Count me among those who are unconvinced

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There Is Very Little Corruption in U.S. Politics
By Stephen K. Medvic, April 3, 2013

Any discussion of corruption in politics ought to start with an acknowledgement that it’s actually quite rare. The public integrity section of the United States Department of Justice prosecutes about 900 public officials for corruption every year. But that figure includes all public employees in all branches and agencies of government, at federal, state and local levels. Only a fraction of these individuals are elected officials. This means that, in any given year, only a minuscule percentage of the more than 500,000 elected officials in the United States are brought up on charges of corruption.

It’s hard to convince the public that few politicians are corrupt because cases of corruption are newsworthy and people tend to exaggerate the prevalence of a phenomenon when it garners news media attention. This is especially true when stories confirm preconceived notions. Regardless of what the public might believe, there is very little corruption in American politics.

If there isn’t much corruption to begin with, electing more people of independent means couldn’t reduce the amount of corruption in politics to any significant extent. Moreover, making politicians more beholden to their constituents doesn’t seem to be much of a problem at the moment. After all, a common charge against the politicians we currently have is that they are too beholden to their constituents, allegedly pandering to the voters to stay in office. At any rate, if responsiveness is what we want in politicians, electing people of independent means doesn’t seem the best way to ensure it. In the face of constituent threats to unseat him or her, the wealthy politician would simply respond, “Fine, I don’t need this job anyway.”

Any group of people will have some questionable characters. We should trust that the scrutiny candidates receive on the campaign trail will weed out most of the bad apples and the spotlight from an ever-present news media will, for the most part, keep those elected officials with flawed characters in check. In this regard, a politician’s financial status is largely irrelevant.
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