On January 3rd, members of the new Congress start a new session. But what about those who lost their seats? Where do they go? What do they do? Dan Cassino, Professor of Political Science at Farleigh Dickinson University, lays out their options.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Civics 101 is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
[00:00:06] I do respect the will of the voters here in the state of Colorado, but I also thought about my dad, you may remember some of you that he lost an election and he said the voters have spoken. The blankety blanks...
Nick Capodice: [00:00:20] Once the balloons are swept up, tears have been shed and everybody goes home, every losing candidate has to ask themselves this question, what do I do now?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:30] You're making it sound a little dramatic.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:33] I know I can't help it.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:34] But it is a good question. What do people in the House and the Senate do when they lose an election?
Dan Cassino: [00:00:40] So members of Congress, when they lose, they actually start making real money.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:45] That's Dan Casino, professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University. And I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:50] I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:51] And throw away the hankie, because today on Civics 101, we are talking about the three most common occupations of politicians once they leave Congress.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:59] When Dan says [00:01:00] real money, what is he talking about?
Dan Cassino: [00:01:02] The real money is going to come as a consultant. That is, you can turn around and take all the expertise you've built up over the years, all the influence, all the credibility you have with your colleagues and use that as a lobbyist, influence other existing members of Congress to get them to do what a group wants them to do. Now, I know this sounds corrupt. People are going to go, oh, boy, they're just cashing in. This is wrong. This is morally dubious and maybe it is. But we have to remember what the purpose of lobbying is. Lobbyists are there as information brokers. That is, they know more about a subject than members of Congress know about that subject.
Nick Capodice: [00:01:37] After the 2014 midterm elections, over a quarter of departing members of Congress stayed in D.C. and became lobbyists, which they were legally allowed to do after a one year cooling off period. But there is a reason that former congresspeople make for good lobbyists.
Dan Cassino: [00:01:53] They've got instant credibility. They also know the interpersonal relationships. They know how all of these committees work. And that is worth a lot [00:02:00] of money.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:00] How much money?
Dan Cassino: [00:02:01] Honestly, the sky is the limit. If you are particularly shameless and willing to just go and work for a lobbyist and go out and shill for that lobbyist, you can be making tens of millions of dollars.
Nick Capodice: [00:02:13] If you're a massive corporation like, let's say Lockheed Martin, spending a few million dollars on a former congressperson to lobby for legislation that favors you can make you billions more in the long run. But your financial success as a lobbyist depends on what committees you were on when you were in Congress. That committee work often gives you expertise on a particular topic. So it makes sense that you would use that knowledge to lobby members of Congress on that issue. And that is why some committees are more desirable to be on, like defense or banking or ways and means, because it offers a potentially very lucrative future.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:51] All right. So that's lobbying. What else can an outgoing member of Congress do? I know lots of people go on book tours [00:03:00] or speaking tours.
Nick Capodice: [00:03:00] Yeah, they sure do.
Dan Cassino: [00:03:02] Book tours!
[00:03:03] Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Dr. Ron Paul.
Ron Paul: [00:03:10] The more you understand about why the problem, the better off you'll be.
Dan Cassino: [00:03:15] Lots of members of Congress go write books they're going to tour out there. You give speeches, former members of Congress can make a lot of money on the lecture circuit. Sure. If you're a former president, you can make a lot more money than that. But even if one member of Congress has more respect, you can go around on the lecture circuit and make a lot of money.
Nick Capodice: [00:03:28] Influential former politicians can charge thousands, hundreds of thousands per speech. But there is one more thing you can do when your time is done in D.C..
Dan Cassino: [00:03:38] Finally, we have to remember most members of Congress got to Congress in the first place because either they were rich people or were friends with a lot of rich people because you got to fund your campaign some way. So we do have plenty of members of Congress who are very wealthy people. They're often very often older people. And when they're done, they just retire. They do what any super wealthy 68 year old person would do, then go home and swim in the pool and maybe think about writing their memoirs and spend [00:04:00] time with the grandkids.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:02] All right. Well, that's a few of the options for those who lost in November. If you've got questions, just submit them at our website, civics101podcast.org.
