4 ms·

And if you try to place limits on staffers, then you’ll find even more legislation being drafted by lobbyists.

• embedding-shape 10mo ago
  Outlaw lobbying/lobbyists. What's next?
  • Whoppertime 10mo ago
    This seems like an easy proposal, but I don't see many case studies of it being successfully implemented.
    • embedding-shape 10mo ago
      I can't really think of any "wholesale all lobbying forbidden", but at least for specific industries there are a couple. "WHO FCTC Article 5.3" which is about limiting the influence of tobacco companies is probably the first that comes to mind, and the most famous example. Singapore I think recently done some legislative changes around lobbying as well, but I'd confess to not knowing much about it, maybe someone here could fill out the blanks if they have the knowledge already.
  • derektank 10mo ago
    Not possible in a country with freedom of speech protections
    • embedding-shape 10mo ago
      Maybe not possible in the specific country you're thinking about, with their specific implementation of "freedom of speech", but it's hardly the only one, and not all of them are incompatible with outlawing lobbying (if the US one even is, I dunno).
    • MadameMinty 10mo ago
      Simple. Don't protect it just like sharing nuclear secrets or CSAM isn't protected.
      • derektank 10mo ago
        If you try to ban lobbying you will incidentally criminalize basically all political speech. White papers are a form of lobbying, providing testimony is a form of lobbying, running an ad campaign is lobbying, speaking with your congressional representative is lobbying.
        • MadameMinty 10mo ago
          It'd simply have to be carefully drafted policy rather than an internet comment.
          • nh23423fefe 10mo ago
            So simple it's indescribable
            • MadameMinty 10mo ago
              This notion always puzzles me. It's not a complex idea. Just like, say, banning GMO bananas. But such regulation is a whole text which may need to define or refer to definitions of "GMO" and "banana", specify what's banned, exemptions, enforcement authority, penalties, and so on. Maybe 10 pages of legalese. It requires time, expertise, research. But it's still just a ban on GMO bananas. Or a programmed UI button to show a message. Simple. The specifics of the execution are a separate matter. It's not "indescribable", but no one will describe it to you ad hoc and expecting it is silly.
      • nh23423fefe 10mo ago
        What's "it"? Speaking in public?
        • deleted 10mo ago
  • constantcrying 10mo ago
    Running a government and banning the representatives of your economy from talking to you is insanely stupid. There is absolutely nothing wrong with lobbying, it is an essential part of the government and can not be legislated away, without crippling the entire country.
  • gmane 10mo ago
    I have questions here, a lot of lobbying is done by: a) trade organizations (we're all the onion farmers in Nebraska and want to make sure the Nebraska legislature doesn't pass laws that negatively impact us and promote laws that help us) and b) activist organizations (we're a coalition of organizations that protect water usage in the Mississippi delta and want to pass laws that promote conservation in those states) Those groups often choose to retain professional lobbyists but will also send groups of interested parties to lobby who are not professional lobbyists. Do you also ban trade organizations and activist organizations in this case? Do you carve out exceptions for them and just ban the "freelance" lobbyists? Most lobbying is meeting with legislators and talking with them about issues, educating them. How do you ban that without making legislators effectively useless (or if you're cynical, even more useless)?
• jaggederest 10mo ago
  Well, to be fair, I would also be in favor of banning lobbying entirely, which I recognize is also problematic - then you have laws being written based on sub rosa back room deals, since lobbying is to a certain degree "human relationships in the context of power dynamics" aka politics.
  • kmeisthax 10mo ago
    Banning lobbying would be effectively a ban on all political speech. Because that's what lobbying is: political speech. For example, yesterday I sent a bunch of letters to my elected politicians talking about the Rio Grande Plan[0]. That makes me a Rio Grande Plan lobbyist. Louis Rossmann spent several years traveling across-country to speak about right-to-repair[1] laws. That makes him a right-to-repair lobbyist. What we actually are angry about is the presence of money in politics. American political campaigns burn money like nothing else, which is akin to being in a government meeting where everyone is shouting over one another, like to the point where people are bringing in loudspeakers and megaphones. If that example were a real situation, it would be entirely legal to go and have police officers take away the megaphones, and tell people to quiet down and take their turn. But because money is involved, SCOTUS says that, no, shouting over everyone else with a big pile of cash is TOTALLY protected speech. Any money at all that is to effect political speech is inherently protected. And so we have campaign seasons that burn billions of dollars, and people who are basically not listened to, because all the anti-bribery law that was supposed to stop the election fundraising arms race got thrown out over a decade ago. [0] A citizen-led plan to reactivate Salt Lake City's historic train station and reroute our regional rail service over to it. [1] Laws that would make it easier to purchase repair parts for broken electronics and prohibit the use of digital locks to prevent the repair of said electronics.