Democrat, Republican, or Independent you have an oppurtunity to get involved and stay informed by the President-Elect.  It is your duty as an American to be involved in the Republic, it goes beyond voting every two or four years and, whether you like Obama or not, he has gone out of his way to make his transition into power open and transperant.

http://www.Change.gov is the website of the President-Elect.

http://change.gov/page/s/contact is the page to goto with questions or comments.

Discuss.

http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/obama_transition_announces_rules_for_lobbyists_in_transition/

Obama Transition Announces Rules for Lobbyists in Transition

During a briefing today at the Presidential Transition Team headquarters, Obama Transition Co-Chair John Podesta announced the strictest, and most far reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history. The rules are:

* Federal Lobbyists cannot contribute financially to the transition.

* Federal lobbyists are prohibited from any lobbying during their work with the transition.

* If someone has lobbied in the last 12 months, they are prohibited from working in the fields of policy on which they lobbied.

* If someone becomes a lobbyist after working on the Transition, they are prohibited from lobbying the Administration for 12 months on matters on which they worked.

* A gift ban that is aggressive in reducing the influence of special interests.

Statement of Thomas Mann
Brookings Institution

"The ethical guidelines released today for the Obama transition are tough and unequivocal. They will prevent some honorable people with rich experience from serving in the transition. That is a real cost but it is more than balanced by the strong signal sent by the President-elect. He aspires to attract to government able individuals whose highest priority is to serve the public interest. This is a very constructive step in that direction."

Statement of Norm Ornstein
American Enterprise Institute

"Restoring trust in government is a prerequisite to enacting good policy and the tough choices the country needs. This ethics policy for the transition is a far-reaching, bold and constructive step to do just that. The policy may exclude some good people with deep experience in their fields, but it will also exclude those who see government service as a springboard to financial success, or who are more intent on pleasing future potential employers or clients than making tough choices in the public interest. As much as anything, this ethics policy is a statement about the tone and tenor of the Obama administration. It is a good sign."

Statement of John Podesta
Co-Chair of President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden's Transition Team

"President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to change the way Washington works and curb the influence of lobbyists. During the campaign, federal lobbyists could not contribute to or raise money for the campaign. Today, the President-elect is taking those commitments even further by announcing the strictest, and most far reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history."

That's sweet. I will check it out later when I am at home.

Those ethics rules for the transition team kick major ass. I can't believe they're not accepting any money from lobbyists. I was was kind of expecting the Obama presidency to generate some sort of Haliburton-esque government-sponsored monopoly for a renewable energy company that lobbied the hell out of him and funded everything. This is great news.

He doesn't want the hassle of it. Strings are attached. I am curious about Biden's view on lobbyists.

Obama didn't even need lobbyists during the election. The number of small donations he got is what pushed him over the top, not the big ones. The average donation to Obama was $100.

I do wonder how soon before this topic will be derailed and pissed on.

I was just about ready to, but decided that it'd be the end of me if I had.

Some people are complaining that the restrictions aren't tough enough because they allow people to come from being lobbyist that aren't related directly to their field.

The problem is that it would be hard to fill the positions with out any administration with a background in some type of lobby.

Remember when a person works for an administration and the opposing party takes over, they are out of a job.

Lobbyist aren't bad they provide a function of bringing attention to issues of private industry and consumer groups, but lobbyist who give money and gifts and politicians who take them are bad for government.

There would be no excuse to, this is an oppurtunity for you to voice your opinion to us, here, and Obama, on his site, in a respectful constructive manner. 

If you just attacked mindlessly then you would be trolling.

The first issue from the site is the Lobbyist regulations.  If you oppose it, you either think they should be further limited or they shouldn't be limited.  Feel free to talk about that.