Problems with the "Throw the Bums Out" Approach

The headline of a New York Times article today is, "Ethics in Play, Voters Oust Incumbents Under Inquiry." One's first impression upon reading the article is that people are throwing unethical politicians out of office. The system is working. But upon further thought, it doesn't seem to be working very well at all.

The article lists congressional representatives who were not re-elected this year, at least partly because they were being investigated for misconduct of some kind. One of them was actually reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee. But in all the other cases, the public depended on allegations alone. In effect, the public acted as an ethics commission, without any due process.

What this does is suggest to candidates that all they have to do is make ethics allegations in order to win. This doesn't mean that the system is working. It means that instead of dealing responsibly with ethics allegations against congressional representatives in a trusted ethics program (it has improved, but it is still far from trusted), our country is dealing irresponsibly with ethics allegations in highly negative congressional races.

In any event, of the 31 members of Congress listed in the last two years in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington's Most Corrupt list, only 11 were either not re-elected or retired. That means that the public re-elected over 2/3 of the supposedly most corrupt representatives. If you believe that throwing out politicians accused of being corrupt is a good thing, the system doesn't actually seem to be working very well.

I was in New Orleans for a government ethics conference the day a congressman was re-elected after $90,000 in marked money (a bribe) was found in his freezer. But the reasons for his re-election were not that he was being given the benefit of the doubt, or that people didn't care. Elections are complex things, involving multiple candidates and issues. They are not a good way to hold accountable officials who have engaged in ethical misconduct. And loss of office is hardly the most appropriate way to handle most instances of ethical misconduct, which fall far short of taking huge bribes.

And why should we depend on each district's voters to keep our government institutions clean? It is in everyone's interests to prevent and enforce against corruption, and corruption is usually not a matter of bad apples. Why then should we depend on each representative's voters, that is, those who have the most to lose if they vote out someone who brings a lot of federal money into their district? Is this really the best way to deal with congressional corruption?

The "throw the bums out" approach is used all over the country, at every level of government, to prevent the creation of effective government ethics programs. Why waste money on ethics programs when you can throw the bums out? What needs to be recognized is that it is politicians more than anyone else who insist that they be held accountable at the polls. You don't hear too many good government groups saying this. That is because it is not the effective approach articles like this make it out to be. It is simply all there is when there is not an effective government ethics program. That is nothing to be proud of.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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