Complex legislation becomes a vehicle for corporate lobbying power

Evidence

Bills can easily run into thousands of pages, making them difficult to fathom. … They involve many uncertainties regarding the extent of the benefits, possible costs, and unintended adverse effects. Well-funded corporations mobilize lobbyists and law-firm personnel, many of whom are former lawmakers or agency officials, to scour the bills for unfavorable provisions and regulations. They provide legislators with the economic and social justifications to water down proposed legislation further. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1540

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the vault’s claims about how concentrated private interests and plausible-sounding justifications shape policy outcomes — the ‘economic and social justifications’ line parallels how Cooper/authoritarianism claims describe rationalized self-interest masquerading as principle. — connects to: Insurance-company lobbyists dressed up compensation-law gutting as reform — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 557
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1540