The A-List of Loathsome Lobbyists

Posted on Jul 14, 2012

Glyn Lowe Photoworks (CC BY 2.0)

In this dark dual season of Citizens United and presidential campaigning, The Progressive serves up a list of nine of the “most depraved lobbyists money can buy,” beginning with former Connecticut congressman and enemy of Internet freedom, Chris Dodd.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly

The Progressive:

[Chris Dodd], the former Connecticut Senator, and internationally renowned eyebrow-haver, isn’t the most prodigious scum in the Beltway swamp, but he may be the most hypocritical. When asked in 2010 what would follow his thirty-year legislative career, which ended amid financial scandal, Dodd bluntly said, “No lobbying, no lobbying.” He then promptly became, as The Hill put it, “Hollywood’s leading man in Washington, taking the most prestigious job on K Street,” as chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. The gig comes with a $1.2 million annual salary, and complimentary tickets to the Academy Awards.

Dodd’s most public, and ultimately ill-fated, advocacy was in pushing two potentially disastrous bills: the Stop Online Piracy Act, and its Senate counterpart, Protect IP Act—both of which would’ve given the federal government the right to shut down any website that was merely being accused of copyright infringement. The bills were shelved indefinitely after a massive online protest in which thousands of sites went voluntarily dark for a day. Dodd unironically called the blackout an “irresponsible . . . abuse of power.” So it’s OK for the Feds to make your site go black, but it’s not OK for you to do it yourself. Dodd doesn’t want you to post the Jack and Jill movie trailer to warn Americans of the danger. Because every time someone sees an Adam Sandler film, the terrorists win.

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