As the media vet 2024 election candidates…
When her family needed money, Nikki Haley found a lucrative path – msn/WaPost
…”revolving doors” connecting power centers in the public and private sectors are worth watching:
“The results are striking: Senators who walk through the revolving door vote more moderately during their final two years in Congress. The change sets in abruptly during the final Congress and is larger than any shift that happens at other times. The senators that leave the labor market entirely, however, become much more extreme. Interestingly, the extremist shift among the retirees is so large that the moderation among revolvers looks very small visually. Both behavioral changes are very marked departures from previous voting patterns…
“…it is important to note that not all senators change their behavior before walking through the revolving door. The behavioral change is concentrated among the ones who have produced the least legislation and generally worked the least to see the legislation pass into law: these are the people that would be the least valuable as a lobbyist.
“Altogether, this suggests that the revolving does affect the incentive structure that legislators work within. In turn, this changes the behavior of career-concerned legislators. However, this is not necessarily undesirable from a normative perspective: While some special interest groups might gain from the final-term changes in behavior, the career incentives also induce revolvers. Furthermore, moderation among revolvers could counteract some of the extreme partisanship that is destabilizing American political institutions.”
Note what economist Robert Solow said about the political influence of money below: