I read about an interesting proposal, it goes like this: American law has a distinction for items you can own but not buy or sell, for example a kidney. You can have a kidney, you just can't sell it and if you're lacking one, you just can't buy it. Similarly, lobbying should be classified like kidneys. You or I or anyone else has the ability to talk to our congressperson or assemble outside their office or petition them, we just can't sell that ability to anyone else. Nor can some CEO buy a 'lobbyist' or anyone else to go speak for them. The first amendment stays preserved that way.

That would bias the process in favor of rich people who can afford to spend a week hanging out in DC meeting with members of Congress.

It would do the most harm to interests that pool resources from large groups of regular folks, like unions or environmental groups.

>It would do the most harm to interests that pool resources from large groups of regular folks, like unions or environmental groups.

It harms oil lobbyists and big ag and tobacco and all those industries in exactly the same way it's going to hurt the Sierra Club. I'd still call that a win for the little guy.

>That would bias the process in favor of rich people who can afford to spend a week hanging out in DC meeting with members of Congress.

The process is already biased in favor of rich people and I don't see a reasonable way to make it not favor rich people - I'm just saying that this would favor rich people less than our current system. I prefer a system where some CEO has to actually go talk to Senators for a week than a system where a few slick-haired individuals run around the hill year round.

> It harms oil lobbyists and big ag and tobacco and all those industries in exactly the same way it's going to hurt the Sierra Club.

It would not, because under your rules an industry executive could draw a salary while talking to government officials because they would be pursuing their own self-interest in doing so. But a Sierra Club employee could not because the sole purpose of the Sierra Club is to represent the interests of other people (their members).

A rule that prohibits a person from getting paid to represent other people would hurt representative organizations (nonprofits) more than rich individuals and for-profit companies.

I think there's a misunderstanding here.

>A rule that prohibits a person from getting paid to represent other people

That's not the rule. The rule is you can't get paid to lobby. An executive drawing a salary when his job is primarily talking to congress people is obviously lobbying. To put a finer point on it you're making a distinction between (1) a corporate executive who receives compensation from his corporation speaking to a congress person because it is in his personal interest to advance the interests of his corporation and (2) a Sierra Club executive who receives compensation from the Sierra Club speaking to a congress person because it is in his personal interest to advance the interests of the Sierra Club. They're the same thing, if one is affected so is the other.

The business person is not getting paid to lobby. They are getting paid because they are a salaried employee with paid time off, so they get paid regardless of what they do.

Meanwhile the entire purpose of advocacy organizations like the Sierra Club is to lobby. So if they can't pay people to lobby, they have no reason to raise money, and no way to spend money if they do raise any. Under a rule that prohibits getting paid to lobby, orgs like the Sierra Club simply cannot exist at all. There's no business model.

Anyway, the law is crystal clear that such a rule would be unconstitutional. People don't give up their rights just because they pool resources or get paid. Paul Krugman and David Brooks still have free speech rights even when they're getting paid to write columns.

>Meanwhile the entire purpose of advocacy organizations like the Sierra Club is to lobby. So if they can't pay people to lobby, they have no reason to raise money, and no way to spend money if they do raise any. Under a rule that prohibits getting paid to lobby, orgs like the Sierra Club simply cannot exist at all. There's no business model.

Then they do the same thing and go do it on their vacation. To me it seems obvious that the money for lobbying exchange that happens in our society benefits the wealthy more than anyone else so ending it is good. It moves the power dynamic from one where lobbying power is determined by money to one where lobbying power is determined by manpower. Now obviously it doesn't completely shift that dynamic by itself but it seems like a vital reform among others.

>Anyway, the law is crystal clear that such a rule would be unconstitutional. People don't give up their rights just because they pool resources or get paid. Paul Krugman and David Brooks still have free speech rights even when they're getting paid to write columns.

No it's not because it's not limiting your speech, it's limiting your ability to get paid for speaking. Like with the kidney example - our laws against buying/selling a kidney don't make having a kidney illegal - you can walk around all day with a kidney - you just can't sell it. Same thing with my rule - you can speak to congresspeople all day, you just can't get paid for it.

So the people who are the most articulate, beautiful, connected, and who have the free time will be successful lobbying for their own interests, but won't be able to rent out their time to lobby for others.

Well it's not a total fix for our broken system - there's a lot more fixes I could list here to help remove money from the political system - publically funded elections, ranked choice voting, total PAC transparency, etc. - but it would be better than what we have now which is the people with the most $$$ being successful in lobbying for their interests.

Where’s the line between lobbying and pay to play?

Ultimaist defenses of individual rights, vs balancing rights, ends up with ridiculous conclusions like “money equals speech”.

To fix is to reduce (or eliminate) the cost of campaigning. Mooting the whole problem.

I think making more issues local instead of national would help. As long as a few people sling around big piles of money, there will be incentives to lobby and buy influence.

I think messing around with campaign spending has similar issues to getting rid of lobbying. But making campaigns smaller and cheaper (by making local campaigns more important) could do the trick.