>What's the fundamental difference between a lobbyist for a cause you like "save the whales" and a cause you don't like "make noncompetes enforceable"? The dif

>What's the fundamental difference between a lobbyist for a cause you like "save the whales" and a cause you don't like "make noncompetes enforceable"? The difference is money. Lobbying is effective for groups that have a lot to spend. So for almost any pro-business issue lobbying can have a strong effect. That might be ok, but there's no similarly effective mechanism to push issues that don't result in direct profits to the people that care about them. There are countless issues that are very important and should be addressed, but that don't have any direct financial beneficiaries and so are often ignored in US politics.