So I don't think it - or a number of other socially corrosive aspects of the American political system - is likely to change without an amendment that would be extremely difficult to pass.
Do I, an individual citizen, have a right to petition my elected representatives?
Do I, an individual citizen, have a right to organize with fellow citizens to petition my elected representatives?
Do I, an individual citizen, who owns a business, have a right to organize with fellow citizens who own similar businesses to petition my representatives?
The problem with lobbying is a fundamental issue with representative democracy, not with the American political system. Lobbying by monied interests is simply more overt in the American system. I can't think of a Western democracy where industry interests don't have a huge say in the legislative and even executive processes. From the perspective of the politician, they are looking out for their constituents by helping out industrial interests, because in their eyes, that means jobs and development.
I agree there is a huge problem with the outsized influence of industry in the political realm, but I think it's a very complicated problem to untangle. The only way we have to fight it is to organize ourselves, which is usually extremely difficult.
And maybe this is a bug in the system, but trying to fix it has some truly scary question marks attached.
So a group "Whigs for America" pooling donations is fine, but a for-profit corporation spending millions on lobbying would not be fine.
The difference being that the former group is a non-profit collection of people concerned about some aspect of government.
Whereas when for-profit entities funnel millions into lobbying, and we get profit-oriented results like this http://abcnews.go.com/Business/turbotax-lobbies-lawmakers-ta...
Various Supremes expanded the notion that corporations are people, that money equals speech, and so forth. So many ways to rig the game in favor of capital (over democracy).
As an optimist, I predict the plutocrats will demand public financing of campaigns when they realized they're wasting their money. The money chase is an arms race with ever diminishing returns.
In the early USA it was considered antithetical to democracy precisely because it gives a great advantage to people with the financial resources to hire a lobbyist. So for over 200 years now, the word "lobbying" has already had a particular definition in the context of the money=speech debate. I don't think that trying to redefine the the term in the way you propose makes your point so much as it hinders it by muddying the waters.
You underestimate the will and anger of the American people.
one of which will be to drastically limit actions possible for lobbyists
and then that generation of newly politically-aware young adults will have to tackle that
I think its a pursuable solution to address today's problem to get a better reflection of what American people want
The National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys actively lobbies for drug law reform, sentencing reform, and against civil forfeiture, mandatory minimums, the death penalty, and overcriminalization: https://www.nacdl.org/criminal-defense/death-penalty. [1] They're on the front lines of trying to reform the justice system, and your proposal would silence them (because you could just as easily say they "benefit" from those reforms because their clients do).
[1] And the bar as a whole is probably way to the left of the average person on criminal justice issues.
I'd love to see all of these organizations lobby for laws that are likely to result in overall decreases in inmate counts, and/or lower sentences.
The EFF, in contrast, has no such conflict of interest. Any organization which does not take government money is just a consumer of government services. Their interest is the same as everyone else's - encouraging the government to do the best job possible.
From the above comment:
>bail bond companies, criminal defense attorneys
>any company that derives most of its revenue from selling goods or services to ... inmates, or criminal defendants
All of those take no government money in the strictest sense.
Strictly speaking, you can be a non-profit without any special tax treatment.
And yes, a world where criminal laws are not able to be influenced by people that will profit from them is definitely one I want to live in.
If we can't, and Verizon/Cox also can't (they also have a conflict), who is left? People who either don't care or lack enough knowledge of the issue to make reasonable policy recommendations?
(Or anyone at the receiving end of military action, for that matter)
The point is that drawing a line between lobbying that affects prisons (nevermind a distinction between federal, local, and other institutions of incarceration) and lobbying that affects anything else can be a largely arbitrary affair.
Criminal laws are by far the most invasive laws we have on the books, and because of that they deserve special protections against those that would seek to exploit them.