Daschle And The Beltway

The more you read, the uglier it gets:

    So here's a case where a senator's wife gets a high-ranking government job, which in turn boosts her earning power as a lobbyist. She then represents clients who have business with and give money to her husband. Those clients pay her big bucks to help fight safety regulations and to win government money -- money which helps pay the senator's mortgage.

Daschle isn't the only one to use civil marriage in this way. But it is a particularly potent and common form of perfectly legal corruption.