Not every Member of Congress is as corrupt as Bob Menendez, George Santos or Henry Cuellar— all facing imminent trials and likely prison time— nor as corrupt as recent members who went to prison on corruption charges, like Duke Cunningham (R-CA), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Chris Collins (R-NY), Corrine Brown (D-FL), William Jefferson (D-LA), Michael Grimm (R-NY), Bob Ney (R-OH), Chaka Fattah (D-PA), Jim Traficant (D-OH), Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL), Wes Cooley (R-OR), Steve Stockman (R-TX), Rick Renzi (R-AZ), Denny Hastert (R-IL)… But many are, whether they’ve been caught or not. It doesn’t always rise to the level of a national scandal like Abscam which netted a senator and half a dozen members of Congress. But the laws are written by Members of Congress and interpreted by a grotesquely corrupt Supreme Court, to allow, if not actually encourage, all kinds of legalistic bribery.
A few days ago, the NY Times asked 10 Members of the House— Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Ken Buck (R-CO), Larry Bucshon (R-IN), Tony Cárdenas (D-CA), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Dan Kildee (D-MI), Derek Kilmer (D-WA), Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Grace Napolitano (D-CA), John Sarbanes (D-MD)— and 2 Senators— Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Thomas Carper (D-DE) all of whom are retiring from Congress, 8 identical questions, including “Is Congress corrupt?” Since two of them— Cárdenas and Eshoo— are among the most corrupt members themselves, I was interested enough to watch the video. Kildee, Carper and Eshoo didn’t respond. Eshoo, who has been a member for over 3 decades, was the chair and is now the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on health which gave her immense power over health policy and an opportunity to rake in millions of dollars— just as Larry Bucshon has (from his perch on the same subcommittee). His response was “Congress is absolutely not corrupt.”
Even more corrupt than Eshoo and Bucshon is Tony Cárdenas, an L.A. political hack who can up through the ranks, basking in bribery and grotesque personal corruption every inch of the way. He didn’t have much to say to The Times about such a personally fraught topic for him, just that “Both Democrats and Republicans, by and large, they’re just trying to do what we believe we need to do for our districts and our constituents.”
These were the other responses:
Doug Lamborn (R-CO)- “No, I don’t see the corruption.”
Ben Cardin (D-MD)- “I think that there are parts of our system that are corrupting the general atmosphere... Citizens United was a horrible decision by the asdupreme Court that held corporations had the rights as individuals to make contributions in our campaign. It led to the floodgates of. Lot of special interest dollars coming into campaigns without really knowing who was contributing those dollars… We need campaign finance reform.”
Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)- “There is undue influence for special interest absolutely.”
Grace Napolitano (D-CA)- “Some people do tend to favor Large business and special interests.”
John Sarbanes (D-MD)- “Big corporations and special interests… and that is a form of corruption there’s no question... Change the way campaigns are funded in America and definately by demanding disclosure of this dark money.”
Ken Buck (R-CO)- “The tsunami of money that comes in from special interests groups... I was told at the beginning that I had to raise $250,000 if I wanted to be on certain committees. And if I wanted to be on more important committees or committees with broader jurisdiction, I needed to raise even more money. Buying a committee seat is not something that most Americans know that members of Congress have to do.”
Derek Kilmer (D-WA), former head of the New Dems, the group that has most successfully institutionalized corporate corruption inside the Democratic caucus- “I think there’s too much money in our political system... The number of times over the course of the 11-plus years that I’ve heard one of my colleagues say, ‘You know, I agree with you on that but I could never vote that way because of my fear of a primary’ is concerning… I’ve been a big support of campaign finance reform.”
I asked a Member of Congress who I’ve known for many years and whose ethics I trust absolutely. She told me that Congress is “corrupt in the sense that if you have a competitive district, you generally have to sell out to vested interests to raise enough campaign funds, no matter what your personal inclinations. There is so much money sloshing around— ‘independent expenditure’ money— that most candidates are just pawns no matter what they do. Basically, the PACs have been defeated by the SuperPACs. So the campaign money corruption has evolved. In terms of the personal corruption, that’s always been there, and it’s always going to be there, but that’s just a character test that the system imposes on everyone with any power. In that sense, a Member of Congress is not fundamentally different from a police officer on the streets of Yangon.”