts to suggest, but also because you'll need to be able to clearly understand and research campaign finance and advertising laws.

Also, you might want to cut back on all the double-posting.

This would attempt to avoid political issues and focus on the sane running of government.

I find the idea that you consider the "sane running of government" anything but one political issue after another absolutely adorable.  Especially since you proceed to list off a load of disconnected hot-button issue fixes.  My first piece of advice is to find a coherent theme you want to apply yourself to.  The second, is research existing laws, and pending bills, related to those areas, and find out which Congressmen in your state would be most accessible to convincing.

Third, I would recommend you hire me as head of issue-research.  Because I really need a job, and I actually have paper credentials in this topic.

[Truean]

Yeah, being or at least having a lawyer is basically a prerequisite for lobbying, not only because you'll have to write plausible sounding drafts to suggest, but also because you'll need to be able to clearly understand and research campaign finance and advertising laws.

Also, you might want to cut back on all the double-posting.

This would attempt to avoid political issues and focus on the sane running of government.

I find the idea that you consider the "sane running of government" anything but one political issue after another absolutely adorable.  Especially since you proceed to list off a load of disconnected hot-button issue fixes.  My first piece of advice is to find a coherent theme you want to apply yourself to.  The second, is research existing laws, and pending bills, related to those areas, and find out which Congressmen in your state would be most accessible to convincing.

Third, I would recommend you hire me as head of issue-research.  Because I really need a job, and I actually have paper credentials in this topic.

Hum, interesting points. To clear things up.

Theme: How government is run. Administrative matters. I mean how the government conducts whatever business it conducts. If you've ever tried to do anything at all in government you'll know what I'm talking about.

This is the overarching problem with everything. You can't get in there and fix things (whatever your definition of fixing things is) if the machinery is so screwed up you can't see straight.

How's this for a tagline: "Government would work if its machinery wasn't so clogged?"

Hot button issues to avoid:
Taxes, abortion, war, immigration.

I do double post sometimes, but frankly I've seen worse here.

I have to admit I hadn't really thought of what non lawyer employees would do or about them. The idea I had was for a lean organization that would be mostly about direct influence with little support staff if any at all. The idea being that if you're a lawyer you can manage your own organization. Were you thinking of something I missed?

[Nadaka]

taxes are a huge part of how government is run.

[Truean]

taxes are a huge part of how government is run.

O, it is, but that's a substantive issue.

I'm talking about fixing the government's procedures. It shouldn't take you 2 hours to call the Social Security Office, or any other damn office in government. It shouldn't take you 6 months to hear back from someone. It's even better that the person you talk to has no idea what the hell is going on and can't help you at all.... Meanwhile they are controlling your life.... They can't find the file; they don't know who you spoke to last time; they can't help you while answering the help line. They can't even keep track of if they got your letter (though if you sent it fed ex, fed ex can).

Certainly we should all be able to agree on that. It shouldn't be a mind numbing, headache inducing crapfest to talk to your government. That's the point.

The idea is that you fix the procedures and processes, then you can worry about the substantive stuff.

Until you fix the procedures of government, you'll never fix anything else.

[Tellemurius]

he is right, considering the steps that are needed to even present a law to the senate are atrocious.

[Darvi]

Spoiler: I'm just gonna post this and run (click to show/hide)

[Truean]

Spoiler: I'm just gonna post this and run (click to show/hide)

I love Cracked.com

[Truean]

I find the idea that you consider the "sane running of government" anything but one political issue after another absolutely adorable.

For future reference, This is adorable:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/14700000/Sweet-puppy-with-bunny-puppies-14749075-1600-1200.jpg

I'm just moderately amused. I've used that one multiple times. You'd be amazed how often it works on opposing counsel to get whatever documents they're keeping from me.

[AntiAntiMatter]

Interesting idea. I rather like it, though the 10 bucks a year payment per subscriber isn't all that feasible. You'll probably need to charge something a bit higher then that, though it should still be affordable.

[Truean]

Interesting idea. I rather like it, though the 10 bucks a year payment per subscriber isn't all that feasible. You'll probably need to charge something a bit higher then that, though it should still be affordable.

Awesome.

Crunch the numbers, I'd need about 7000 people paying $10 a year to have one full time lobbyist (50-60K lawyer, including their expenses and payroll taxes, etc).

So for each 7000 or so people in the group that's one lobbyist....

You get me a million people and that's 142 lobbyists banging down Congress' door for ya. Keep in mind that's at $10 a year.... That's less than $0.84/month, or less than $0.03/day.

No, it's mathematically possible and I could make it work operationally.

The issue is that people won't fork over the $10/year. Kinda sad if you think about it, the end of the Declaration of Independence says the people drafting it pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor....

[Vactor]

Not to offend, but you seem a bit naive for a law school graduate, firstly there is far more to political pressure than having teams of lawyers bothering politicians.  Also you have these broad solutions without any regard to the financials.  How will you pay for these great new programs?  And while its all well and good to say "our schools should be better, i'll lobby to make them better," you aren't offering any structured solutions, which is one of the services that lobbyists strive to provide.

The other thing is that lobbyist is a toxic word, and you should always call yourself an advocacy group if you're running on public donations.  Lobbyists is the word for those representing businesses, the NRA and collections of smaller units of governments.  There are already a great variety of public advocacy groups.

The final issue I see is that this seems more like creating a lobbying group to further your own platform, and having other pay you to do it.  If your group isn't centered around a singular tenant you'll be hard pressed to find people willing to donate, as you'll likely not be on the same page on at least a few issues.  Efficacy will also be a big issue, even if you find a group of people willing to finance your operation, they're going to want to see demonstrable results, do you know enough about the legislative process to be able to strong arm an uncompromised bill into signing in the first few years of your run?