Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is your host, Abby Martin. This is the audio of our show.

You can watch the episodes on our YouTube channel or at the Empirefiles.tv.

Yet another shooting massacre of 17 students in Parkland, Florida has brought the issue of corporate lobbying back into public consciousness,

with outrage over the National Rifle Association's power and

influence over politicians. According to Open Secrets in 2017, the total amount spent on lobbying Congress

was $3 billion, with 11,44 registered lobbyists on the Hill. That's 26 lobbyists for every elected representative. The top

spender was Big Pharma at nearly $300 million, followed by industries such as oil and gas,

telecommunications, weapons in war, and big banks. Experts suggest that the real amount spent

on lobbying is really three times higher than being disclosed,

and the true amount of lobbyists, closer to 100,000.

But reforms that most Americans believe help combat the system of pay-to-play politics

have instead been weaponized against them.

Congressional researcher James DiAngelo has a theory based on years of mining through data

that the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970, which opened up politicians' voting records,

has only helped special interests in corporations, not the people.

I sat down with James to talk about how corporate lobbyists exploit transparency laws,

which are thought to make the U.S. system more democratic.

So before we get into how transparency has been weaponized, let's talk about how things used to be before 1970.

Let's talk about how the president voted, how Congress functioned. Right. So it's actually a very interesting time. I mean most people look back at the early

70s as a time of turmoil. There's Vietnam. There's lots of civil rights questions. But mathematically,

there's some very interesting things. We are talking the least partisan Congress in American

history. We're talking the lowest levels of income inequality in American history. So the rich

...