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Every time this topic comes up, I wonder why lobbying is legal. Can anyone give me a good explanation? The only one I've really heard is "lobbying is free speec

Every time this topic comes up, I wonder why lobbying is legal. Can anyone give me a good explanation? The only one I've really heard is "lobbying is free speech, corporations need free speech".

skymt 16y ago
Who would outlaw lobbying? The politicians who benefit from it?
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  I realize it's unlikely to happen of course. I just wanted to know the actual arguments justifying it. Even the most corrupt politician wouldn't come out and say "I'm pro-lobbying because my good buddy Megacorp says I should be, and he's paid me an awful lot to believe that."
tdoggette 16y ago
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
jerf 16y ago
Lobbying is just a fancy word for talking to Congresspeople. Thanks to human psychology, it doesn't even have to look like the mental image many people have of the lobbyist walking in with a suitcase of cash for some major cash transfer in the law. All you have to do is spend time with the Congressperson until their hindbrain decides you are "one of theirs", and then even if they don't consciously steer things your way they will subconsciously steer them your way. How do you outlaw that? What are you going to do, cloister your Congressperson in their office and forbid them from seeing people? It's actually a big part of their job. Are you going to say that if a Congressperson is considering a certain regulation of a certain industry, under no circumstances should they ever talk to anyone with any connection to that industry? As stupid as law may sometimes be today, that would actually be even stupider. Yeah, sometimes it does devolve into the suitcase scenario but really that's quite unsubtle.
- JonnieCache 16y ago
  >How do you outlaw that? You don't. We change the societal web of incentives such that the people who become legislators are capable of making the distinction between unethical lobbying and their role as representatives on their own. The people we're getting right now sometimes seem cognitively unable to draw this distinction at all. EDIT: And how do we do that, I hear you cry? We'll what we're doing right now is a good start. Capitalists, entrepreneurs and some might say downright greedy people having loud, public conversations questioning and debating the role of private business in government, and vice-versa. If this keeps happening, the meme that perhaps such unrestrained lobbying might be harmful will permeate mainstream culture, and when the politicians of the future are preparing their campaign platforms, personal ethical responsibility in their relationship to industry will be at the top of their minds, because they perceive them to be at the top of the minds of those who will be voting for them. Obviously it is too ambitious to expect politicians to act selflessly. Therefore we must make it in their interests to act ethically. And run-on-sentences. Those help too.
  - jimmyk 16y ago
    It's not just an old adage that power corrupts.
    - JonnieCache 16y ago
      So let's make ethical exercising of power a route to greater power. Hello feedback loop.
      - jimmyk 16y ago
        It would be great if that worked, but it's not like this is the first time corruption in government has been an issue and it's not the first time people have tried to get rid of it either. It comes back as soon as the public stops watching closely.
        JonnieCache 16y ago
anamax 16y ago
> I've really heard is "lobbying is free speech, corporations need free speech". Is it bad if I write a letter or talk with my congress critter? How about if I put up a sign? How about if you and I get together to do so? Corporations are voluntary aggregations of people.
- sethg 16y ago
  Actually, a corporation is an entity empowered by law to do certain things (e.g., shield its owners from personal liability) that a mere aggregation of people cannot do. The Supreme Court majority in the Citizens United case missed this important distinction. I think it’s possible to draw logical and constitutional lines between ¶ 100 people writing letters to their Congresscritters advocating for the same policy ¶ a manager of a corporation (with 100 shareholders) writing Congresscritters to advocate for some policy (that not all 100 shareholders think is a good idea) ¶ a corporation hiring a lobbyist to be its permanent advocate in Washington
  - anamax 16y ago
    > a manager of a corporation (with 100 shareholders) writing Congresscritters to advocate for some policy (that not all 100 shareholders think is a good idea) Actually, those shareholders do think that it's a good idea because they've continued to be shareholders. > corporation hiring a lobbyist to be its permanent advocate in Washington That's just like me than me writing a letter every day.
davetufts 16y ago
The problem is not lobbying. A lobbyist should be free to ask a member of Congress if their organization can have a tax break. The problem is the Congressman who grants the tax break. We need to stop thinking of our representatives as innocent victims of lobbyist culture.
- borism 16y ago
  This is an interesting chicken-and-egg question we had not so long before - is it legislature or is it business that produces corruption? The answer is not black and white and depends on jurisdiction.
  - davetufts 16y ago
    I think it's incredibly black & white. It must be the legislators. They are the ones with power to pass laws. Even if businesses "encourage" (not "produce") corruption, the law makers must have some control over their own actions, right? Why don't defense contracts lobby Dennis Kucinich? Why doesn't Monsanto lobby Ron Paul? If there were 535 legislators who respected the constitution, there wouldn't be a lobbying industry.
    - borism 16y ago
      The corporations control both fiscal (tax revenue) and political (jobs) levers of the legislature. The politicians in the US (or most democratic countries for that matter) cannot simply say no to the money from large multinationals. Especially in the US where any interference with the business e.g. nationalisation is considered communist taboo topic.
      - davetufts 16y ago
