Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by a public official usually to pass or defeat a piece of legislation. Lobbyists are hired by a special interest group to represent their interests to Congress. All kinds of groups hire lobbyists from corporations, private companies,nonprofits and unions to try and persuade people in government to pass legislation that’s favorable to them.
There is nothing wrong with lobbying in its purest form. Lobbying encourages people to play an active role in their government. It’s protected by the First Amendment as a right “to petition the government.”
The problem is when lobbyists use money to buy influence with our politicians. Lobbyists today give millions of dollars to the people in Congress. They’ve become dependent on money from lobbyists to fund their political careers. Congress ends up passing laws to keep the lobbyists and their clients happy, instead of laws that benefit the American people. Those of us who can’t afford to hire a lobbyist or make big campaign contributions are out of luck.
You can’t just give a congressman or woman $100,000 because that would be considered a bribe. If this was to happen it has the great potential to lead to corruption, so it’s illegal. Instead, companies hire a lobbying firm. The lobbyist can now have a fundraiser and collect $100,000 for the senator’s campaign, then hand deliver a check to him or her without breaking a law.
Now how do we fix a problem like this? To do so, we must make it possible for all Americans to contribute to the candidates of their choice. This will drown out the voices of the few who can spend millions of dollars to influence our politicians. One of my favorites for President this year Andrew Yang had a brilliant idea.
He wanted to provide Americans with vouchers they can donate to political campaigns. Every American would’ve gotten $100 a year to give to candidates in federal, state, or local races. If you didn’t use the money then you would lose it. He calls these Democracy Dollars. The sheer volume of the US population would drown out the influence of big corporations.
Imagine running for office when every American has $100 to give to a single candidate. Just 10,000 supporters could mean $1 million for your campaign. Once elected, you could act primarily in the interest of the people you represent, which is what’s supposed to happen instead of pleasing wealthy donors and corporations. We’d all be better off if politicians only needed to worry about representing the people that elected them.
Big corporations shouldn’t run this country, it belongs to the people. There’s no point in voting if our politicians can be bought. Money can be a dangerous thing if used wrong but it can also be a great thing if used right. I just strongly disagree with this form of lobbying.
I have put a video below that may help you get the concept of lobbyists and what they do a little better.
https://represent.us/action/is-lobbying-good-or-badis-lobbying-good-or-bad/
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