There are laws - even ethics rules - against buying votes in Congress.
Lobbyists (Jack Abramoff and others) went to prison for attempting to buy
votes and congressmen (Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Bob Ney) went to prison
for selling them.
As with so many things Congress does, the rules they make for others do not
always apply to some of its members.
In the scandalous, shortsighted sellout of American troops in Iraq, a slim
Democratic House majority passed a measure that speaker and top vote buyer
Nancy Pelosi claimed would "end the war in Iraq." The claim is preposterous
because, even if the Senate were to pass such a measure, there are
insufficient votes to override a presidential veto. One can hear the
cheering in the enemy camps, as they exhort their young suicide bombers to
kill themselves, and just a few more infidels, for Allah, because the
worldwide Islamic empire is drawing nearer.
While the Democratic "leadership" and certain of their media acolytes crow
about the "historic day" when the measure was passed, the real historic note
is how so many were willing to sell their votes for blatant self-interest.
Perhaps, knowing the measure would never become law; these "public servants"
figured they might as well grab all the pork they could get.
Attached to this bill of surrender, as chronicled by Citizens Against
Government Waste (CAGW) is $21 billion in pork to buy the votes of some
members. Among items offered in exchange for votes was $283 million for the
Milk Income Loss Contract program; $74 million for peanut storage costs;
$60.4 million for salmon fisheries; $50 million for asbestos mitigation at
the U.S. Capitol Plant; and $25 million for spinach growers. I'm surprised
no aid was provided to pet food manufacturers to help them recoup the losses
incurred after rat poison was found in their products. Oh, well, maybe next
year.
The Senate is waiting to lard on to the emergency war supplemental bill
multiple pounds of its own pork. CAGW reports that among the outrages in the
Senate measure are $24 million for sugar beet producers; $20 million for
reimbursements to Nevada for "insect damage"; $3.5 million for guided tours
of the Capitol (don't most people expect to buy tickets for such things?);
and $3 million for sugar cane and the transfer of funds from holiday
ornament sales in the Senate gift shop.