>Even buying dinner for a member of Congress is a felony.
But hosting an Obama fundraiser in Silicon Valley where each couple who wants to attend writes checks for $64,800 to the Democratic Party, why, that's just the cost of doing business!
This is, of course, what happens when Obama comes out here for fundraisers at the "Portola Valley home of star Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and his wife" and the "home of Marci and [Flipboard founder] Mike McCue of Palo Alto":
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/05/17/obama-headin...
Now, this isn't limited to the Democratic Party, of course, though they're better at extracting money from tech execs nowadays. Point is that it's rather silly to say "buying dinner for a member of Congress is a felony" when there are far more lucrative alternative means for influence-peddling politicians to extract $$$ from influence-seekers.
You're conflating lobbying and campaign finance. I know you know the difference, which means you are doing it on purpose, which I find disappointing.
One of the biggest problems in discussing lobbying is that members of the press habitually and intentionally confuse their readers about what is and is not lobbying.
To go back to my ANWR example--I'd be interested to know how many of the attendees at that Obama dinner (or any $64k/plate dinner) were registered lobbyists for the Sierra Club.
edit to add: If we want more citizen participation in government, it has to start with an accurate understanding of how they can participate. Framing lobbying as something that necessitates $64,000 donations does not help people understand how they can support nonprofits (like for example the Sierra Club or ACLU) that engage in lobbying but not huge campaign donations.
Writing a check for a $64K/plate dinner with Obama means you've reached the pinnacle of lobbying: a casual after-dinner-with-drinks conversation with the president while looking over the twinkling lights of Silicon Valley and talking about what the administration's regulatory priorities should be. And remember Obama wants you and your pals to continue to bankroll the party; meanwhile, the two college kids with a shoestring self-funded startup that's about to get squashed by that new regulatory priority don't know what hit them. They can't afford $64K a year in salary, let alone for an Obama fundraiser.
Also, why focus only on "registered lobbyists?" I recall looking into this a decade ago and the most influential lobbyist of the second half of the 20th century, MPAA's Jack Valenti, was not always a registered lobbyist.
It's a very narrow legal definition. There are plenty of ways to get around registration, including having congresscritters arrange to call you instead of you calling them, making sure only 20% of your time is calling "covered officials," giving speeches and TV interviews, golfing with your pal who happens to be Senate majority leader where only 1% of that is talking shop, etc.
One way to think about this is that congresscritters write the laws dealing with lobbying. Another definition of "congresscritter" is "future-lobbyist-in-waiting." It would really be a shame if they limited themselves and their bank accounts too much in the future. Right?
Valenti is a great example of what I'm talking about--a very powerful industry lobbyist who gave almost no money to politicians.
"Lobbying" is not a synonym for "influence." Treating it that way makes it impossible to speak specifically about how things are and how you think they should be. It would be like calling every software bug a "buffer overflow" or every browser "the Internet."
But hosting an Obama fundraiser in Silicon Valley where each couple who wants to attend writes checks for $64,800 to the Democratic Party, why, that's just the cost of doing business!
This is, of course, what happens when Obama comes out here for fundraisers at the "Portola Valley home of star Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and his wife" and the "home of Marci and [Flipboard founder] Mike McCue of Palo Alto": http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/05/17/obama-headin...
Now, this isn't limited to the Democratic Party, of course, though they're better at extracting money from tech execs nowadays. Point is that it's rather silly to say "buying dinner for a member of Congress is a felony" when there are far more lucrative alternative means for influence-peddling politicians to extract $$$ from influence-seekers.