I do not understand lobbying? Is it a euphemism about bribing a bunch of politicians? If yes, then why isn't it illegal? If no, then can someone please throw some light on it.
I was not born here in the US so I am always confused by what "powerful lobbyists" can do to deter someone like the chairman of FCC who can literally make the rules (right?).
However in our modern world it really is just blatant bribery. Because corporations and rich individuals are able to donate such vast amounts that they are the only ones people care about. Take a look at how much money is spent during election cycles and it's obscene how many millions are poured into running for office. All that money has to come from somewhere. Say, for arguments sake, you must raise at least $5m to have a chance of winning an election but you think you can only raise about $2m from small donations (individuals) and then a few companies come along offering you nice big money bags if you agree to support their causes. Who do you care most about?
Thanks for a nice explanation.
The big problems come when we do things like decide a multinational corporation qualifies as a person and therefor the rules around how much money a company can donate don't apply to them. And we do things like change the rules around what the limits are. And then people do things like fund PACs where they pool their resources and promote a candidate on their own without actually donating to the campaign itself directly. Some of these are just outright stupid decisions that never should have happened in the first place and others are loopholes. Campaign finance reform in the US doesn't have a single silver bullet that's going to fix everything. There's a lot of things that are wrong with it. Citizens United (the corporate personhood ruling) is probably the biggest but it's still just one problem among many.