        You're missing the core point. The politician doesn't need to say no to corporate money. He can, and should, say yes to all the money that any person or business wants to donate. The problem is when the politician writes into law a regulation, tariff, or rule that benefits a specific donor. I fundraise for my kid's school. A local bank, ABC Savings, makes a considerable donation. There's no expectation that the school will pass a rule where we only accept students if their parents bank at ABC Savings. There's a difference between accepting campaign fundraising and quid pro quo.
Eliezer 16y ago
Because it would be impossible to make illegal effectively - that would just drive it further underground and make it even more invisible.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
The problem is not lobbying, that's a symptom. The problem is deep and multi-fold. On the one hand you have a very broken and ineffectual news media which focuses on trivialities and scandal and otherwise ignores all else. A media which has perverted the process of gaining elected office by making it unpalateable for most folks, leaving it only to career politicians and glory hounds. On the other hand you have a bloated and excessively powerful government. The increase in tax revenues, laws, and regulations in the last several generations has concentrated a great deal of power and control of money in DC and in state capitols. This excessive power invites corruption, when every business depends on the activity of congress then every business will do its best to influence congress. The only long term solution to the problem is to improve journalism (which is happening slowly) to encourage a better class of office seekers combined with a reduction in the importance of government in business and daily lives, to make it less worthwhile and less necessary for businesses to influence government.
pdx 16y ago
Imagine you are a legislator in the US. You are one of 535 people who pass the laws that effect every industry and group of the country. How arrogant would it be to assume that you can make good decisions about a certain industry or group, without actually talking to representatives from that group? Now imagine you're a key figure in an industry, such as, say, the internet industry, and you have opinions about things, such as, say, net neutrality. How foolish would it be for you not to attempt to influence the decision makers by providing them with your view of the issue? This is what lobbying is. It has nothing to do with free speech, and everything to do with information flow. You certainly would never outlaw it.
- Naga 16y ago
  Except the problem is the only people whose voices are heard in this are the rich. Telecoms can afford to do this, while the people on the other side of it don't have the time or means to.
  - gvb 16y ago
    That is not true. In years past, money helped a lot, but letters and phone calls have always had some level of effectiveness. Dollar for dollar, a letter signed by a constituent is more effective than an expensive lobbiest (it helps that the cost of letters are disproportionately low - unfortunately, it takes a lot of letters to be effective). There are a lot of "grass roots" lobbying going on for nearly free based on emails, web pages, and social media. In fact, it is so effective that many lobbiests have adopted "grass roots" mechanisms to lobby - see "astroturfing" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing.
  - ramanujan 16y ago
    A corporation is a group of people. A group will tend to be richer than a single person. And a letter from that group is probably more representative of the collective opinion of the people working there than (say) a Senator's votes are representative of their state.
    - 16y ago
joshrule 16y ago
Corporations have rights to free speech only if they are people under the law. Currently, they are, but I think there are major problems with that. It takes responsibility from those making decisions and puts it on some general body. Corporations don't make decisions, though. People make decisions. We act as individuals. France doesn't attack Britain. Soldiers in one army attack soldiers in another army. We act as individuals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodological_individualism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodological_individualism I don't agree with everything it said, but The Corporation makes some good points about how corporations as legal entities allow people to abdicate responsibility. Watch it on Youtube here: http://bit.ly/hb0wuL http://bit.ly/hb0wuL.
- ramanujan 16y ago
  Hmmm. How is that substantively different from the process of electing a representative via democracy?
  - joshrule 16y ago
    Many of the same dangers are present in democracy, especially as it degenerates into mob rule. Unless individuals bear responsibility for their own actions, we can be pretty barbaric. Witness the war brutalities committed in Vietnam or WWII when soldiers thought they could absolve themselves of responsibility by blaming the chain of command. Also, see the later chapters of Hayek's Road to Serfdom.
ramanujan 16y ago
Suppose Congress is going to pass a law. They don't realize it, but it will devastate your industry by changing the rules midgame. Think about what Ubercab ("illegal cab") or AirBnb ("illegal hotel") recently went through. Now, imagine that you can't sound the alarm. This is going to put people out of work and ruin your business, but you can't say anything. That's what it means to prohibit lobbying. To stop lobbying, you need to stop Congressmen from getting power-drunk and passing random rules and regulations that affect the economy based on something they just read in the New York Times (like the recent debit/credit thing). Companies generally don't want to lobby, they just do it as a defensive measure.
baddox 16y ago
Lobbying is a symptom of the problem that the federal government has way too much money to hand out to various states, corporations, industries, government programs, etc. The federal government as described in the Constitution should be orders of magnitude smaller than it is now, and should have orders of magnitude fewer funds to disperse. Lobbying itself shouldn't be illegal, it should just be de-incentivized by controlling the federal government's size and scope per the Constitution. This would also fix a lot of the corruption among federal representatives, who all too often are judged for the amount of booty they can bring back to their states.

