In a year when campaign spending is already setting records, Washington’s culture of cash continues to overwhelm efforts to reform Congress.

Tales of congressmen gone wild this year have been keeping Washington’s ethics grapevine buzzing, two years after multiple scandals supposedly launched a reform movement.
The latest involves Rep. Don Young (D-Alaska), who is being investigated for his $10 million earmark for a stretch of Florida highway known as Coconut Road.
Not only does the Alaskan congressman’s interest in the obscure interchange beg hard questions, but a recorded $40,000 contribution from developers who stand to benefit suggests an embarrassing answer.
In a what would be a cringe-inducing act, the congressman and his staff are alleged to have added the appropriation to a transportation bill after it was passed in the House and Senate but before the bill was signed into law.
The investigation is the latest black eye for a Congress still recovering from Rep. Rick Renzi’s (R-Ariz.) February indictment for extortion, wire fraud and money laundering in an Arizona real estate scam. Add in Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), who are battling charges of financial improprieties in their own primetime investigations, and it becomes clear there are still big problems on the Hill.
Since 2002, several other congressmen have been either indicted or convicted for an array of crimes related to taking money from lobbyists in exchange for votes, and many others are currently under investigation.
“We in Congress tend to blame lobbyists, when we ourselves are corrupted,” said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), one of only a handful of congressmen who have sought to reform lobbying practices.
With financial scandals multiplying and more stories of politicians chasing money being reported, it’s clear too many elected officials in Washington are spending their time offering themselves to the highest bidder.
But it wasn’t supposed to still be this way. Just two years ago, the Democrats won the mid-term elections, partly because of voter disgust at the (mostly Republican) cases of corruption that had surfaced after the outing of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The indictments of scandal-plagued party leaders Tom Delay (R-Texas) and Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) along with the sudden retirement of Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) while under investigation for corruption seemed to send the message that the era of “pay for play” was over.
Fast forward to today, and the continuing string of corruption cases makes it clear little has changed.
The reason for all this is simple: money.
Watch Jerry Kammer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, explain the corrupt environment on the Hill.In our interactive graphic “The Dishonor Roll,” learn about seven current and former congressmen who have come under investigation, and some who have been convicted.
Mo’Money
Washington is a city afloat in cash. Political campaigns cost astronomical amounts, and lobbyists spend a king’s ransom to make their cases—often by funding those campaigns. Government spending has exploded, as have opportunities for Congressmen to earmark funds sought by constituents—and lobbyists.
Rep. Flake described how congressmen pass bills requested by lobbyists and their clients who “then kick money back into their campaign coffers.” He calls it “circular fundraising” and said the money “just churns.”
When congressmen finally retire, many of them scurry across town and become lobbyists themselves, earning salaries that are as much as ten times higher than their pay as elected officials. In that newfound role, they lobby their former colleagues, and the process repeats itself.
As reform advocate Rep. Mike Pense (R-Ind.) said, “you can’t complain about the sharks while you’re holding the bucket of chum.”
At the heart of the money culture is the out-of-control cost of getting elected.
Winning an open seat in the House during the 2006 mid-terms cost an average of $1.9 million, almost four times the $500,000 that same seat cost 20 years ago. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) ran the election’s most expensive campaign when he ran for the Florida District 13 seat, ultimately spending $11 million to secure his victory.
Gaining a seat in the Senate is even more costly, with recent campaigns in New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut each running more than $40 million.
At least the spending produces results. The Center for Responsive Politics reported that 85 percent of the winning Senate candidates and 94 percent of the winning House candidates in 2000 had outspent their opponents.
And the costs keep going up, as campaign expense inflation has continued to raise prices for the current election cycle. According to the most recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, during the 2007–8 cycle, candidates for the House of Representatives have already raised $479 million and spent $280 million. Candidates for the Senate, with far fewer races, have so far raised $210 million and spent $90 million. And most of the raising and spending are still to come.
So what do the candidates do with all this cash? According to a study by the Center for Public Integrity, the bulk of it goes to buying television airtime, producing ads, paying consultants and, to complete the circle, fundraising.
The enormous amounts candidates need to get elected does have consequences.
Senators, representatives and candidates spend a considerable part of their waking hours fundraising. Some donors just want good government, but others want more. This, of course, is where lobbyists and earmarks (Washington-speak for inserting funds for a specific project into an appropriation bill) come into play.
