Steve Bullock Quotes
When laws are literally written now to make donors happy, we've got a problem.
Bullock, Steve. "Steve Bullock's 2020 Presidential Announcement Speech." Helena, MT, 14 May 2019.
Virginia at the time had very lax political ethical laws and regulations for politicians and in that year, both the Republican Governor and the Republican Attorney General had accepted large gifts from businessmen of the state which in other states would have been considered as bribes and be illegal. The rules in Virginia were so lax, that expensive gifts were given to members of politician’s family. In one case that year, a businessman paid for the Governor’s daughter’s expensive wedding. With both houses of the state legislature also in Republican hands, there was no oversight or investigations. It was only though the efforts of the press that the facts emerged. Although in 2013 it was Republicans who were corrupt, the same lax rules had prevailed for years and when the Democrats were in power the Democrats made no effort to tighten the ethics laws and rules. Corruption and denial of its existence characterized Virginia at that time. In 2013, the Republican speaker of the House actually had the temerity to state that since Virginia politicians were so honest, ethical rules and laws were not needed. See {633807}.
While New York City and a few other jurisdictions—states and local—have more stringent laws and ethical standards for politicians than does Congress and Federal Officials, but most have lower standards. In some of the jurisdictions judges can try cases and rule in favor of a company or wealthy individual who gave the judge the money to campaign with and get elected.
See {640687}. He was then very worried about the influence of money in politics and was willing to risk his own reelection by limiting his contributions. And he was the Republican presidential candidate so his policy was particularly unusual. A century later money in politics had ballooned to a much larger problem as Taft’s action had little or no effect on the overall relationship between money and politics outside of his campaign.
Stephen Clark Bullock is an American politician and lawyer, who served as the 24th governor of Montana from 2013 to 2021. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
