Resolved: In the United States, organized political lobbying does more harm than good.

Thank you for accepting my challenge! I am certain that this debate will be lively as well as enlightening. With that said, I will first address my opponent's case before moving on to my own. Now before my opponent listed his contentions, he listed two ways that he claims are how he will win this debate. I must wholeheartedly disagree with point (a). The resolution does not require us to prove that lobbying is inherently good or inherently bad. This debate hinges on whether organized political lobbying DOES more harm than good. To be more precise, the verb "to do" indicates actions taking place. The verb "to be" indicates a state of existence. We are not debating whether the concept of lobbying IS good or bad. We are just debating whether or not it is true that, at our current point in time, organized political lobbying results in more detriments or benefits for the United States. My opponent's point (b) seems to be on par, except for the fact that the harms and good cannot be "somewhat equal." Either there are more harms or more good. If, after this debate, I receive 99 votes and my opponent receives 98, the values are very close, but I still received more votes, and am considered the winner. The same applies to this resolution. Even if the harms outweigh the good by 0.000000001%, the resolution would still be affirmed. In his first contention, my opponent claims that citizen protests, like the civil rights marches on Washington, allow "the public to get their voices heard." Yet at this point in time corporate lobbyists in Washington outnumber the total number of citizen and nonprofit lobbyists by a ratio of 25 to 1 (1). Whose voice will be greater, that of 25 people or one person? I think the answer is obvious. Due to political lobbying, corporations have more influence than the rest of us citizens. My opponent goes on to state that without lobbyists, the United States government would turn into a totalitarian regime. The supposed logic is that without lobbyists, politicians would only serve their own interests. We see this is not true, because if politicians do not cater to the will of their constituents, they will be voted out, plain and simple. Part of the reason incumbents get reelected is because of massive campaign contributions by lobbyists. This all goes back to who has a greater voice. Monetarily, it would be the lobbying organizations. Without the influence of corporate lobbyists, politicians would be forced to turn to the people for support. If the people's interests still were not being served, the politician would not make it through the next election. Therefore, because corporate lobbyists outnumber non-profit citizen lobbyists, and because an absence of lobbyists would not hinder the public's influence on a politician (it would actually heighten the public's role) my opponent has failed to show that organized political lobbying results in more good than harm. In my opponent's second contention, he refers to ballot initiatives (a.k.a. referendums) as being a beneficial example of lobbying. I have two arguments against this. First and foremost, these initiatives do not satisfy the definition of lobbying, and are therefore irrelevant to the resolution. Lobbying is defined as "an organized attempt by members of the public to influence POLITICIANS or PUBLIC OFFICIALS." According to Wikipedia, "a referendum...is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy (2). Therefore, a ballot initiative is not an attempt to influence a politician or public official, so it does not meet the definition as lobbying, though it may be both organized and political. It is instead the public acting in PLACE of politicians or public officials, and that makes all the difference. This leads me to my second argument against my opponent's second contention. Even if ballot initiatives were relevant to this debate (and the are not), my argument against this contention would be that our system of government does not constitute a need for these types of initiatives. We live in a representative democracy where, instead of having millions of citizens vote on every law or government policy, we elect officials to make decisions for us. James Madison, known as the "father of our constitution," wrote: "It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure" (3). With that said, because our country is NOT a direct democracy (rather it is a representative republic), ballot initiatives are neither relevant to this debate, and even if they were relevant, they do not play a necessary role in our country. Now on to my own case. My first contention shows that organized political lobbying at our present time is extremely corrupt. Corporate lobbyists make up the vast majority of lobbyists (remember, outnumbering all other lobbyists 25 to 1), and they are only looking out for their own interests, which tends to result in the rest of America getting the short end of the bargain. I have also shown that illegal activity is also taking place by using the example of the Jack Abramoff scandal. In my second contention, because the campaigns of politicians often hings on monetary contributions by lobbying organizations, politicians have been shown to be more inclined to vote on the platform of lobbyists. They feel that they need to because if they don't, they run the risk of not having enough funds to run an effective campaign to get reelected. I have also shown that the inability of our president to line-item veto exasperates this problem. My third contention I believe was pretty self explanatory. The huge influence of lobbyists in Washington is leading to the breakdown of our political system, and the citizens of the United States are not able to have their voices be heard. Because of the checks and balances built in to our government, influencing legislators carries over to other branches of our government, which makes organized political lobbying that much more detrimental. In conclusion, it can plainly be seen that, in the United States, organized political lobbying does more harm than good, and I urge voters to choose a vote in affirmation. I look forward to my opponent's response. Sources: (1)http://www.bloomberg.com... (2)http://en.wikipedia.org... (3)http://www.garlikov.com...