As of last year, over 460 members of Congress were employed by lobbying groups (bennet.senate.gov). What’s more, half of retiring senators and a third of retiring House members register as lobbyists- for reference, this statistic was less than 5% in the 1970’s (vox.com). Were you also aware that between 2015-2023, $32.4 billion was spent on solely federal lobbying, with $4.26 billion of that amount being spent last year? In an era where 85% of Americans feel that most elected officials don’t care what people like them think, term limits is the one solution that will weaken the powers of lobbyists.
The perfect symbol that encapsulates our legislative body’s relationship with lobbyists is that of Ouroboros. The image is of a dragon or serpent eating its own tail in a circle, a representation of circularity (continuity and renewal) in Roman mythology (feelnopain.it). As stated by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics, “No member, officer, or employee shall knowingly accept a gift except as provided by Senate Rule 35 (the Gifts Rule).” Therefore, in order to bypass this policy, they decide to get coincidentally high-paying lobbying positions shortly after they leave office, pressuring the next set of congress members who will one day replace them too.
Lee Drutman, PhD, from Vox added: “Members of Congress now make $174,000 a year — not a bad living. But usually they can at least quintuple that salary by switching over to lobbying once they retire. And many of them do just that.” (vox.com) It’s a technically legal but immoral and corrupt loophole.
Former Rep. Jim Nussle was hired to lead the Credit Union National Association- a lobby group for credit unions. His current known salary is over $2.6 million, according to Lee Fang, an investigative reporter (leefang.com).
He also noted that former Sen. Ken Salazar has a salary of almost $3.5 million, after becoming a partner with the law firm WilmerHale; he also worked for gas and oil interests, as well as advising Facebook and Water Asset management (leefang.com).
The statistics speak for themselves. Term Limits on Congress will fix the abundant issues in our legislature, but one of its largest impacts will be decreasing the almost iron foothold lobbying has on our legislative body. Without that external influence, and thus motivation to accommodate their wishes, they will finally start looking after the people who elected them into office.