Sorry to anyone who is seeing this post from Georgia… Both of them.
Some countries do some elements of this better. I like Switzerland’s willingness to hold votes on many things, but not so thrilled about some of the transparency issues they have. Ireland has a much stronger lobbying regulatory scheme adopted since the 2007 recession 18 years ago, and they are very strict on how much money you can spend in elections too and do them on the cheap. What else have you got you know about?
Comments
They suck in the Netherlands. They’re not that bad for the House of Representatives but they’re horrendous for the Senate.
Both organs require their members to register significant secondary income and other secondary interests that might be considered as conflicting interests. However:
In case of the House of Representatives it’s up to ones own discretion whether or their income or ties to other institutions and organizations are to be deemed possible conflicts of interests.
It’s up to the members themselves to report these. There is an independent investigation board that does research whether or not secondary functions/interests can be considered conflicts of interests, but they generally don’t investigate whether or not someone has reported all of their secondary interests or whether or not their interests might be conflicting UNLESS there’s a complaint submitted.
As for the Senate it’s also up to the members own discretion to report on their secondary interests. Which already sucks, but unlike the house of representatives which has an independent investigation board the senate only has an internal commission made up of members of the Senate themselves
There’s been issues with conflicts of interest within the senate for years now. Everybody knows it and nobody does anything about it. Almost all of them are practically lobbyists.