Ray LaHood Quotes
You name me a profession and I’ll name you a lobbyist that represents them.
Ray LaHood, U. S. Congressman (Republican, IL), C-SPAN Q&A, September 2, 2007
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Barbour was himself a lobbyist before he became a politician.
The Congressman resigned to become the Vice President and General Manager of one of the nation's most powerful lobbying organizations.
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.
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.
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.
Raymond H. LaHood is an American politician who served as the 16th United States Secretary of Transportation from 2009 to 2013 under President Barack Obama. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served in the Illinois House of Representatives (1982–1983) and United States House of Representatives (1995–2009).
