[Mathnerd314]

The point is they have different definitions:

bribery - transfer of value in exchange for official action.

lobbying - communicating with an official for purposes of influencing official action, not including providing public testimony or legally required communications

Legalizing bribery would allow transfer of value. Generally information is considered free, so has no value, so lobbying is not a transfer of value and hence is not bribery (legalized or otherwise). If you want to argue that lobbyists are giving officials hot stock tips that make the officials millions, hence information has value, I suppose it's possible, but it doesn't seem like the issue you're addressing.

What you seem to dislike is that many people are paid to push laws. But this isn't much different from other forms of sales - every company has a marketing department that tries to lobby potential customers. There is no obligation to buy and similarly the politician has no obligation to enact the suggested changes. But without direct communication it seems like it would be hard to enact sound policy. I don't see any obvious alternatives to lobbying to get the required information besides a massive "big brother" government surveillance program that tries to identify potential problems with big data and solve them before they happen.