Establish stiff penalties for political corruption

Liberty
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It has been long “known” and is now being laid bare by DOGE that political corruption is ubiquitous throughout Washington. We can never hope to have an efficient and fair government as long as people who are susceptible to greed and wrongdoing are in positions where the temptation for corruption and the benefits of malfeasance outweigh the penalties or likely punishments.

The aspiration to public office should be reserved for the truly honorable who wish to serve their nation and not merely to enrich themselves. Anyone who has even an inkling of corruption should abstain from seeking public office.

THEREFORE, I propose that a law be passed that if someone in public office is found to have engaged in obvious and egregious corrupt activity, e.g. has taken money for influence or political decision-making or has inappropriately and illegally benefited financially in a significant way, from their actions while in service to the country, their wrongful actions will be deemed as treason and punishable according to the laws of treason.

Due to the inherent weakness of the human condition, it is not reasonable to assume that politicians will be able to control themselves unless the punishment for getting caught is sufficiently high to dissuade them from wrongdoing.

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I would go as far as to say anyone trying to black mail anyone in them offices too.

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I like the idea of having corrupt politicians pay back all the corrupt money they took with an idea I call ‘corruption debt’.

I wrote about it here:

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I think that is already a law, just not enforced since most judges or their families are corrupt also.

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I’m a retired government employee. I NEVER knew how isolated congress is to the real RULES. If I did or said half of the stuff these politicians said in support of communistic countries – or refused to uphold the constitution (what we ALL swore to do) I would’ve lost my clearance. In my little world – if I couldn’t maintain a security clearance – I would’ve been FIRED. I’m just dumbfounded how Congress can swear to uphold the constitution and there’s no penalties when they break that oath…I guess I’ve been living under a rock.

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Treason should warrant seizure of ALL assets

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If the public demands it, so be it. Seize all their assets upon closure of having an ‘unreasonable doubt’ of corruption.

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Politicians are susceptible to punishment for illegal acts. They problem is that they have a greater ability to hide them.

All those serving in elective offices have a form of sovereign immunity by law that protects them from civil lawsuits. The rationale behind this is that it immunizes them against what we have come to know as “lawfare.” That makes sense to some degree because no one in office should be distracted from the duties of their office by such egregious misuse of the law.

Instead of the current laws, however, I suggest that new laws be written making it far easier to accuse those in office - elected, appointed, or civil servants - of illegal acts. I think that there are 3 levels of criminality that should be incorporated into such laws for the protection of those governed. The first is to make it criminal to fail to perform the duties of an office. The second is to make it criminal to perform the duties of an office poorly making the office ineffective or too costly. The third is to perform the dutes of office for enrichment to self, family, acquaintance or any political group or party. Penalties should be cumulative and progressive meaning that all being guilty of a greater offense does not absolve of lesser included offenses and imprisonment should result for the latter 2 offenses. Liability under tort should only be involved in the last of the crimes cited above. (I have referred to these as nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance of office in other writings.)

In addition to redefining the laws and setting forth new penalties using conventional, historic means, it should be possible for citizens to petition for hearings and for those to be mandated upon sufficient numbers of certified citizen signatures. Thereafter, it might be left up to police investigation to determine what evidence exists; however, there should be some means of using police from a distant jurisdiction as that might be less likely to involve corruption of the process.

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I hear “term limits” all the time. I wish we’d make law that punishes national politicians who receive any gift of value or income above their salary for the position they hold. It’s not too much to ask of them to drop all investments, other sources of income, if they really want to serve, and they surely can live on the, (already generous), salaries of their high offices. We can do term limits, I’m good with it. But we have to remember, they’ll just learn to sell us out in a shorter period of time if we don’t crack down on that part of it.

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Yes. 100%

Any politician that is getting rich off their position needs to be exposed to all Americans. And NONE should be contacting foreign leaders or their minions or their lobbists without Presidents Approval. This includes business deals for their state. The people of the state should be informed before Senators, Representatives and even Mayors begin working with foreign enterprises in their state.

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I agree

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During my tenure as a government employee – it was CLEAR that we were not allowed to accept anything over a $35 value. I guess that’s the difference between a regular government employee and the elite in congress.

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How do you identify beforehand those “susceptible to greed and wrongdoing”? How do you test for the “truly honorable”? And, even if you found individuals that are honorable and trustworthy and are willing to run for public office, the voters decide. So the bottom line is, how do we find the best and the brightest? How do we promote candidates with the strength of character, integrity and conviction to lead the country? …to serve others and not their own greed. Perhaps more importantly, how do you find and nurture the type of person who is unwilling to use others for their personal or political ends? I disagree with you that humans are inherently weak…the human race has survived through strength not weakness. Unfortunately, the lightweights, those without depth of character, those who live in the shallows have risen to the top.

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Hi Karen. You highlight the point I was making… we can’t identify those who have, or don’t have, the strength of character to be truly trustworthy, therefore we must create penalties for wrongdoing that are sufficiently large as to disincentivize public officials from sucumming to greed. It has been my observation that a large percentage of people (especially the kind of ambitious, power-hungry people who typically run for public office) have a price at which they are willing to sell out their honor. I’m glad that your personal life experience has led you to hold your fellow man in higher esteem.

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Spot on!

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Why is everyone soo resistant to assuming the power that the U.S. Constitution gives us in Amendments 9 and 10.

Amendment 9
- