"When a man lies, he murders some part of the world. These are the pale deaths, which men miscall their lives." 

- Paul Gerhardt

https://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-interests-groups-spent-record-339-1517460788-htmlstory.html

The article "Interest Groups Spent Record $339 Million on Lobbying California State Government in 2017" by Patrick mcGreevy discusses, as stated in the title, a record year in spending for California interest groups. It says that the leading spenders by far were the oil companies Chevron and States Petroleum Assn., and that this shows the above average importance and quantity of issues concerning California's energy industry. They were able break down the cap-and-trade program, limiting air-quality regulators from adopting carbon-cutting rules for refineries. Other major spenders were the California State Council of Service Employees ($3.9 million), the California Chamber of Commerce ($2.8 million), the California Hospital Assn. ($2.7 million), the California Teachers Assn. ($2.4 million), the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. ($2.1 million), the California Nurses Assn. ($2.07 million) and AT&T ($1.9 million). Concerning the domination of the oil companies, I am not surprised, yet still annoyed at the constant outpouring of money from major corporations into the government in order to influence politics in ways that do not benefit the public nor the planet. I would say that the ability of major corporations to manipulate the government by spending as much money as they please is the downfall of democracy in this nation, but the democracy has already been broken for a long time. The only way to fix this democracy is to shed corporate control. I do not believe this is possible under the current capitalist system because it only furthers the domination of the wealthy over the masses.