You mean acting as a paid representative on someone else's behalf to stand before a government official? Isn't that what lawyers do?

Isn't that what politicians do?

It was initially where I was going to go with this, but as I thought through the argument the recursion caused a stack overflow in my brain.

What are you trying to say with that?

I'm saying that "airing grievances" "for money" has prior art. I'm a busy person, and the opinion stated says that it should be illegal for me to hire a person to represent my views before, say, a congressperson. Or it should be illegal to hire a person more eloquent than myself to state my case; a professional, as it were. We hire lawyers because navigating the law is difficult. Should we not also be allowed to hire professionals as we take part in the making of those same laws?

In small claims court you can't be represented by a lawyer for example. Both - being represented and representing - aren't constitutional rights. So it is up to society whether to allow or prohibit it in various cases.

I still fail to see your point. A lobbyist still has a fundamentally different job than a lawyer, and they both use fundamentally different tactics to reach fundamentally different goals.

They don't have fundamentally different jobs. They are there to represent their clients' interests and advocate for them.

You can say the same about a debt collector. Thats just too broad of a statement to do anything with it.