Corruption Round-Up
Just one day before his arrest on corruption and bribery
charges, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich confidently remarked
at a press conference that "if anybody wants to tape my conversations, go
right ahead, feel free to do it." 
Federal
authorities had already taken Blagojevich up on his offer, and what they
uncovered caused double-takes around the country—his alleged scheme to sell
Obama's vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder was so ignominious and brazen
that, according
to federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, it "would make Lincoln roll over in his grave."
The colorful
criminal complaint details exactly how Blagojevich leveraged his Senate
appointment for political and financial gain.
But it also reveals a quid pro quo
culture in which Blagojevich skirted campaign finance and ethics laws by exchanging
government contracts and jobs for large campaign contributions. "I'm going to do $8 million for [the Children's
Memorial Hospital]. I want to get [Hospital Executive 1] for
[$50,000]," Blagojevich said.
While some may dismiss Blagojevich as something of an
unhinged bad apple who stepped into office with criminal proclivities, Blagojevich's
arrest is but the latest in a string of wanton ethics transgressions in recent
months by state and federal officials.
Indeed, congressional Republicans have latched onto the
violations in an effort "to turn the tables" on Democrats who ran on a good-government
theme to recapture Congress in 2006, and rightly emphasize that "the majority
party should be held to its pledge to clean up Washington."
They point to outgoing Representative William Jefferson,
Democrat of Louisiana, who was recently upset by Republican challenger Anh Cao
in an overwhelmingly Democratic district.
Jefferson pleaded not guilty to 16
counts of corruption last year, including bribery, racketeering, fraud, and
money laundering, after he was famously found by FBI agents with $90,000 of
cash in his freezer. His long-awaited
trial will begin
sometime next year.
Republicans are also calling on Representative Charles
Rangel, Democrat of New York, to step aside from his chairmanship of the House Ways and
Means Committee while he remains under an ethics investigation. Rangel faces a host of
allegations, including illegally accepting several rent-stabilized
apartments in Manhattan, soliciting donations
for the City College of New York with congressional stationery, and failing to
report rental income from a property in the Dominican Republic. Just last week, the House Ethics Committee voted to look
deeper into Rangel's role in preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling
company that donated $1 million to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public
Service at the City College of New York.
Nor have Republicans emerged
from the recent wave of corruption scandals unscathed. In October, Ted Stevens, the long-serving
Republican Senator from Alaska,
was convicted
on seven felony counts in connection with failing to report $250,000 in
gifts and services from wealthy acquaintances, most memorably an expensive
massage chair. Sen. Stevens narrowly
lost his reelection bid to challenger Mark Begich and now awaits sentencing. (An earlier post reflecting on Stevens'
ethical challenges may be found here.)
In 2006, Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham was
sentenced to over eight years in prison after pleading guilty to accepting
$2.4 million in bribes. Cunningham was
also ordered to pay $1.8 million in restitution and forfeit $1.85 million in
valuables. And on Monday, Mitchell Wade,
the contractor who bribed Cunningham to the tune of $1 million in exchange for
millions of dollars in government contracts, was sentenced to 30
months. Just leaving federal prison
after a 17-month
stint for corruption is former Ohio
congressman Bob Ney, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to performing legislative favors
for disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
And who can forget about the wide-ranging
ethics scandal involving current and former employees of the Minerals
Management Service at the Department of the Interior? Reports published by the department's
inspector general in September revealed "[a] culture of ethical failure" in
which employees accepted graft from energy companies, regularly consumed
alcohol at industry functions, and engaged in sexual misconduct.
As these scandals illustrate,
some politicians can be far too quick to forget their duty to the public.
It's time for elected officials in Congress and elsewhere to renew their commitment
to meaningful ethics and campaign finance reforms.
A serious dialogue about public financing at the federal
level would tackle the culture of corruption head-on. Congress should actively consider a new
presidential campaign public financing model in which overall spending
limits are substantially increased and the first $200 of each donation is
matched 4 to 1, moving small donors to the center of the stage. And when that is accomplished, public
financing for Congress should be the next item considered. Halting the unseemly flow of our public
officials from office into jail cells is a top priority.
