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For reference, All time #6 is the NEA with $37M, #7 is Goldman with $36M.

If you look at people counts, the NEA has about 3.2 million people. Goldman has about 36,000 employees. Two orders of magnitude more contribution per person.

As a smaller business, their interests in the law are more targeted. And their lobbying is also very effective.

You can speak freely to politicians, but getting them to listen is not free. You buy their ear with campaign contributions and you hold the hammer of future contributions as you make polite suggestions about how the law should be changed in your favor.

I don't think it's fair to put politicians under that pressure. There's clear evidence that our system has failed in that way and we need to change it to move forward.