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posted by martyb on Friday August 19 2016, @01:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the !progressive dept.

Democracy Now! reports via AlterNet

Ken Salazar is a former U.S. Senator from Colorado who now works at WilmerHale, one of the most influential lobbying firms in Washington. Some groups have criticized Salazar's selection due to his vocal support of fracking, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Keystone XL pipeline.

In addition to Ken Salazar, other leaders of the transition team include former Obama National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Center for American Progress head Neera Tanden, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, and Maggie Williams, the director of Harvard's Institute of Politics.

[...] WilmerHale [represents] corporate clients across the board--Cigna, for instance. Cigna is a healthcare giant that is fighting for a merger with Anthem. WilmerHale represents them, Delta Airlines, Verizon, investment firms, a mining company. So, WilmerHale is a major law and lobbying firm.

Ken Salazar is not a registered lobbyist at WilmerHale; he is a partner there. Interestingly enough, Hillary Clinton had published a year ago an op-ed deriding the revolving door where lawmakers leave office and become lobbyists or help special interests. And she had specifically said that she was concerned about lawmakers who go into that line of work, public policy work, for corporate clients, but do not register as a lobbyist, which seems to fit the description of Ken Salazar.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @06:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @06:53AM (#389963)

    and didn't amend the constitution to fix the problem.

    Your position seems to be that, to the legal system, the Supreme Court is always right. So what's the point of the constitution or any amendments? The Supreme Court could just arbitrarily override anything when it's convenient.

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  • (Score: 1) by Francis on Friday August 19 2016, @02:04PM

    by Francis (5544) on Friday August 19 2016, @02:04PM (#390063)

    That's how the constitution works. The Supreme Court is the ultimate authority on what is and isn't constitutional. And they have a general resistance to overturning precedence.

    And yes, they can arbitrarily override things when convenient. That's a result of people being appointed to the court for political reasons rather than because of their sound jurisprudence. Scalia and Thomas are particularly egregious examples.

    It shocks me a bit that people around here don't know that. Well, the non-Americans not knowing that is understandable, but Americans should know that.