“Money and special interests have an inordinate amount of influence in Washington,” House Oversight Committee chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said in an interview. “To a great extent, it’s because of the campaign finance system, where members of Congress and the Senate—and candidates for those offices—are constantly raising money.”
One solution is to find rich candidates who can finance their own campaigns. Jon Corzine, a former investment banker, who spent $60 million of his own money to win a New Jersey Senate seat in 2000, set the gold standard for this approach. It seems that independent wealth has become extremely helpful to making it to Washington.
There is a drawback, though, because valuing dollars over ability doesn’t always work. In 2006, 28 congressional candidates spent $1 million or more of their own money on their campaigns. Just four of them are in Congress today.
Nevertheless, money matters. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 2006 (the most recently filed data), the average net worth of senators was around $12 million, while representatives were worth about $5 million.
Is it any wonder why many voters think their representatives are out of touch?
Watch Rep. Jeffrey Flake (R-Ariz.) and Bill Allison, senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, speak about how Congress’s latest self-policing efforts have failed to change the way Washington is run.
Pay to Play
Not surprisingly, as the cost of getting elected keeps climbing, the business of political influence has boomed.
From 2003 to 2008, the number of lobbyists in Washington grew from 17,000 to 22,000, many of whom have offices on K Street. Last year, lobbyists reported spending $2.8 billion to help make their voices heard.
Naturally, the roster of biggest spenders reflects the key issues facing Congress. The health care industry, for example, spent $445 million, while the finance industry, which includes the real estate sector, spent $419 million.
What do they get for all that money? Lobbyists work to pass—or defeat—legislation and sometimes even write the bills their clients want. They influence regulations, gather information and obtain access to government contracts.
In the process, they also develop close relationships with elected and appointed officials. One consequence is that when they leave office, those same officials often graduate to become lobbyists. Jerry Kammer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has reported extensively on congressional corruption, observed that “half of those who retire are headed down to K Street.”
Although lobbying has probably been around as long as governments have, DeLay is credited with inititating its modern era in Washington. As part of then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s team when the Republicans won control of Congress in 1996, he insisted that lobbying firms hire more Republicans--—particularly former congressmen and their staffers. He also established more organized links between the firms and Congress and demanded that lobbyists work closely with the Republican leadership.
As Gingrich famously told lobbyists in 1996, “if you’re going to play in our revolution, you have to live by our rules.” And, ever since, “pay for play” has been central to how Washington works.
Learn about the six biggest lobbyists in Washington and the power they wield in our interactive graphic.In Washington these days, you don’t have to walk far to discover corruption in one of the government’s buildings. Our interactive map highlights the worst offenders.Taming the Beast
Many congressmen recognize that the corruption problems swirling through the capital are undermining Americans’ faith in government. Congressional approval ratings consistently hover around 20 percent, and polls say that a majority of Americans think their congressmen are crooks.
“There was a pretty clear message out of voters in 2006—that they weren’t happy with how Congress was running itself,” says Massie Ritsch of the Center for Responsive Politics.
Rep. Flake agrees. He believes that for every politician or interest group pressing him for earmarks, “there are 100 people on the street who say, ‘I didn’t send you to Washington to grovel at their table.’”
But progress is slow and spotty.
In February, Rep. Waxman (D-Calif.), a leading anti-corruption advocate, declared that earmark spending remained “out of control” and called for a total suspension of the practice. Some Republicans matched that call, but no clear action followed.
Then in late March, a narrow House majority voted to create an independent Office of Congressional Ethics, whose six-member board is charged with investigating ethical complaints about lawmakers.
The Office will act as a sort of morality check for member of Congress by preparing factual reports and recommendations for subpoenas that would then be passed to the House Ethics Committee, which retains the authority to act or not act on the recommendations.
Self-policing is always suspect, but Congress has added some teeth to the reform effort. The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which went into full effect in mid-April, aims to introduce more transparency into Congressional relations with lobbyists.
This new law bans most gifts, including meals and trips, to members, and requires lobbyists to provide more timely and detailed records of their activities, campaign contributions and client fees. It also imposes stiff penalties for illegal gifts, including up to five years in prison and $200,000 in fines.
Ironically, the law leaves enormous loopholes. For example, while lobbyists are prohibited from buying Congressman or staffers even a cup of coffee, they are still permitted to provide campaign donations.
Thus, a lobbyist, who can’t pay $3.40 for a Starbucks latte with skim milk, can write a campaign check for $2,300—and let the congressman pay for the coffee himself.