Lobbyists: Doing your work for you

Already this caucus season, I heard countless presidential candidates proclaim, “We will take out those lobbyists!”

Well. I must tell you, this horrifies me.

This horrifies me because these statements tell me a couple of things: either A) these presidential candidates do not know how the U.S. government works or B) they do know but are lying to the American public. Neither are particularly great options.

Here it is, lobbyists actually are doing the work. They do the work for elected officials, lawyers, and the american public. In essence, they keep our government running.

But how, they are such awful people?

Have you ever met a lobbyist?

What, you expected something like this?

Let’s look back to our high school government class when we spent a whole chapter on special interest. A whole chapter dedicated to special interest and its significance. Because it is significant.

If I remember correctly, our founding fathers recognized one important fact: that each of them do not know everything. It is physically impossible for any legislator, governor, elected official to know everything about anything. No one can expect every senator to know the intricacies of issues in a public schools system while knowing everything about wild deer, the medicine, and how the funeral enterprise works. Representatives recognize they do not know everything and yet they do not want to.

Therefore, the United States Government created opportunity for special interest. All Americans have the opportunity to approach their elected officials to discuss an issue they are passionate about. Americans experienced in a special area are able to advise, advocate.. lobby for a particular decision they want to see.

Let’s give an example: let’s say the government wants to save money on English teachers in high school and instead hire more science teachers. You are an English teacher (*Not saying this will ever happen or is happening, purely used for an example) and want to make sure your position stays.

The teachers union asks for you to send letters to your state and local representatives. You physically head up to the capitol to talk with elected officials on why they should vote no. You then successfully persuaded the officials to vote no on this bill. It didn’t pass.

Boom- You have officially lobbied.

You advocated for an issue and you made a difference. You made sure your special interest was not taken away.

Now, multiply this by the hundreds of thousands of issues across the state and country. Is there any way that all Americans are able to take the time to come up to the capitol to lobby for all of the issues they care about? Nor do they actually want to?

Most people do not know how the government works and prefer to stay away. That doesn’t mean their opinions or passions should not be represented.

Therefore we need lobbyists. They put in the hours to follow legislation, perfect laws, and assist in the relationships between the public and legislators. They are the ones that represent your interest when you are unable to be to.

So are they bad? No! One may not like a particular issue or company the lobbyists represent, but that does not mean those lobbyists are bad. They are advocating for issues they care about, as should each of us.

And this is what frustrates me. Lobbying is not easy; it is long, and tedious, and requires many invested hours into some unpredictable. And yet everyone demeans their work. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Not many take the time out to use their civic duty to advocate for the issues they care about.

Am I denying that there is too much money in politics? No, because that is a separate issue. But overturning Citizens United is different than special interest.

So, until all Americans are up at their state and national capitol performing their civic duty to advocate for the issues they care about, think twice before you advocate to get rid of lobbyists. Respect them. Respect what they do, and respect what they are trying to do, for you.

Because, really, lobbyists are doing all the work you don’t want to do.