If you don't see any difference between advocacy (on your own dime) and literally handing a check to a person with regulatory power over your commercial interes

If you don't see any difference between advocacy (on your own dime) and literally handing a check to a person with regulatory power over your commercial interests, then you are well and truly lost to reason. So I guess we're not going to discuss this like adults? Like I wrote, I am no fan of money in politics, but if there is money in politics, there is always going to be a way to use that money to the advantage of someone else, by means other than "literally handing a check to a person with regulatory power over your commercial interests" - the only way to prevent that is take money entirely out of politics, but that does affect free speech. Truly independent political speech is one thing. The current reality is something else. Agreed. Now, how to you get one without the other without impacting one's right to free expression?