Every time this topic comes up, I wonder why lobbying is legal. Can anyone give me a good explanation? The only one I've really heard is "lobbying is free speech, corporations need free speech".

skymt 16y ago

Who would outlaw lobbying? The politicians who benefit from it?

jokermatt999 16y ago
I realize it's unlikely to happen of course. I just wanted to know the actual arguments justifying it. Even the most corrupt politician wouldn't come out and say "I'm pro-lobbying because my good buddy Megacorp says I should be, and he's paid me an awful lot to believe that."

tdoggette 16y ago

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

jerf 16y ago

Lobbying is just a fancy word for talking to Congresspeople. Thanks to human psychology, it doesn't even have to look like the mental image many people have of the lobbyist walking in with a suitcase of cash for some major cash transfer in the law. All you have to do is spend time with the Congressperson until their hindbrain decides you are "one of theirs", and then even if they don't consciously steer things your way they will subconsciously steer them your way. How do you outlaw that? What are you going to do, cloister your Congressperson in their office and forbid them from seeing people? It's actually a big part of their job. Are you going to say that if a Congressperson is considering a certain regulation of a certain industry, under no circumstances should they ever talk to anyone with any connection to that industry? As stupid as law may sometimes be today, that would actually be even stupider. Yeah, sometimes it does devolve into the suitcase scenario but really that's quite unsubtle.

