Washington Officials Traded Stocks with Exquisite Timing

Re:Washington Officials Traded Stocks with Exquisite Timing by bena on Thursday October 20, 2022 @04:45PM (#33280442)

Yes. Let's violate the first amendment, that should be fun.

The term "lobbying" is essentially slang.

Lobbying is just the name we give to the act of paying someone to petition the government for a redress of grievances on someone else's behalf. So to ban someone from lobbying for any amount of time is essentially banning them from petitioning the government. Which is forbidden by the Constitution.

It's a way more complicated issue than "ban lobbying".

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Re:Washington Officials Traded Stocks with Exquisite Timing by awinder on Thursday October 20, 2022 @05:36PM (#33281125)

There are all kinds of existent laws and regulations on former elected officeholders allowed lobbying activities, many of the toothier ones at the state level but there’s still a 2 year cool off at the federal level for congress. They’d run afoul of 1A protections if there was indeed an unfettered right to be paid to lobby on the behalf of others.

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