Are Politicians Getting More Crooked?

The rap sheets at city hall are growing long indeed: Philadelphia's former city treasurer was sentenced recently to 10 years in prison for corruption. Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell is going on trial in September. Two San Diego city council members were found guilty of conspiracy, extortion and fraud. Chicago is in the midst of a scandal over rigged civil service exams. Question: Are politicians more crooked today than in the past? Answer: no.

True, this has been a busy year. The U.S. Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, which prosecutes political corruption cases, reports that it had secured 43 convictions or guilty pleas by mid-year. That compares with 51 for all of 2004 and 48 in 2003. But otherwise, observers say, it's business as usual. "I don't think statistically there's been any kind of dramatic spike," said one former prosecutor.

The Dallas Morning News took at look recently at the Public Integrity Section and found it to be a fearsome and unusually effective squad. (There's a federal investigation of city officials in Dallas underway, as well.) Between 1984 and 2003, the feds obtained convictions for 20,393 of the 23,320 people they indicted. Reason for success: Prosecutors are careful to indict only when the evidence is strong. That usually means wiretaps, incriminating documents, "body bugs" (where one person is wearing a recording device) and lots of corroborating testimony. The easiest people in a public corruption case to "turn" (agree to cooperate with authorities) are usually the business people supplying the bribes.

OK, but what exactly is a bribe? Politicians receive campaign contributions from business people all the time, and contributors often want something for their money. What separates a legal contribution from an illegal payoff? Answer: When it's tied to something specific, a "quid pro quo," in legal jargon — something along the lines of, if you give me $5,000, I'll make sure you get a $100,000 city contract. "Basically, you want to get dead-to-rights evidence . . . getting the defendant on tape stating unequivocally what the quid pro quo is," a former prosecutor told the Morning News.

But why make a federal case of local corruption? After all, states and localities have prosecutors; why aren't they the ones hauling crooked city council members into court? Two reasons: The feds make it a priority. The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section was created in 1976 and has been supported by attorneys general ever since. And, like Elliot Ness, federal authorities are more or less untouchable. "(Public corruption) is a crime the federal government believes it is uniquely qualified to investigate because it's not beholden to any particular local constituency," a former prosecutor pointed out, "and it's an area which it has developed a great deal off experience in."

Footnote: Of the corruption cases cited above, the Chicago scandal is unusual in that it doesn't appear to involve money for contracts or legislation. Rather it seems to center around penny-ante patronage. Still, the embarrassment factor is high here. Among the cases the news media have seized on: one in which an applicant for a city dispatcher's job was ranked as qualified on the basis of interviews. Only problem: The applicant had died before the alleged interviews took place.