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Comment by bonoboTP | Hacker News Reader

Can't they make their issues known without paying the politician's campaign a bag of cash?

Yes, and plenty do. Lobbying is a different thing to funding campaigns. It's just that many politicians are willing to listen more to lobbyists who also fund their campaign.

> It's just that many politicians are willing to listen more to lobbyists who also fund their campaign.

“It’s just that a bag of cash is persuasive”. Well, no shit. It’s called bribery.

Yes but the bribery is not an integral part of lobbying. Plenty of lobbying orgs never donate (not least because they can't afford it). Also lobbying still exists even in countries with strict campaign finance laws.

Those that never pay and also never provide any non-financial benefits are not the ones under discussion.

This is just a sleight of hand with definitions.

Right? Europe has lobbying without payments, as that's called what it is there: bribery.

There are plenty of generous donations for political parties and lucrative board positions for politicians in Europe

See: Germany + Russia in the Merkel era and questions over why the EU remained so very open to Russian energy for so long.

„Gas Gerd“ Schröder was before Merkel.

What? Lobbyists in Brussels have spent over 300 million euros just in 2024[0].

[0]https://www.protothema.gr/files/2025-03-06/ekthesi-lobbying....

Is that not just the salaries of the lobbyists? There's nothing wrong with paying employees to represent your point of view. The scary headline figure is that Meta spent €9m on 18 meetings with the EC... oh no?

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