The largest occupational group that testifies at congressional hearings is government employees. At some point, I feel like anything that forces them to meet with other kinds of people might be a good thing. It's elusive if you want to define it as meaning everybody has equal influence. I'm not sure what it would mean if we all had equal influence. If we all had equal influence, I think that that would mean that none of us had any influence.
People get interested in issues precisely so that they can have more or less influence.
The voting booth is where everybody is equal. Everybody casts one vote and each vote has the same weight. Each of us, in going into the voting booth, has the same right to make up our mind to consider all of the information that we've heard that's been paid for with dollars people have contributed. That's what true political equality is. One doesn't like to make slippery slope arguments, but if the reformers really want to accomplish what they say they do, they'll go all the way down the slippery slope.