what are lobbyists?

Question

ok i really didnt understand the first answer.....

Answer 1

in plain English ... Lobbyist bribe Politicians for votes

Answer 2

If you are a company, you find a lobbyist that knows a US congressman, then you pay the lobbyist 200,000. The lobbyist then takes your congressman on a golf trip or out to eat, and during the meeting the lobbyist drops the name of your company into the conversation: "So and So Corporation seems like a good company, they represent patriotic, Christian morals, hint hint". Then the congressman goes back to Washington, the congressman participates in committees that award government contracts, and so now So and So corp starts rolling in the big bucks. Freedom and capitalism is so sweet.

Answer 3

A lobbyist is someone who tries to persuade legislators to vote for bills that the lobbyists favor. As an example, the pharmaceutical industry has lobbyists who persuaded the congressional members to craft a bill which ultimately passed Congress and was signed into law, a law which BENEFITS the pharmaceutical industry.
Examples of lobbyists- the infamous Jack Abramoff and soon to be candidate Fred Thompson

Answer 4

A lobbyist is someone who is hired to talk to poltical officials on behalf of other people (typically an interest group or a company). Most corporations, most unions, most trade associations (e.g. pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, insurance lawyers, trial lawyers), and most poltical action committees have lobbyist to represent them in Washington and in many state capitols.

A lobbyist job is basically to keep in touch with friendly elected officials and forward them information that they can use in discussing proposed bills (and often to send them drafts of possible legislation or amendments). The goal of the lobbyist is to assist in the passage of legislation that favors his clients and prevent the passage of legislation that harms his clients (or at least water down such legislation if passage is inevitable).

As noted in some of the other answers, some of the ways that they attempt to get to know legislators and their staff better (and pass on information) is through one-on-one meetings in restaurants or in prime seats at sporting events or by holding seminars in nice "vacation-type" locations (with the expenses for these meetings paid by the lobbyist).

The term lobbyist comes from the rules of most legislative bodies in which only elected representatives and their staff (or the staff of the legislature) are allowed on the floor. As such, the lobbyists are forced to wait in the lobby next to the chamber to talk to the legislators.

Answer 5

Lobbyist group votes or money and use it as leverage to persuade or attain representation.

In most cases is looked as a bad thing or bribe because of corporate lobby but some lobbyist try to pass bills like the Amber alert, or Associations like gun association, Real estate association, bikers association among many others.

Answer 6

Someone who is experienced who supports your motives, ideas, habits particularly when society finds them strange.

For example cigarettes have a bad reputation, but a person can smoke cigarettes freely because he has a no. of lobbyists or lawyers to support him if he gets caught by the police or security.