JonnieCache 16y ago
>How do you outlaw that? You don't. We change the societal web of incentives such that the people who become legislators are capable of making the distinction between unethical lobbying and their role as representatives on their own. The people we're getting right now sometimes seem cognitively unable to draw this distinction at all. EDIT: And how do we do that, I hear you cry? We'll what we're doing right now is a good start. Capitalists, entrepreneurs and some might say downright greedy people having loud, public conversations questioning and debating the role of private business in government, and vice-versa. If this keeps happening, the meme that perhaps such unrestrained lobbying might be harmful will permeate mainstream culture, and when the politicians of the future are preparing their campaign platforms, personal ethical responsibility in their relationship to industry will be at the top of their minds, because they perceive them to be at the top of the minds of those who will be voting for them. Obviously it is too ambitious to expect politicians to act selflessly. Therefore we must make it in their interests to act ethically. And run-on-sentences. Those help too.
- jimmyk 16y ago
  It's not just an old adage that power corrupts.
  - JonnieCache 16y ago
    So let's make ethical exercising of power a route to greater power. Hello feedback loop.
    - jimmyk 16y ago
      It would be great if that worked, but it's not like this is the first time corruption in government has been an issue and it's not the first time people have tried to get rid of it either. It comes back as soon as the public stops watching closely.
      - JonnieCache 16y ago

anamax 16y ago

> I've really heard is "lobbying is free speech, corporations need free speech". Is it bad if I write a letter or talk with my congress critter? How about if I put up a sign? How about if you and I get together to do so? Corporations are voluntary aggregations of people.

sethg 16y ago
Actually, a corporation is an entity empowered by law to do certain things (e.g., shield its owners from personal liability) that a mere aggregation of people cannot do. The Supreme Court majority in the Citizens United case missed this important distinction. I think it’s possible to draw logical and constitutional lines between ¶ 100 people writing letters to their Congresscritters advocating for the same policy ¶ a manager of a corporation (with 100 shareholders) writing Congresscritters to advocate for some policy (that not all 100 shareholders think is a good idea) ¶ a corporation hiring a lobbyist to be its permanent advocate in Washington
- anamax 16y ago
  > a manager of a corporation (with 100 shareholders) writing Congresscritters to advocate for some policy (that not all 100 shareholders think is a good idea) Actually, those shareholders do think that it's a good idea because they've continued to be shareholders. > corporation hiring a lobbyist to be its permanent advocate in Washington That's just like me than me writing a letter every day.

davetufts 16y ago

The problem is not lobbying. A lobbyist should be free to ask a member of Congress if their organization can have a tax break. The problem is the Congressman who grants the tax break. We need to stop thinking of our representatives as innocent victims of lobbyist culture.

borism 16y ago
This is an interesting chicken-and-egg question we had not so long before - is it legislature or is it business that produces corruption? The answer is not black and white and depends on jurisdiction.
- davetufts 16y ago
  I think it's incredibly black & white. It must be the legislators. They are the ones with power to pass laws. Even if businesses "encourage" (not "produce") corruption, the law makers must have some control over their own actions, right? Why don't defense contracts lobby Dennis Kucinich? Why doesn't Monsanto lobby Ron Paul? If there were 535 legislators who respected the constitution, there wouldn't be a lobbying industry.
  - borism 16y ago
    The corporations control both fiscal (tax revenue) and political (jobs) levers of the legislature. The politicians in the US (or most democratic countries for that matter) cannot simply say no to the money from large multinationals. Especially in the US where any interference with the business e.g. nationalisation is considered communist taboo topic.
    - davetufts 16y ago
      You're missing the core point. The politician doesn't need to say no to corporate money. He can, and should, say yes to all the money that any person or business wants to donate. The problem is when the politician writes into law a regulation, tariff, or rule that benefits a specific donor. I fundraise for my kid's school. A local bank, ABC Savings, makes a considerable donation. There's no expectation that the school will pass a rule where we only accept students if their parents bank at ABC Savings. There's a difference between accepting campaign fundraising and quid pro quo.

