Is Congress Corrupt?
May 22nd, 2006 • Posted in: Commentary
If you wonder how important ethics is to the public, here’s a simple measurement tool. Search for the word “ethics” in your newspaper and see how many articles you can read before you have to start paying to see older stories.
By that test, this past week has been a zinger, driven largely by ethics scandals erupting in Congress:
- The House ethics committee agreed to investigate Ohio Republican Bob Ney and Louisiana Democrat William Jefferson. Mr. Ney, it appears, may have been entangled in the tentacles of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has admitted he sought to bribe members of Congress. Mr. Jefferson is under a cloud after a Kentucky business executive pleaded guilty to trying to corrupt him.
- The ethics committee also noted that it had planned to investigate Texas Republican Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, but backed off when Mr. DeLay announced his retirement from Congress. It will, however, investigate whether other members of Congress were corrupted by the defense contractors who bribed former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a California Republican now serving an eight-year sentence.
- Meanwhile, a Senate panel announced that it is examining the role of former senator Robert Torricelli of New Jersey in the United Nations Oil-for-Food program in Iraq. The investigation follows allegations that while in the Senate he tried to steer Iraqi contracts to a political supporter who heavily funded his campaign.
This flurry of activity, which follows a disappointing effort to bring an ethics reform bill to the House, caps more than a year of paralysis in the ethics committee that seemed incapable of acting even as some of its members were sinking deeper into ethical mire.
Given that background, the results of a Gallup poll released last week aren’t surprising. When asked whether they thought “most members of Congress” are corrupt or not, 47 percent thought they are. That number is virtually identical to the number who disagreed — but it’s up from 38 percent only four months ago.
When nearly half the public thinks that even the most representative part of its government is corrupt, that’s cause for alarm. Sadly, there’s a broader context for this story. The most recent Global Corruption Barometer from Transparency International (TI) — based on a 2005 public opinion survey by Gallup International of some 55,000 people in 69 countries — rank-orders a list of institutions perceived to be corrupt. While various sectors are seen in many countries to be corrupt — most notably the police, the judiciary, the business community, and the tax authorities — the report notes that around the world, political parties were “perceived as far and away the most corrupt institutions in society.” Second on the list: legislatures and parliaments.
The United States is no exception: Here, too, political parties topped TI’s list, while “legislatures” tied for second with “legal system/judiciary” and the media. The numbers aren’t as bad as in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe, but they are significantly behind Western European averages. The point: Americans distrust their legislatures more deeply than do the voters in most wealthy nations.
But how do they feel about their own representatives? Very warmly. In the latest Gallup poll, when asked whether “your member of Congress” is corrupt, two-thirds said “no” (italics mine).
On its face, of course, that’s an absurd situation. Either each of us is being deceived by our elected officials — whom everyone except us perceives to be corrupt — or we wildly overestimate corruption in politicians we know less well. That puts us in a tough spot, forced to choose between being ignorant dupes or deep-dyed cynics.
I suspect, however, that there’s a third and more realistic explanation: It may simply be that we’re growing increasingly suspicious of the political climate, while retaining some faith in political individuals. When we vote for individual candidates, we try to get a reading on their character. We try not to vote for people with visible integrity gaps. But Congress as a whole is different. What worries us, perhaps, is that there’s a culture of corruption so strong that it trumps whatever individual ethical standards our politicians may arrive with. We worry that such a culture — larger than any individual moral compass, and larger than the sum of all currently serving members — can cause good people to go rancid.
If that’s so, reform won’t happen at the ballot box. If the culture itself is degraded, simply changing the names on the office doors won’t help. What’s needed will be a systemic change of the entire climate within which Congress does business. But here Americans are most skeptical. Gallup’s data suggests that voters doubt Congress can repair itself. Worse, they don’t think corruption is a very important issue. Or they didn’t, at least, at the end of April.
Based on last week’s events, they may think again. Given the enormity of events facing the nation today, I suspect most voters know that a Congress driven largely by bribery would be disastrous. Cultures are hard things to change. But if this is how people feel about Congress, this may be the week to start trying.
©2006 Institute for Global Ethics
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