How do you practically ban lobbying without removing the ability of private citizens to directly interact with the legislature? There are good reasons to allow groups of people to get together and pay someone to go hassle congress on their behalf. Regular people are busy with their own lives after all, and most of them live far away from Washington. And sometimes you want to complain to a representative from outside of you own district, because they're sponsoring legislation that would hurt you, or blocking legislation that would help you.
You could limit the amount of money you can make via lobbying. If it was illegal to make more than $1 MM a year through lobbying, suddenly the playing field would be significantly more level. If a corporation can pay you $1 MM and a group of citizens can pay you the same, suddenly you care more about the message than the receipt. And the majority of ultra-rich lobbyists will do something else, because that's not nearly enough money to interest them.
I'm not a fan of limiting salaries in general and I do not believe this is a good solution, but I believe it's likely to be better than the current situation. This is just me spitballing on a whim, having put approximately 60 seconds of thought into a solution. Hopefully people more informed will reply with better solutions or an informed explanation of what's wrong with my idea.
You write the laws to apply to companies but not private citizens. A major owner of a pharma company could still lobby privately as themselves, but at least they'd be paying taxes on that expense rather than having it hidden as a corporate writeoff.
(And before anyone chimes in with "but corporations are just groups of private citizens" - they're explicitly not. Corporations are fundamentally defined by having a charter from the government to reduce the owners' liability, and thus we would expect them to incur additional regulations)
I imagine CEOs would just lobby privately and in person then, but pay a team to do all of the other leg work. This is trickier issue than people popularly imagine.
Influencing the leaders of a global super power is incredibly valuable, and lots of people want to do it for a lot of reasons.
In your proposal, would you ban NGOs, non-profits, and unions from lobbying? Why or why not?
If the CEO were paid an extra $10M salary so they could turn around and personally spend it on a lobbying firm, that would at least reduce the efficiency of said lobbying by 37%.
The biggest issue is the complete lack of reporting, and anything that pushes the money flows more into the open (your hypothetical CEO is then personally responsible) is a step forward. Take a look at the stark difference between campaign finance reporting for individual candidates, and everything else.
Your last bit is a loaded question. If an entity's business is lobbying, then obviously they can engage in lobbying. But they could only be funded by individuals, not companies whose business is other-than-lobbying.
My point is that NGOs, non-profits, unions, and other voluntary groups aren’t primarily about lobbying but may want to increase their members’ voice by lobbying, e.g. environmental groups.
I did get your point. The obvious solution is to split into two entities, one that does the lobbying and can only accept personal dollars and one that accepts corporate donations and does no lobbying. This is the third non-issue you've brought up as if it were some kind of blocker. Prohibiting corporations from donating to individual campaigns is something that is already done. It just needs to be expanded to all lobbying.
My point is that lobbying isn’t some magical activity, it’s just petitioning the government. Anyone being governed should probably be able to voice comply about how they’re being governed. Corporations aren’t some magical thing,and most aren’t the giant entities people imagine.
Do I think lobbyists should write legislation? No. Do I think congress should be able to break encryption without ever tech company sending someone to educate them on their stupidity? Also no.
I think there are some controls we could put on lobbying but it’s useful.
If Congress still allowed floor votes and amendments to bills, lobbying would be far less clandestine and effective. Right now lobbyists just have to target congressional leadership and key committees. Congress in an effort to clamp down on the legislative process and protect its members from controversial ores has made the process more vulnerable.
You're the one referencing "magic". The main thing I'm getting from your response is the standard retort whenever anybody complains about the problems arising from corporate scale - "but anyone can start a corporation". This is technically true, but completely dodges that issue of scale. If there were non-incorporated groups of thousands of people coming together and doing similar things we would need different criteria, but there are not.
As for the encryption topic, then perhaps the scope of anti-lobbying should include government agencies as well. I certainly don't trust big tech to defend my personal digital rights, and the fact that we're looking to them to be our saviors is itself a major problem. They seem to be aligned with us at the moment, but ultimately mandated communications escrow would be another competitive moat for them. I expect that to shift if there is a serious move (back) to p2p apps.
I agree on the congressional process, but not to the exclusion of other approaches.
We could start by banning political campaign funding from corporations and unions.
I took a look at a handful of western democracies and they all either banned or drastically curtailed this. People need to be in control of their government, and that includes campaign funding.
"Lobbying" is legitimising bribes from corporations politicians. It is as simple as that.
If USA wants to change the game (they don't) they can ban all corporate donations (aka legalized bribing), allow only donations by individuals, and then impose/enforce a limit of $10-25-50k per person (or something reasonable). Anyone playing tricks to game that rule get a penalty of x20 the excessive amount donated (e.g. via others). Also put all donations in public record. As simple as that.
It makes no sense to me that you (USA) spent $14bn [0] on this election.
If by "Lobby" you mean bring their arguments forward in a discussion, well that's the objective of freedom and democracy (you speak - you are heard - majority decides).
If you mean that EFF will donate $5m which will inadvertently alter what logic dictates and demands.. then yes block EFF too from bribing politicians and political parties in the guise of "lobbying".
If we'd ban lobbying we could have laws against companies that show nothing but utter disdain for life.