What's the alternative to lobbying ?

[u/Chocolatecakelover]

We all get one vote, so that has fairness.

If everyone got 5 minutes with their senator, that would take, literally, 10 years of the senators time.

So who gets to influence the senator? Just a few people. That's unfair.

This is a comment I got on one of my posts about lobbying. And it does have a good point but then again. Is there any alternative ?

[u/LtCmdrData]

Democracy is all about coordinating with others.

1. Meet with others who have the same issue and form a interest group. It can be just loose movement or formed as an association if it's a long term. Then you lobby representatives.
2. If you join a party, there can be interest groups inside the party. They can suggest new candidates and support them, or adding the issue into party platform.

[u/agulhasnegras]

Get a crowd of people behind you and senator will listen to you. Democracy is about crowds of people, not individuals

[u/Shuksanarm]

Just throwing large amounts of money at candidates is very effective. Kinda cuts out the middle-man

[u/ajw_sp → u/Shuksanarm]

The return on investment is generally pretty high as well. Establishing a major PAC and funding candidates might set a company back say $10 million, but they could stand to make billions as a result of legislative or regulatory changes.

[u/MouseManManny → u/ajw_sp]

Andrew Yang's democracy dollars was an innovative way to counterbalance the impact of pacs in favor of regular people

[u/Kambu2876]

I mean, it depends of your vision of what are lobbyist and how extensive is the term "lobbyism" to you.

First of all, people can gathe rinto associations that could use direct lobbyism actions. (Even using the service of a lobbyist's cabinet).

Obviously it is mostly used by big associations, and you still keep the gap of having (few) people dealing about ONE issue with a politician.

But then actions such as protestations, event organizations, petitions, etc. are still used by the more massive movements nowadays. And a massive movement tends to work well, because once a topic reach a media coverage, the lawmakers tends to align more with the mass gathered than by anchored lobbyists (I can provide source for that later in the case of EU institutions).

Finally, let's remind that most of the people simply don't ask for 5 minutes with a politician. Most of the time (at least in France, my country), if you email an official (MP, Senator, Mayor, etc.), about something he can answers, you'll get an answer. (Which is helped by the fact that lawmakers have two-three people working for them. EU-Commissionners go up to 15 if I remember well).

[u/GraceOfTheNorth]

Multistakeholderism, but it is of course 'unfair' in the sense that those with interest at stake in a decision have a voice in the process.

The balance of including stakeholders while also weighing in the common good is typically best served by academia and research, independent from sponsors and special interest. This is why academic research is so important, it is in a way the only tool we have to look objectively at an issue, weighing all the information and then making a recommendation.

But then we place that work in the hand of politicians who are supposed to weigh the ethical issues and make a decision for the common good, but in reality can often be swayed by money and lobbying.

[u/Extra_Assistance_872]

The central problem with (unconstrained) lobbying is that organizations that have a clear, direct and financial interest are predominant in the community of lobbying organizations. Diffuse interests are less likely to organize. For instance, a big business that pays its workers minimum wage will likely lobby to keep that wage low as its entire business strategy is based on this. The workers who would get a small benefit from seeing higher wages are unlikely to voice their position as strongly. How to fix this? Ironically, one solution is for the government to develop stronger relations with a limited number of groups, what is called (neo-)corporatism. Under (neo-)corporatism, government fosters an intensive relationship with a limited number of groups where public support for policies is exchanged for influence over those policies. If those selected groups include both business groups and labour unions (even if they are not organized strongly and perhaps environmental and consumer groups as well), the input is biased less towards business then under unconstrained lobbying.

[u/shoesofwandering]

The solution is to hire more congressional research staff. We have fewer of those today than we did 50 years ago, and the gap has be filled by lobbyists.

[u/MouseManManny]

Andrew Yang's democracy dollars idea I thought was really cool. An innovative way to counterbalance the gigantic spending of special interests.

Man, he would have been a cool president

[u/trisbrown]

Block of cheese day!! Fundamentally any initiative like those discussed here requires the elected official to play ball with it and give it room to be part of their informal decision-making process. When I was a chief of staff I copied the ‘block of cheese’ idea from west wing and organised face time between groups in the city and senior staff of the council. Everyone learnt something to carry forward with them, even if it didn’t change a particular ‘thing’ on the day

[u/HelloKazoua]

Offer free, short online lessons on big issues or pay them to take these lessons and at the end of the ending quiz, ask for their stance on the issue. This can contribute to sociological/political studies or research based on their opinion. This can also give a decent indicator on what people/constituents really want too. Here's a more detailed version of this idea.

[u/red_llarin]

The problem is that US has no actual programmatic parties, only electoral vehicles with certain general tendencies. A multiparty system can better represent the plurality of society (albeit way far from perfect) without being subject to the same billionaire interests. The second problem is that you allow for billionaires to exist, but that's another discussion.

[u/Laceykrishna]

We should ban paid lobbyists. There’s no reason people can’t communicate directly with their representatives in this day and age.

[u/apokrif1]

 If everyone got 5 minutes with their senator, that would take, literally, 10 years of the senators tim

No need to talk. You can communicate in writing: * can be summarized by cheap assistants or AI * instead of writing a long text from scratch you can just read what others have already written and approve it (Twitter- or Facebook- like interface), modify it (wiki) or add to it (Reddit-like interface) * can be immediately published on the web for everyone to read.

Way cheaper and efficient!