policy makers need to be informed to make smart policy, how else would we trust a bunch of polisci majors to implement climate and tech and ag policies? this is unfortunately too easy to game by hiring people to go put your thoughts in ears.
also, it's important to remember that there are lobbyists on all sides of an argument (some with much more paid time on their hands than others, but) its not hard to be one for an issue you want to impact if youre a subject matter expert.
i dont think we should or could be eliminating lobbying but tightly controlling how money/gifts/time are allocated to people who are speaking to politicians and policy makers about a particular issue
Absolutely politicians need to be informed. No one would disagree with that. However the job of lobbyist is not to inform - explicitly. That's not the purpose of a lobbyist. The purpose of a lobbyist is to influence public policy in favour of private interests. Usually industry, but sometimes individual corporate interests. The relationship of lobbyist to politician is similar to advertiser to broadcast audience. Hypothetically there is an informational component to the communication - but only so far as its effective in manipulating its intended audience.
Instead what politicians should attend to is published research and organisations like the National Science Foundation which exist in part specifically to foster, explain and communicate the state of the art of knowledge in a given domain to politicians.
>policy makers need to be informed to make smart policy,
Yeah, very important :)
There was a case a while ago of...I think (vague recollection - I can't track it down exactly alas ) funding for some important disease research for orange trees in California being axed unexpectedly. The agro industry was like wtf, and I remember an interview with some politician expressing regret, it was cut because they thought it was useless research, and they really strongly recommended that that sector set up some lobbying body to that there'd be a line of communication between the industry and the government.
Lobbies can be malign, but, yeah they also serve some useful purposes.