I too think public financing must be a part of the solution but the problem is so much deeper. Citizen awareness of the issues and voter participation is most critical. Promoting and insisting on ethical conduct and holding elected officials to the same standards of punishment as every other citizen is key. While at the same time we need to be more tolerant, after all every offense is not one where a head needs to roll.

No, the lobbyist is not the problem, they can be contributors to it when they use their resources to deliberately break the rule and when they exercise their right to withdraw funding from a candidate for standing on principles and making decisions that he or she believes is in the best interest of the country that are contrary to the interest of the “special interest”.

There are no easy answers here, but we need to put more power and control in the hands of an educated and engaged citizenry.

In short, “crooked” lobbyists can only be as bad or crooked as our elected officials allow them to be and the others have the right to only support those who share their beliefs or policies if you will.

Well, enough for now. I enjoyed the article. Keep up the good work.

Incidentally, I tried to make the same points to our former US Senator back in 1998, but after lots of emotional arguing I could only win a “well, we’ll have to agree to disagree” from him. But my debating skills leave a lot to be desired, so go figure.

The reality is that lobbyists, as a class of people, are not a problem. Some lobbyists, just like some non-lobbyists can be huge problems, but you have to look at the facts as circumstances of each Abramo…I mean, of each case.

The challenge is that, despite the reality, there is a public concern about “lobbyists” (whoever they are or whatever they do) that creates public attitudes about corruption, influence peddling, and general sleeze. This is made worse every election season when we try to pin negative ads that somehow tie someone to some corrpupt lobbyist somewhere. I mean, you never see any headlines about “Lobbyist saves kitty stuck in tree, ends toddler’s tears” , right?

So, keep up the good work. Be loud and proud - about lobbying - and try to change some attitudes. A little education could go a long ways.

While I may be paid to lobby, the point was that literally EVERYONE has lobbyists working on their behalf at some point or another. So it’s more than a little bit disengenous to suggest that lobbyists are a separate part of the political establishment that we can just get rid of.

And while we’re all free to make our own judgements about which side is good and bad, those judgements are really more about the cause and which side of the partisan divide you line up on, rather than being about lobbyists per se.

As for whom I lobby for, let’s just say it’s not a big corporation, and it’s on the left side of the aisle.

I had a similar experience recently when someone talking about my organization as a “special interest group”. I responded that I don’t think of an organization of 1.4 million working people as a “special interest” - I see them as constituents.

Good luck and stay away from the Harleys.

There are, of course, problems associated with lobbying. Principal among these is money, particularly campaign contributions. The large amount of money needed to run for public office is a bar to many who would run but cannot or will not because of the need to spend so much time raising money. The large campaign contributions also give an advantage to those who have easier access to large amounts of money. But money is a separate issue–albeit one that must be addressed–from lobbying.

As to whether a lobbyist is good or bad depend on who he is lobbying for–the good guys (grass roots environmental and other organizations) or the bad guys (organizations I don’t like or worse, the big bad evil corporations)

So, for whom do you lobby?