Lobbying is how businesses talk to government. And I get that that sounds nasty—and sometimes it is nasty—-but it’s necessary.
Most of us work for businesses and when a rule comes out that legitimately threatens your business, you want to be able to tell the government in realtime.
Remember the rule change to the amortization of software expenses, which inadvertently would have killed thousands of software companies? Well, a big push from businesses got the rule amended and eventually removed, which is better for everyone. That’s lobbying.
Many businesses and local governments hire people who specialize in that work due to the sheer volume (America has a lot of layers of government).
I understand why the profession has such a bad reputation. When we think of a “lobbyist” we think of Big Tobacco or Big Tax Prep Software…companies who are trying to preserve their position by paying off the right people. But for every one of those, there are a hundred companies trying to make sure the law doesn’t screw then over and a hundred local communities trying to convince their state capitol to fund their schools and parks and bridges.
What's the mechanism, if not handing people cash and benefits if they support your cause?
I think the answer to that should tell you how good or bad lobbying is.
While I’m sure this was lobbied heavily against by many companies, I don’t think that’s what did it. This was bad legislation done on purpose to poison the next administration, then undone as convenient.
"Lobbying" is a generic term for influencing a politician, and it existed well before Citizens United. Hell, corporate influence in politics also existed long before Citizens United, too.
As you pointed out, this is clearly about the type of lobbying where the politician ends up on the board of some industry group that they helped out or receives really generous PAC donations
Also, bribery isn't really "super illegal" in America. Cases like McDonnell vs. US make it so that as long as you don't go "Thank you for the bag of money, which I hereby accept in exchange for granting you, in my official capacity, that government contract you wanted, which you would not have gotten otherwise," you're pretty much in the clear.
[0]https://www.protothema.gr/files/2025-03-06/ekthesi-lobbying....
“It’s just that a bag of cash is persuasive”. Well, no shit. It’s called bribery.
TIL
>1, Populism characterized by low-quality (often gen AI) memes and conspiracy theories.
>2, Populism characterized by vague, disingenuous, or excessively idealistic claims.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slopulism
I disagree with categorization though. Or now lower quality writing will be also branded as AI generated?
now consider if that is the entire set of stakeholders
National Association of Realtors – $3,751,000
Blue Cross/Blue Shield [health insurance] – $2,705,050
American Crystal Sugar [agriculture] – $2,667,500
National Beer Wholesalers Association – $2,585,000
American Israel Public Affairs Committee – $2,572,500
Operating Engineers Union – $2,528,306
America's Credit Unions – $2,489,160
American Bankers Association – $2,249,580
Sheet Metal, Air, Rail & Transportation Union – $2,226,900
Trump 47 Committee – $2,220,530
Given this list, it’s really hard to be surprised about how America operates internally, and which businesses are sacrosanct. You could produce this list to the questions “why is real estate so expensive? Why don’t we have free healthcare? Why do we care so much about Israel? etc.”
https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs...
You can see any individual politicians and who they're funded by or see which industry funds which candidates
But now that Dark Money[0] is legal, there's limited value in these numbers
[0] https://www.brennancenter.org/topics/money-politics/influenc...
Lobbying, in practice, has turned into a form of bribery.
If you get around that principle by paying, however indirectly, it's a degree of bribery.
If only America was some kind of "representative" democracy where it was already the job of politicians to find this out.
Also, a lot of lobbying happens without money changing hands. Politicians need professional bodies and local communites for a variety of reasons. From staging campaign stops through having experts to maintain a semblance of merit all the way to filling goverment positions and actually exercising power once they win elections. Thus these various groups gain influence.
Also, you have gradient from "actual honest expert advise" to "pushing own interest while claiming to be an expert".
Not because there aren't many honest people driven by what's best for their craft or profession, there are, but these are not the kinds of people who find being a political party's talking head on a morning show, or even reviewing their political program and schmoozing with the apparatchiks, gratifying.
Less "sophisticated" countries just tend cut out the lobbyist middleman and call it what it is - bribery.
Are you prepared to go as far as to say that lobbying is necessary for good government?
That's how you can tell that lobbying is different from prostitution. In the latter, money exchange is illegal both before and after the act.