Have Lobbies Destroyed American Democracy?

In Fareed Zakaria's book The Future of Freedom he makes a frightening argument that ". . . lobbies, which do most of the monitoring and influencing, have gained power compared with the target of their efforts -- the government." Zakaria quotes journalist Johnathon Rauch as saying as far back as the 1970s: "the American government probably has evolved into about what it will remain: a sprawling, largely unorganized structure that is 10% to 20% under the control of the politicians and voters and 80% to 90% under the control of the countless thousands of client groups [lobbyists].

This view is made even more frightening by an article that began on the front page of today's New Orleans Times Picayune. The article was 129 column-inches long (that's 10 3/4 feet) detailing the family connections of some 17 U.S. senators and House members who had one or more close members (sons, sons-in-law, and spouces) employed in lobbying Congress. Two are the sons of Senator John Breaux of Louisiana and Trent Lott of Mississippi, and include a list of prominent members of both houses and both political parties, who sit on important committees that control the writing and passage of laws that directly benefit the lobbyists the Congressional family members work for with the express purpose of influencing legislation. These scions of solons are pulling down compensation in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The article is by Chuck Neubauer, Judy Pasternak and Richard T. Cooper of the Los Angeles Times.
Headlines that appeared in the Times Picayune are "Lobbying lucrative job for sons of senators," "Family connection appeals to clients," "Lawmakers deny impropriety," (If you believe that, let me sell you a bridge.) and "No expertise required for some lobbying jobs." Quoting from the article: "When BellSouth hired Chet Lott (Sen. Trent Lott's son) it had a stable of seasoned communications lobbyists. Lott was living in Kentucky, running a string of pizza franchises and playing polo, having dabbled in country music."
I begin to despair that the government in this country can be fixed short of a Constitutional Amendment limiting the amount of money special interest groups can spend to influence legislation while defending their blatant buying of influence as Constitutionally guaranteed "freedom of speech."