Shouldn't these Congressmen be arrested? (from both parties)

[BR_Parkway]

Former Representative Bob Ney went to jail for this

Ney is also implicated in the separate Abramoff SunCruz Casinos scandal.<39> The conduct alleged is that Ney twice entered statements into the Congressional Record at Scanlon's request in exchange for a $10,000 contribution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Ney

So this morning, we get confirmation of what we've known all along - members of both parties are so sold out to the corporations that the lobbyists are even writing their speeches now:

In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists’
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/us/politics/15health.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.

(snip)

In an e-mail message to fellow lobbyists on Nov. 5, two days before the House vote, Todd M. Weiss, senior managing director of Sonnenschein, said, “We are trying to secure as many House R’s and D’s to offer this/these statements for the record as humanly possible.”

He told the lobbyists to “conduct aggressive outreach to your contacts on the Hill to see if their bosses would offer the attached statements (or an edited version) for the record.”

In recent years, Genentech’s political action committee and lobbyists for Roche and Genentech have made campaign contributions to many House members, including some who filed statements in the Congressional Record. And company employees have been among the hosts at fund-raisers for some of those lawmakers. But Evan L. Morris, head of Genentech’s Washington office, said, “There was no connection between the contributions and the statements.”

Can anyone please tell me what in the hell is the difference?

[Ozymanithrax]

1. A speach writer does not show that money changed hands.

You have to show the link between the payoff (bribe) and the act.

It would be nice to learn that the FBI in a wallet, but without that link there can be no charge.

[Go2Peace]

3. "quid pro quo" is illegal too. Someone just has to decide to procecute

As a legislator you can never say "I will do x for a contribution". That is also legally a payoff.

[Ozymanithrax]

5. But there has to be an investigation that discovers a prosecutable offense.

An appearance of a conflict of interest is not probable cause to investigate.

[BR_Parkway]

7. Why wouldn't it be? An appearance that a theft or murder happened would be

What has to happen so that it does get investigated?

[Go2Peace]

2. We have a serious political corruption issue in Washington. Maybe some day we will

actually get a president that will call attention to it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. 9 lobby firms are paid by Genentech, btw..

according to muckety.com.
That 's a lot of money.
and Genentech is owned now by Roche.
And ...wow...the Chairman of Genentech, Arthur Levinson, is also a director of Apple and of Google.
Hmmmmmmmm.

[BR_Parkway]

6. At what point are enough people going to get fed up enough to force

the politicians to get the money out of it? And Congress wonders why they've got such Cheney-like approval ratings