Congressional staffers voted former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) the two best friends of lobbyists in this Congress.
In Washingtonian's biennial "best and worst" of Congress survey the magazine sends to congressional staffers, Cantor and Boehner placed first and second, respectively, in the "lobbyists' best friend" category.The magazine sent the survey to staffers "soon after Eric Cantor’s shocking primary defeat" to Dave Brat. Voters ousted Cantor in a June primary because of Cantor's ties to crony capitalism and embrace of amnesty legislation favored by the bipartisan political elite. Cantor resigned soon after and took a job for a Wall Street firm.
Boehner has always been friendly with the lobbying community. According to Government Accountability Institute President and Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer's Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets, Boehner is even known for collecting "tollbooth fees" before votes from industry executives.
“You pay money at a tollbooth in order to use a road or bridge,” Schweizer writes in his book. “The methodology in Washington is similar: if someone wants a bill passed, charge them money to allow the bill to move down the legislative highway.”
Boehner and GOP leaders, as do Democrats, also demand secret fees to land top committee spots, as Schweizer's book reported.
via: Breitbart
