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Aside from the fact that many countries have ways of limiting lobbyist influence through law, a simple but dramatic way would be to say:

0. Lobbying is a right, but one that can only be exercised by individual citizens, not corporations.

1. Anyone who wishes to "lobby" congressional candidates or congresspersons must register their financial interests

2. Make it illegal to directly accept money for lobbying services (akin to prostitution)

Sure, it wouldn't make lobbying impossible - but it would make it much harder.

> 1. Anyone who wishes to "lobby" congressional candidates or congresspersons must register their financial interests

Under the terms of the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, anyone who spends 20% or more of their work time lobbying the Federal government already has to register themselves, and disclose both the clients they lobby on behalf of and any expenses they incur as part of their lobbying activities. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_Disclosure_Act_of_199... for more information.)

Many states also have similar laws in place regarding lobbying of state officials, though obviously the details will vary depending on what state you're in.

> 0. Lobbying is a right, but one that can only be exercised by individual citizens, not corporations.

So charities and environmental groups can't lobby? Lobbying for them means designating a representative. How is that any different from what corporations are doing? They just happen to have deeper pockets.

Furthermore, the fact that they have deep pockets is actually important. It means they reflect an important aspect of the economy, so ignoring their interests could also have detrimental economic effects.

It's not nearly as simple as you're portraying.

> Furthermore, the fact that they have deep pockets is actually important. It means they reflect an important aspect of the economy, so ignoring their interests could also have detrimental economic effects.

This embeds the idea that someone making more money has a right to a larger voice than someone that doesn't. - In my "if the world were simple" dreams I'd say something like "every voter can spend $200 - any lobbying group or corp can spend that $200 IN THEIR NAME, but then no one else, including that voter, can. Corps/groups can still raise money and represent their members (who don't have to each spend that money) but it doesn't make a small group of wealthy voters look like a big group of voters. The groups/corps would have to make sure they represented the views of their members, or those members would start revoking their permissions."

Of course, the world isn't that simple, but that sums up my views on money in politics.

> This embeds the idea that someone making more money has a right to a larger voice than someone that doesn't

I don't see how. I just said their opinion shouldn't be ignored, which is what the OP was suggesting by banning corporations which represent large groups of shareholders and employees.

Corporations do not represent employees.

Except they do. Politicians know that making business more difficult will affect employment.

>This embeds the idea that someone making more money has a right to a larger voice than someone that doesn't.

No, it's a signal that you might be proposing an economically destructive policy. You're not required to listen to lobbyists or take their suggestions.

>So charities and environmental groups can't lobby?

They could create form letters for their members to email their representatives.

Some charities I belong to operate this way.

Obviously Comcast could do this too but I don't think they'd be successful getting real people to lobby on their behalf.

>Furthermore, the fact that they have deep pockets is actually important. It means they reflect an important aspect of the economy, so ignoring their interests could also have detrimental economic effects.

The fact that they have deep pockets means that they can broadcast their message more easily so they have an inbuilt advantage. There's no reason not to compensate for that.

> Obviously Comcast could do this too but I don't think they'd be successful getting real people to lobby on their behalf.

You might be surprised; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing for the way it's usually done.

I'm sure they'd try. Astroturfing is already illegal and not all that difficult to uncover though.

>So charities and environmental groups can't lobby?

Incase you didn’t know, all tax-exempt charitable organisations are already severely limited in how they’re allowed to engage in politics. They’re never allowed to endorse candidates, or directly or indirectly campaign for them.

So a Union could not lobby then in your world.

No, but the union could ask their members to lobby on behalf of themselves toward a common goal. As long as that lobbying isn't a requirement for membership or influence in the org, I see no problem with that.

> 0. Lobbying is a right, but one that can only be exercised by individual citizens, not corporations.

A "corporation" isn't a thing that exists in the world. They don't have mouths, and can't speak, so it makes no sense to outlaw their ability to use the mouth that they don't have.

There are people in the world. As well as groups of people.

A corporation is merely the pural of person. Each person in that corporation, whether employee, or owner, should have the same speech rights as any other individual.

This argument is facile. There's an obvious and clear difference between a person representing their own interests and a person paid by a corporation specifically to advance its interests.

At least the agent representing the corporation knows who its master is. The interests are aligned.

Unlike with our our elected representatives. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...)

It's not a difference which is easy to legislate without unintended consequences (people's own interests frequently overlap with those of their employer, and most people with informed opinions on the implications of a policy are in employed in areas not unlinked to that policy).

What is facile is to argue that a law which simply bans corporations from hiring people describing themselves as lobbyists or government relations professionals will have any real world effect, or to pretend that there are no possible downsides from legislation which might prevent organisations like the EFF from existing or ensure that healthcare professionals are unable to make representations about healthcare to politicians.

