Sympathy for the devil, here, but being investigated by the FBI doesn’t mean that you’ve actually done anything wrong. Famous cases of FBI harrassment aside (viz. John Lennon, MLK) there are plenty of cases where a business owner gets investigated by the FBI because one of their employees is doing something seriously bad on company time.

On the other flipper, I think that the State Assembly and Senate attract the wrong sort of politician. That is, the sort who just want power without responsibility. Since these guys are seldom satisfied with what they’ve got, they inevitably try to use their political power they’ve got to make lots of money so they can gain even more power. (By contrast, the sort of politicians who are actually motivated by notions of public service usually go for offices where they can make a difference - like Duffy running for mayor.)*

Given as how the line between lust for power and money for its own sake and downright criminal or sociopathic behavior is a fine one, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if a large percentage of our state legislators were rolling in scandal and/or dirty money. If it takes the FBI to hose out the cesspool that is Albany, so be it.

*In fairness, I was very impressed by Willa Powell’s run against Joe Rohrbach. It was a classic case of the second sort of pol vs. the first sort of pol. But given the utter indifference that the state and local Democratic party paid to taking over the state Senate, shown by their complete lack of support for competitive Senate candidates, I suspect that The-Powers-That-Be really don’t want change in the Statehouse. It would mean that they’d actually have to be accountable to the voters, and maybe would have to do their freakin’ jobs.

I think the Albany setup breeds corruption. That’s why I like efforts to shine light on the situation, like the recent pork/member items info we had to pry out of the state leg’s cold, dead, hands.

I agree with Louise Slaughter’s view that the most important thing is make info about stuff like the US House rules offenses readily available and easily understood. I know I behave a lot better when I think someone, my wife for example, is looking.