itoyama has served four terms as a member of the diet, the japanese parliament with nearly twenty years of active involvement in the ruling party, the liberal democratic party. he was a principal figure in a 1974 bribery scandal that resulted in the arrests of more than 90 people, including a senior vice president of itoyama's company, and peter herzog characterized itoyama as "one of the worst offenders" in having a "cavalier attitude" toward japanese election laws.