Mark Pocan Quotes
Corporations write the legislation. They vote on the legislation. And they give advice on how to pass their bills.
He made this quotation when he was a member of the Wisconsin State legislator. He was describing the influence and interaction that corporations had with the Wisconsin state legislative process.
Mark Pocan, U. S. Congressman (Democrat, WI), Quoted in The Progressive, October 2011
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Hollings who was one of the senior experienced senators was offended by the degree to which the George W. Bush Administration and the Republican leadership had turned to lobbyists to draft legislation and amendments to pending legislation. Lobbyists often have specialized information that members of Congress do not have, so there has been in modern times communications between lobbyists and members of Congress and their staffs. However, during the Bush Presidency the practice reached an extreme where lobbyists would even write the legislative language and give it to the members in whom they had invested by giving them large campaign contributions and many perks. K Street is the fanciest street in Washington DC with some of the most expensive office space. A substantial proportion of the lobbyists have K Street offices, hence the metaphor.
At the time this was a very widely held, bipartisan view. See {634818} . Given statements like this, TR if he were alive today would never be able to get the Republican Nomination for President; nor could he obtain the Democratic Nomination because of his view on the military, expansionism, defense spending and war.
Not only both parties agreed on the evil of corporate money in politics, but there was not even a single dissent on this point. Also, the President was in agreement {634816}. A century later, there were only a handful of senators who did not think that corporate money was critical in politics. This was a flip flop for BOTH major parties.
At the time many members of Congress actually allowed the American Petroleum Institute and other special interests who donated enough money to have their representatives draft legislation and markup language. There were enough members of Congress who would not pass any legislation unless the American Petroleum Institute – the voice of the oil industry – was in favor of it.
Mark William Pocan is an American politician and businessman serving as the U.S. Representative from Wisconsin's 2nd congressional district since 2013. The district is based in the state capital, Madison. A member of the Democratic Party, Pocan is co-Chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus and Chair Emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. From 1999 to 2013 he served as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, representing the 78th district, succeeding Tammy Baldwin there, whom he also replaced in the House when Baldwin was elected to the Senate.
