Back in the summer, when it began to look like the Tea Party might get a boatload of political neophytes elected to Congress, senator-turned-lobbyist Trent Lott sounded an alarm for Washington's influence industry.
"As soon as they get here," Lott said of the new wave of legislators, "we need to co-opt them."
So as the new Congress convenes this week, no one should be surprised to learn that the co-opting is well underway.
On Tuesday night, just hours before they stood in the House chamber to swear their allegiance to the Constitution, at least a dozen new lawmakers sipped cocktails and got better acquainted with the capital's lobbying corps at a glitzy, $2,500 per ticket reception thrown in their honor.
With a performance from country crooner LeAnn Rimes, the event at the W Hotel (rooms starting at $269 per night, one block from the White House) was organized by Rep. Jeff Denham of California, whose campaign included a radio ad blasting then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "Washington friends."
Now Denham and other new lawmakers are making their own Washington friends. Tuesday's gathering at the W Hotel is among dozens of such meet-and-greet breakfasts, cocktail parties and other political fundraisers held in Washington every week when Congress is in session; it stands out among such soirees only because of its size and the presence of Rimes.
Indeed, in the first four weeks after their election in November, newly-elected lawmakers were feted at 18 Washington fundraisers, where they collected cash to retire their 2010 campaign debts and began stockpiling money for 2012.
It's tempting to dismiss some of these new legislators, those who ran for office promising to look out for the middle class and to break the influence of special interests on our government, as hypocrites.
But as a former congressman myself, I understand the urgency every member feels to retire his or her campaign debt and raise the money needed to hold the seat it was so hard to win.
That's where Trent Lott and his co-opting colleagues in the lobbying corps come in. They've got money, and plenty of it, and all they want is a decent return on their investments.
In six terms (1975-87) serving a district in the Philadelphia suburbs, I found that the interests of these political investors sometimes meshed with what I perceived as the public interest. Casting those votes was easy.
But I and my colleagues also came quickly to votes that forced us to choose between the folks back home and the new friends we'd found - or who'd found us -- in Washington.
Too many of us, I'm saddened to report, were co-opted; we made little compromises, and sometimes big ones, we'd promised ourselves we'd avoid. That's how Washington works and how it will continue to work until we find a better way to finance political campaigns.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-the-nerd-ferraro/democracy-is-about-repres_1_b_804206.html