BrainWorms

Because the people who decide what is legal are the people who benefit from it.

Lobbying is supposed to be making your case to a politician, and hoping they vote/propose a bill/etc. With that interest in mind. You yourself are allowed to lobby your congress critters...technically.

The lobbying is not the problem. The donations that sway opinions are the problem. If it was entirely unrelated to donations and the congress person was just hearing out all sides of an issue, that's a good thing.

If you ever called or wrote a letter to your congress person about an issue you cared about you were a lobbyist when you did that.

The problem is not lobbying, the problem is pay-for-play. Something like 80%-90% of candidates who spend the most money end up winning their election. Our politicians are owned by wealthy corporate interests who fund their elections. The solution is to get money — especially corporate money — out of politics.

There are a number of policy proposals that might limit the power of money in our politics, federally funded elections, regulations for how much air time each candidate gets, perhaps bring back the fairness doctrine, just to name a few.

In theory, it's partially meant to educate politicians who cannot be experts on everything in a world where information exponentially grows, but this system has clearly been intentionally used to abuse power.

What are bribes? You mean lobbying? Totally different thing, look, the words have totally different letters!

Citizens United is one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court.

"Why are there bribes coming out of your Congress and Supreme Court, Seymour?"

"Uh! ...Ohh, those aren't bribes! It's speech! Speech from the free speech we're having. Mmmm, free speech!"

door slams "Phew"...🏃‍♂️🎼🎵🎵🎵🎶