Comment by throwaw12

Yes, you're right, they could just do this, and then spend the rest of their term thrown out of Congress and rotting in prison.

That is, they can hold such a lunch, but they can't pocket the money personally or even have the money contributed towards their campaign. Pocketing the money personally is just bribery, having it contribute to their campaign would violate the contribution limits (typically ~$10,000 per election max, though less than that in reality because the limit is split between primary and general).

You're right to be slightly suspicious because these lunches do exist. But they don't go to the campaign or the candidate, they can go to PACs and SuperPACs or to the party. In tern, PACs and SuperPACs cannot give this money to the candidate or the campaign (same limits as above with higher reporting requirements) and cannot coordinate campaign messaging.

This is not to say that corruption doesn't exist -- just that this simplistic form of it does not exist. You'll have to dig deeper than looking at lobbying activities to find the actual corruption, and it's usually masked in revolving door arrangements, speaking fees, and bulk sales of vanity books. But none of that can go through the typical lobbying system because it's too tightly regulated and tracked.

That's literally what 90% of lobbying is. Powerpoint presentations to Congressional staffers, econometrics research publications, policy panels and conferences, and so on. Not everything is campaign donations and super PACs.

> Why lobbyist can't just present their ideas publicly, like do a public free lessons to politicians and anyone who wants to attend

Different people (including politicians) have different priorities, assumptions, biases, etc. The argument that convinces one person won't land with someone else. The true value of a lobbyist is her ability to understand what a politician values, and present the argument that is convincing to him.

As an example: I met an EU citizen who thought fishing with hooks was immoral. It seemed cruel to her to put a hook in the fish's face. She traveled to the US to ask senators to ban it. Amazingly, she went to a few effective altruist meetups, networked her way into contacting the staff of two US senators, and managed to get meetings with both of them. But neither one introduced legislation for her.

What arguments could she have made?

  1. The vegan argument:  It is wrong to eat animals or make them suffer.

  2. The environmental case: Humans should leave nature alone.

  3. The public safety case: Some rivers have toxins that may accumulate in fish.  Only a strict licensing system can keep people from fishing in polluted rivers, selling the fish to people who don't know the river had bad stuff in it, and getting sick.

  <<I could come up with many more, but you get the idea...>>

She believed in the vegan argument. No senator agreed with her. A good lobbyist would have told her:

"Senator X cares about the environment. Make the environmental case, and he is likely to listen to you. His constituents are not interested in veganism, and he wins elections by talking about standing up for the interests of ranchers. The vegan argument will not work, do not bring it up!"

Tailoring arguments to your audience can be dishonest if you take it too far. Not tailoring your argument at all is certain to fail: US Senators are busy. Handing them a 60 item list of all possible arguments, some of which they think are crazy, will cause them to ignore you.

At your job, would you like your 1 on 1s to be publicly available to the world? Are you even able to have a productive discussion when you're second guessing how other may react to what you're saying? Now imagine you're a politician with an army of enemies ready to clip anything you say out of context.

> I would love to hear what AIPAC teaches politicians

Thanks for bringing AIPAC up because it illustrates my point. AIPAC has plenty of publicly available material for you to read. It's not going particularly specific, but it most likely broadly aligns with what their lobbyists discuss with politicians: Israel is a valuable intelligence partner, aid to Israel brings stability in the Middle East, Iran is a destabilizing force that needs to be kept in check, etc.

How much merit do these arguments have? Maybe some. Maybe little at all. Even so, there is no mistaking that APAIC is talking about Earth here. The same cannot be said about the pro Palestinian side in America. "Stop funding genocide" is a fundamentally contradictory. The entire basis for a overwhelmingly better armed Israel giving Palestinians any sort of autonomy at all rests on American security commitments to Israel.

> What's there, that politicians don't know already?

They need to be ‘reminded’ of the issues that ‘campaign contributions’ are contingent upon.

They want to know what voters and business leaders care about. It’s in their interest for their reputation and succees.

> > They are interested in learning about topics from credible people

> Honestly, you surprised me with this statement alone. interested in learning? > do you think Trump wants to learn anything from AIPAC? > or Pharma lobby or Military Industrial complex?

Trump is unusually sure of himself. But no man rules alone: There is a massive org under every president trying to run a government. I know for a fact that people two levels of management under Trump (i.e. Trump is their manager's manager) do take meetings with people who lobby on the issue of health care policy and (for and against) military procurement. I would be shocked if people who are for/against working with Isreal are never in a room with anyone who can set policy.

Imagine that it is your job to come up with policy for a bug expensive government program: The VA hospital system, a military procurement program that buys airplanes, the part of the state department focused on MENA, etc. If someone asks to meet, claiming that they did academic/technical work which shows you can get a better result with a policy change, you will take that meeting. Examples:

  1. An MD researcher shows you can cut drug costs by switching one medication for another.

  2. An engineer has reason to believe current stealth coatings on fighter planes won't work against China's missiles in 5 years.

  3. An economist thinks that an ally (Isreal, Korea, etc.) have demographics that will stop them from being able to field an army within 20 years.

You should go into these meetings with skepticism, and there is a 90%-99% chance the person's idea is bad. But if an idea is good/correct/important, and you blew him off, your boss will be angry, and your career will be over.

Most people in government want to solve problems (and get credit for doing so). Most problems governments face have hard tradeoffs that voters don't understand/care about. Voters want unlimited healthcare at no cost to themselves, 100% success thwarting terrorists with no spying on citizens, military supremacy without paying much for weapons, etc. People asked to solve these problems are DESPERATE for new ideas to allow voters to see that they are getting good outcomes. Telling them you have a way around a hard tradeoff is music to their ears.

What about Crypto lobbying. What do you think switched Trump's position on cryptocurrencies, did he learn you can scam people legally?