It would be entirely possible to write campaign finance laws so that organizations like the EFF can only be funded by private donations and not by corporations, if they want to make campaign contributions or run "issue" advertising. I don't really see what unintended consequences you're referring to. The problem with getting corporate money out of politics is that the people getting it wouldn't like that, not that the law would be difficult to craft in a fair way.

Just outlaw legislation written by lobbyists. If Congressmen have to do the actual work of writing, it would end up being simpler than the specially crafted 500pg bills nobody reads. It isn't too much to ask elected officials to do the work they signed up for.

Something that stuck with me from law school was that frequently when students raised the point that a law could be written far more simply, the professor would walk through the language they suggested and basically always the simplest formulation was absolutely shot through with loopholes, and as you close the obvious loopholes one by one, you end up with language that looks just like the statute as written, or you end up with a law that doesn’t accomplish the same thing.

What you are saying is quite interesting: basically if lawmakers need to have the skill of writing laws, then it means that they must be very educated in law matters. Lawyers, basically, which makes a lot of sense. But on the other hand if you restrict congressmanship (is that a word?) to such a small and biased sample of the population, how are they supposed to understand the actual problems of the population at large?

It is the very problem of representative democracy: elected officials need to form an elite of superior intelligence and ability to comprehend the world, yet at the same time be firmly grounded in the reality of everyday people to understand their problems and represent them...

>elected officials need to form an elite of superior intelligence and ability to comprehend the world

This is much less of a problem if you can hold down scope-creep on the role and responsibilities of government.

Would it really be unconstitutional? The right of petition cannot abrogated, but surely one can outlaw the exchange of political favors for money or other forms of compensations.

Yes, actually showing that political favors were exchanged for money is tricky, but still, it's better than nothing and it changes the whole discussion from "it's the system" to "who's doing something bad and hiding it?".

> outlaw the exchange of political favors for money or other forms of compensations

?

This is already illegal. It's generally termed "corruption".

I guess you could say lobbying legalizes a portion of what is understood as corruption. (Not everything, obviously.) Under the guise of "defending special interests", or something similar.

You shouldn't be allowed to finance people whose decision you stand to profit from.

I guess the only "simple" way to solve this is to outlaw the private financing of politicians and their campaign. It should all be public money. Not that easy to operationalize (almost nothing of interest is), but feasible, desirable and fair I reckon.

>it should be illegal for you to air your grievances to elected officials?

Doing it for money - yes, that should be illegal.

You mean acting as a paid representative on someone else's behalf to stand before a government official? Isn't that what lawyers do?

Isn't that what politicians do?

It was initially where I was going to go with this, but as I thought through the argument the recursion caused a stack overflow in my brain.

What are you trying to say with that?

I'm saying that "airing grievances" "for money" has prior art. I'm a busy person, and the opinion stated says that it should be illegal for me to hire a person to represent my views before, say, a congressperson. Or it should be illegal to hire a person more eloquent than myself to state my case; a professional, as it were. We hire lawyers because navigating the law is difficult. Should we not also be allowed to hire professionals as we take part in the making of those same laws?

In small claims court you can't be represented by a lawyer for example. Both - being represented and representing - aren't constitutional rights. So it is up to society whether to allow or prohibit it in various cases.

I still fail to see your point. A lobbyist still has a fundamentally different job than a lawyer, and they both use fundamentally different tactics to reach fundamentally different goals.

They don't have fundamentally different jobs. They are there to represent their clients' interests and advocate for them.

You can say the same about a debt collector. Thats just too broad of a statement to do anything with it.

> When you think there are simple answers to big problems it's generally because you don't actually understand the problem.

Funny. Most complex problems have simple solutions. It takes lot more effort to do it, but the simple solutions tend to stick around the longest. This is based on 10 years of work exp in top tech companies :-)

The only place when simple solutions don't work is when people have other vested interests.

> Most complex problems have simple solutions

This trope is both untrue and tired, as most cookie-cutter generalities are.

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

> unconstitutional

God forbid we think outside the realm of what the Founding Fathers wrote down.

> fly directly in the face of democracy

Except the U.S. has long been classified as a flawed democracy.

The problems you list can "simply" be solved with a comission akin to the FTC. A small business can complain to said comission which would solve the matter.

Think outside it all you wish - you will be unpleasantly surprised when your idea gets in front of courts who are bound to honor it.

The US isn't a "flawed democracy", it's intentionally not a democracy.

The US is a democracy. It's not a direct democracy. it's flawed because the system is outdated and broken.

It was a system designed to consolidate power among white landowners and to be extremely difficult to change. It's not a surprise it's got issues.

The US is a Representative Republic, which differs from a democracy in several significant ways.

It was designed to be difficult to change because democracies always fail when the majority decides the rule of law is no longer important.

A democracy and a republican are not mutually exclusive. The US is a democracy.

A representative republic is the system we have in the US, which is by definition not a democracy. They're two very different concepts, and they are mutually exclusive.

This is basic civics. It's taught, or I hope it's still taught, in grade school. It's not controversial, it's not surprising, it's fact.