Public Integrity Quotes
In 1780 Daniel Shays organized several hundred Massachusetts farmers to march on Springfield. The picked up more support including militia members as the marched. The governor asked the legislature for authority to deal with the situation.
This quotation was ridiculed at the time. Virginia 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. Howell did not say or do anything about the situation. Although in 2013 it was Republicans who were corrupt, the same lax rules had prevailed for years and when they were in power the Democrats made no effort to tighten the ethics laws and rules.
