Jared D.

Marsh
English 1201
Professor Johnson-Taylor
06.25.2019
Research Proposal

Have you ever heard a story, read a fact, or saw an event that you made you curious? I

started my academic journey in mechanical engineering where I hoped to focus my efforts on

environmental justice. After hearing stories, reading facts, and witnessing events, I transitioned

to Human Rights Studies but quickly realized I was running into the same issue I did when I was

simply focused on the environment. I realized that all of the issues I was learning about required

some level of law changes to help address them. Being curious about law and how to change it

led me to stumble upon lobbying and how changing or implementing laws seemed to be more

complicated due to lobbying. These issues that I was so passionately about and the people that

were negatively impacted by them that I cared about could not be addressed without stopping the

flow of bleeding, at the law requiring systemic changes. I have changed my major, career goals,

and life to work on the issues plaguing the world that I think need my attention and can be solved

if we are able to fix our “democratic” system. The question remains, how has lobbying

influenced democracy, specifically around environmental and social justice, within the American

government on a federal level?

Lobbying in the government I believe should be illegal. Why should anyone have a

louder voice than another simply because of how much money they have accumulated? I believe

that lobbying has crippled the American government and made policies and legislation

ineffective in practice because they are catered towards a select group of individuals and

inclusive of the American public. I believe that if I am able to discover the origins of lobbying,
its impacts on government, and how it operates today then I will be able to understand whether

or not it is practical and should remain in place. I do not believe I am able to determine the fate

of lobbying by writing this paper, but I believe that I can make a strong case for or against it that

can better inform others, maybe even those in positions of power. I do not know a lot about

lobbying other than that people, including individuals; corporations; coalitions; etc., can give

politicians money so that they are able to influence the way those politicians vote, what policies

they support, and what policies they disapprove.

In order to address this question, I need to uncover the origins of lobbying. I need to

know how and why lobbying was enacted and why it continues to operate today. I need to learn

how lobbying and democracy are related and what kind of relationship they share. Once I

accomplish this then I will be able to understand its impacts and factually determine whether or

not it is beneficial for all of the American public.

Thesis Statement: The United States federal government should ban lobbying because it provides

politicians with biased information and research perpetuating forms of environmental and social

injustice.