Oakes Ames Quotes
It was the same thing as going into a business community and interesting the leading business men by giving them shares.
He was referring to his practice of distributing shares of stock to other congressmen on behalf of Credit Mobilier and Union Pacific. Ames was censured by the Congress in 1872, for "seeking to procure congressional attention to the affairs of a corporation in which he was interested.” The cartoon to the left is from the period showing all the congressmen getting their piece of the Mobilier Credit cake.
Oakes Ames, 1804-1873, U.S. Congressman (Republican, MA), Lobbyist, Statement, 1872, Quoted in Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition, Vintage 1948
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The House Majority Leader Tom Delay, with a history of ethics violations, got caught in some very serious ones and convinced the House majority leadership to change the rules of the Ethics Committee to prevent the minority from initiating any investigations or inquiries. The Ethics Committee was the only House committee that has an equal number of majority and minority members and before this change, either side would initiate an inquiry.
4 weeks later Lance resigned as Budget Director over ethical lapses.
implicit in the weak ethics rules of the U.S. House of Representatives
Bribing Congressmen was quite common. In those days, money to Congressmen and Senators was not even disguised as campaign contributions. The letters were the short terms for the different agents.
$200,000 then was the equivalent of well over $10 million today, and this is about what it costs a company in lobbyists fees and Congressional Campaign Contributions to get a bill passed in the current political environment.
Sometimes the costs of the bribes was too great an investment for the likely year. Bribery decisions were made with the same sort of analysis as buying land or a piece of capital machinery. Just business.
She and her husband had been flown across the country for a campaign fundraiser by a private businessman in his corporate jet. Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was also on the flight. Her husband was censured for an ethical violation but Hastert was not.
Abramoff had bribed over 100 Congressional offices by a combination of campaign donations, paid golf junkets all over the world, free elegant meals at his own fancy Washington Restaurant, free tickets for the Congressmen, their staffs and their major constituents, to Concerts and sporting events including his own Skyboxes, and promises of future employment at very high salaries. Ironically, we was convicted of cheating some of his lobbying clients and did a jail term, but his “bribery” was technically usually legal. In addition to Abramoff, only one Congressman was charged and convicted of corruption, when many if not most had engaged in these corrupt practices. Congress makes the rules with loopholes so that what is bribery and corruption in any other setting is often not against the law if Congress is involved.
Here he tried to assure everyone that he would not have a conflict of interest. He had created the largest cell phone company in Thailand and others making him the richest Thai. He argued that he no longer owned any businesses as he had transferred all his holdings to his wife and children. He was later convicted of corruption having transferred millions of dollars of government money to his maid and chauffer (without their knowledge) to hide the money the had taken. He jumped bail and fled the country after his conviction and ran his Pheu Thai Party, from abroad. He then had his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, run in the next election and she was elected Prime Minister and so he continued to control much of the country but could not return last he be jailed.
Oakes Ames was an American businessman, investor, and politician. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts. As a congressman, he is credited by many historians as being the single most important influence in the building of the Union Pacific portion of the transcontinental railroad. He is also noted for the subsequent scandal that alleged the improper sale of stock of the railroad's construction company.
