Politics must be more transparent in order to reduce corruption among policy makers, according to Melanie Sloan, the executive director and founder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Sloan presented the lecture, "Can the Government be Trusted to Oversee Itself?" in the Rockefeller Center on Thursday.
CREW, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., founded in 2003 is "dedicated to promoting ethics and accountability in government and public life by targeting government officials, regardless of party affiliation," according to the organization's web site.
CREW is known for aggressively pursuing ethics violations against "untouchable" politicians and is perhaps best known for exposing the Mark Foley scandal in 2006, Sloan said.
CREW's work revealed that Foley, then a Republican congressman from Florida, had sent sexually explicit e-mails and instant messages to male teenage congressional pages, Sloan said.
Despite originally targeting corruption among Republican congressmen, Sloan said CREW has become very hard on members of both parties.
In her lecture, Sloan called for greater use of the Freedom of Information Act as a means of informing citizens and increasing transparency within the government.
"The [George W.] Bush administration really prided itself on secrecy," Sloan said.
According to Sloan, the Bush administration essentially ignored the Freedom of Information Act by adopting a policy of nondisclosure for government agencies. Although the Obama administration has since reverted back to a policy of disclosure, the effects have not yet trickled down to "lower-level government officials," she said.
Politicians, including President Barack Obama, have frequently singled out lobbyists as the cause of political corruption, Sloan said.
"Lobbyists are everyone's favorite boogeyman," she said.
Lobbyists are only one of several players in governmental corruption, Sloan said, and restrictions placed on their actions often backfire and prove insufficient if passed.
"[Restrictions on lobbyists] only address part of the problem and have led to an increase in unofficial or unlicensed lobbying, further hindering transparency," she said.
Despite ethics violations including bribery and tax code violations made by congressional leaders in the past, only former Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, has faced serious condemnation, for soliciting sex in a Minneapolis airport in 2007, according to Sloan.
"Sex is the only thing Congressional ethics committees have condemned in the past," Sloan said.
Sloan said she believes the recent Supreme Court decision overturning a ban on corporate and independent expenditures in federal elections will have a significant and negative impact on Washington in the future.
"Granting corporations the same First Amendment right as individual citizens allows corporations to have an undue influence and potentially increase corruption in Washington," Sloan said.
According to Sloan, the decision could lead to increased communication between corporate executives and politicians, eventually leading to a "congressman from Bank of America" or a "senator from Wal-Mart," she said.
"If the Court no longer believes money corrupts, then we may soon see corporations making payments directly to politicians," Sloan said.
In a question-and-answer session following the lecture, Sloan expressed concerns about the management of the Federal Reserve.
According to Sloan, the Fed has been overly secretive about company bailouts and what the Fed received from these companies in exchange for tax-payer dollars.
"There should be no government agency or quasi-government agency that runs without some form of oversight," she said.
