When I was younger, I had aspirations of running for public office. While in high school, my brother Ethan got us involved in some city campaigns and we learned alot working on the “front lines” of the electoral process. During this time, I also dabbled in high school politics as a class president and continued in college as a vice-president for diversity in the student government association my senior year. At the age of 24, I tried my hands at a city council seat in a suburb of Houston. During that election, I was exposed to the “dirty” side of politics on a whole new level. I learned something firsthand during that election that would change my perception and thought process forever. The person that really controls the office is not the politician, it is the person that is influencing them.

I lost the election because I was unwilling to form alliances and receive money from people that would later want something in return. They wanted to buy me, I mean groom me, for the next election and I refused. If they can buy you into office, they can control your tenure in office. This is the problem with the American electoral process. Politicians in their desperation to get elected form alliances that pollute the true democratic process. Politicians are bought into office and then bought to make decisions in office. Who gets hurt in the process? Democracy. The recent scandal with Jack Abromoff is going to become synonymous with this flaw in our “democratic” process. Is it really a democracy if the electoral process can be influenced financially by America’s wealthiest residents?

The electoral process has been compromised for years, but it is rarely exposed on the level that Abromoff provides. How did one man buy Washington? Abromoff is a part of the fraternity that really controls American politics, lobbyists. What does a lobbyist do? In a nutshell, they try and see how much money it takes to get a politician to vote in their favor. Where do they get their money? Their money comes from the cornerstone of the American economy, corporations. How do they hide the money? They funnel the money through organizations called political action committees (PACS) and campaign funds. This process makes the “bribe” less noticeable. Is it legal? Yes and no…it is legal if they cannot make the connection between the lobbyists, the PACS, and the politician. It is illegal if they can, ask Tom Delay, the former house majority leader. Where is Abromoff in the middle of all of this?

Abromoff is the center-point of a federal investigation that seeks to expose the corruption of the “democratic” process by way of lobbyists. An investigation that they only started when the media exposed the corruption, the Bush administration was connected to the corruption and the federal government was embarrassed by the corruption. Abramoff admits to bribing public officials, including the hiring of congressional staffers and conspiring with them to lobby their former employers which include members of Congress. This is in direct violation of a one-year federal ban on such lobbying. Abromoff’s money tree was the Indian gambling casino interests, but he “got over” on them too.

The plot thickens, in January of this year, Abramoff plead guilty to three felony counts, conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion, involving charges stemming principally from his lobbying activities in Washington on behalf of Native American tribes. He also allegedly, along with his partner Michael Scanlon (a former Tom DeLay aide) conspired to bilk Indian casino gambling interests out of an estimated $85 million in fees. What does this mean? The lobbyist was trying to win on both ends, from the Casinos and in Washington. Why is this important? A lot of the “dirty money” in the middle is connected to many Washington politicians, including Delay who conveniently stepped down before everything “hit the fan.” This story is an ongoing one because politicians are falling like leaves in the fall in Washington because of their connections to Abromoff. The funny thing is, politicians will put aside partisanship for the real president of this country…money. Abromoff is connected to Republicans and Democrats alike. The charges keep coming, Abramoff lobbyists Neil Volz (Congressman Ney’s former chief of staff) and Tony Rudy (DeLay’s former aide) plead guilty to conspiracy charges recently.

Many of the connections to Congressmen and the White House are becoming obvious, such as the connections to DeLay. Other connections are slowly being exposed. How does one man buy Washington? It is actually pretty simple, they find the backing of a major corporation and utilize the “deep pockets” to influence the electoral process to congress and in congress. There are more disturbing connections to this blatant violation of the democratic process. Tom Delay and Jack Abromoff, believe it or not, are figure heads for the evangelical movement at the center of the Republican rhetoric that they are the political party for people of faith. This, of course, will require another blog entry to explain. What is the religious right doing in the center of a lobbying scandal? How are they all interconnected? Do we really live in a democracy if our politicians and votes can be bought? I personally think that it pollutes and threatens the very process our country is built upon. It changes a democracy into a store of corruption where lobbyists can choose which offices they want to purchase. Why can one man buy Congress?