Washington’s Most Corrupt List, 2010

It doesn’t seem to matter how much house cleaning voters do in the legislature; year after year, the corruption gets worse.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has released its report on the “most corrupt” politicians for 2010.  Not surprisingly, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) make the list. Waters stands accused of obtaining millions in TARP money for the bank OneUnited, on whose board her husband once sat, and in which he owned more than $350,000 in stock. Yet even as Rep. Waters awaits trial for her offenses, voters in California’s 35^th District keep sending her back to Washington. She’s currently serving her tenth term.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) makes the list after being formally censured last December for “financial misconduct” that includes “misleading” financial disclosures and failing to pay property taxes. He also took corporate-paid trips to the Caribbean and traded legislative access for donations to his Rangel Center at City College.

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) currently enjoys his eighth term in Congress in spite of investigations that he allegedly agreed to raise money for former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in exchange for Barack Obama’s old Senate seat.

Drunk with power, arrogantly self-serving, and full of hubris, America’s legislators in both parties seem as corrupt and unethical as ever. Two-term Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski (R) makes the list for “purchasing land in Alaska for a price below market value, accepting a mortgage on terms not available to the general public, and for failing to accurately disclose the transaction.” Senator David Vitter (R-LA) is only in his first term but that didn’t stop him from soliciting prostitutes via the “D.C. Madam,” not surprising since Vitter was also apparently a long-time customer of Jeanette Maier, the “Canal Street Madam.”

via pajamasmedia.com