Susan Estrich Quotes
Getting one bill passed is close to impossible. Ask any kid who has spent a summer in Washington, or better yet a semester, and can't understand how people tolerate its menu of constant frustration. Imagine mastering it.
Estrich, Susan. Syndicated column. Creators Syndicate.
The WWI veterans lobby was formed and they pressured Congress into authorizing a bonus of between $1 and $1.25 for each day of wartime service. However, the catch was that they would not be paid until 1945 unless they did, Hence the name for the bonus. The Bonus March on Washington would eventually march on Washington to get their pay while they were still alive. Finally, the bonuses were paid immediately after Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed the Presidency even though he personally opposed paying it early. Congress passed the law over his veto.
See Henry Clay for an earlier expression of this point.
Explaining why speakers from Washington are more in demand than those from other cities:
Wisconsin had a particularly tough lobbying law which was to be administered by the secretary of state, who found himself in the embarrassing position of discovering that he, himself, had technically violated the law by sending a signed, political mailing to a lobbyist. He turned himself in, and paid a $50 fine.
In 1908 William Randolph Hurst made public a series of letters showing that the senator was being paid large sums by the Standard Oil company and was also being instructed on pending legislation. See John Archbold. The senator was pressured out of public life:
Hollings who was one of the senior experienced senators was offended by the degree to which the George W. Bush Administration and the Republican leadership had turned to lobbyists to draft legislation and amendments to pending legislation. Lobbyists often have specialized information that members of Congress do not have, so there has been in modern times communications between lobbyists and members of Congress and their staffs. However, during the Bush Presidency the practice reached an extreme where lobbyists would even write the legislative language and give it to the members in whom they had invested by giving them large campaign contributions and many perks. K Street is the fanciest street in Washington DC with some of the most expensive office space. A substantial proportion of the lobbyists have K Street offices, hence the metaphor.
Susan Estrich is an American lawyer, professor, author, political operative, and political commentator. She is known for serving as the campaign manager for Michael Dukakis in 1988 (being the first woman to manage the presidential campaign of a major party nominee) and for serving in 2016 as legal counsel to the former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes.