Eliezer 16y ago

Because it would be impossible to make illegal effectively - that would just drive it further underground and make it even more invisible.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

The problem is not lobbying, that's a symptom. The problem is deep and multi-fold. On the one hand you have a very broken and ineffectual news media which focuses on trivialities and scandal and otherwise ignores all else. A media which has perverted the process of gaining elected office by making it unpalateable for most folks, leaving it only to career politicians and glory hounds. On the other hand you have a bloated and excessively powerful government. The increase in tax revenues, laws, and regulations in the last several generations has concentrated a great deal of power and control of money in DC and in state capitols. This excessive power invites corruption, when every business depends on the activity of congress then every business will do its best to influence congress. The only long term solution to the problem is to improve journalism (which is happening slowly) to encourage a better class of office seekers combined with a reduction in the importance of government in business and daily lives, to make it less worthwhile and less necessary for businesses to influence government.

pdx 16y ago

Imagine you are a legislator in the US. You are one of 535 people who pass the laws that effect every industry and group of the country. How arrogant would it be to assume that you can make good decisions about a certain industry or group, without actually talking to representatives from that group? Now imagine you're a key figure in an industry, such as, say, the internet industry, and you have opinions about things, such as, say, net neutrality. How foolish would it be for you not to attempt to influence the decision makers by providing them with your view of the issue? This is what lobbying is. It has nothing to do with free speech, and everything to do with information flow. You certainly would never outlaw it.

Naga 16y ago
Except the problem is the only people whose voices are heard in this are the rich. Telecoms can afford to do this, while the people on the other side of it don't have the time or means to.
- gvb 16y ago
  That is not true. In years past, money helped a lot, but letters and phone calls have always had some level of effectiveness. Dollar for dollar, a letter signed by a constituent is more effective than an expensive lobbiest (it helps that the cost of letters are disproportionately low - unfortunately, it takes a lot of letters to be effective). There are a lot of "grass roots" lobbying going on for nearly free based on emails, web pages, and social media. In fact, it is so effective that many lobbiests have adopted "grass roots" mechanisms to lobby - see "astroturfing" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing.
- ramanujan 16y ago
  A corporation is a group of people. A group will tend to be richer than a single person. And a letter from that group is probably more representative of the collective opinion of the people working there than (say) a Senator's votes are representative of their state.
  - 16y ago

joshrule 16y ago

Corporations have rights to free speech only if they are people under the law. Currently, they are, but I think there are major problems with that. It takes responsibility from those making decisions and puts it on some general body. Corporations don't make decisions, though. People make decisions. We act as individuals. France doesn't attack Britain. Soldiers in one army attack soldiers in another army. We act as individuals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodological_individualism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodological_individualism I don't agree with everything it said, but The Corporation makes some good points about how corporations as legal entities allow people to abdicate responsibility. Watch it on Youtube here: http://bit.ly/hb0wuL http://bit.ly/hb0wuL.

ramanujan 16y ago
Hmmm. How is that substantively different from the process of electing a representative via democracy?
- joshrule 16y ago
  Many of the same dangers are present in democracy, especially as it degenerates into mob rule. Unless individuals bear responsibility for their own actions, we can be pretty barbaric. Witness the war brutalities committed in Vietnam or WWII when soldiers thought they could absolve themselves of responsibility by blaming the chain of command. Also, see the later chapters of Hayek's Road to Serfdom.

ramanujan 16y ago

Suppose Congress is going to pass a law. They don't realize it, but it will devastate your industry by changing the rules midgame. Think about what Ubercab ("illegal cab") or AirBnb ("illegal hotel") recently went through. Now, imagine that you can't sound the alarm. This is going to put people out of work and ruin your business, but you can't say anything. That's what it means to prohibit lobbying. To stop lobbying, you need to stop Congressmen from getting power-drunk and passing random rules and regulations that affect the economy based on something they just read in the New York Times (like the recent debit/credit thing). Companies generally don't want to lobby, they just do it as a defensive measure.

baddox 16y ago

Lobbying is a symptom of the problem that the federal government has way too much money to hand out to various states, corporations, industries, government programs, etc. The federal government as described in the Constitution should be orders of magnitude smaller than it is now, and should have orders of magnitude fewer funds to disperse. Lobbying itself shouldn't be illegal, it should just be de-incentivized by controlling the federal government's size and scope per the Constitution. This would also fix a lot of the corruption among federal representatives, who all too often are judged for the amount of booty they can bring back to their states.