My Line

Every Senator has traded a vote on one thing for a vote on another thing.

Plenty of people have offered political support in exchange for at least being put on the short list for jobs.

Campaign contributions give you access, put a politician in your network, and can lead to sympathetic hearings on issues, or even jobs (especially in the case of the Bush administration).

Where's the line? Putting a Senate seat on eBay certainly is over it, which is more or less what Governor Blagojevich of Illinois did, but how much worse is it than what happens in politics every day?

I think the worst part is the circumvention of the democratic process. All public officials have the public trust to act on behalf of their constituents, and they almost invariably look out for their own interests. But what we're looking at in Illinois was more than failing to fairly represent the electorate, this was failing to faithfully ACT as the electorate. The Governor is supposed to singlehandedly choose a Senator to replace President-elect Obama, and he does with the appointment the same thing a Congressman might do with a vote he didn't care much about: see what he can get for it. That crossed a line, but what line? Where is it? I'm having trouble identifying it.

It also makes me wonder, is the law a little bit to blame? When the President makes a big appointment, the Senate* has to confirm the choice. Maybe these appointments should be state-legislature confirmable? I'm not excusing what he did, and I consider this an egregious breach of public trust, but shouldn't this have been predictable? Why think that in this one case a politician would rise to the occasion and faithfully execute his responsibility on behalf of those he serves? Politicians are ALWAYS trying to get something for what they do, which is what makes a lot of them good politicians. The great ones trade for stuff their constituents need; the corrupt ones trade for stuff for them. Most politicians, I suspect, fall somewhere in between. But given the huge conflict of interest the Illinois governor gets when a Senator vacates his seat (and that one state is hardly alone in this respect), shouldn't there be some safeguards? If not a special election, then at least an election among the state house and senate? Or at the VERY least, a confirmation process to prevent cronyism?

Again, I'm not excusing what he did, but the system isn't entirely blameless. It creates bad incentive structures, and who knows how many times this has already happened, undetected. Governor Blagojevich was especially stupid to make a move like this while he was already under scrutiny for corruption. But what about the governors who aren't under such scrutiny? State legislatures all over the country should move to reform these rules, to prevent something like this from happening again.