The San Francisco Chronicle is concerned about the influence of "special interests" on the state legislature. Their solution: more rules to regulate the legislators, such as "Outlaw political fund-raisers during peak periods of legislative activity." Presumably this is supposed to prevent lobbyists and "special interests" from slipping bags of cash to the Assemblymen in exchange for legislation. But it won't.

First of all, we live in a democracy. We all have interests, and we all have the right to petition our government to advance those interests. So how can it be that some of those interests are special and other interests aren't so special? But the bigger point is this: The People of California give their public representatives authority over an enormous sum of money every year. (The current budget is just over $100 billion). This figure doesn't even come close to the total dollar mount of transactions that the state can influence through regulation. And none of that $100 billion will ever go to waste, because we Californians demand that our legislators burn the midnight oil to pass laws and spend money to do Good Things for the people, and to pass laws and spend money to control the behavior of all those evildoers, such as criminals and corporations. So go figure, some lady from Coalinga might actually be motivated to persuade a senator to spend some of that $100 billion at her store. Or that some guy in Yreka who has a wife and a mortgage might actually fight back to prevent the crusading do-gooders in Sacramento from passing a law that would accidentally cause his plumbing supply factory to lose all its customers.

So the underlying problem is that We the People have delegated to the State an enormous role in managing the economy. And yes, it's perfectly natural and unavoidable for some folks to invest relatively small amounts of money to influence how the really big sums are spent. And making silly little rules, like the dates and hours when cocktail parties can be held is like rearranging the deck chairs on an aircraft carrier. Yes, it is possible to craft elaborate rules to make it harder to donate money to a candidate or to lobby a legislator. But making it harder only means making it more expensive, which means concentrating ever more power in institutions whose interests may or may not be any more special than yours, but who for sure will have more money to throw at the problem than you do.

The only solution to the problem of influence peddling in politics is to do away with the "root causes", which are the $100 billion budget and a political culture of "better living through legislation".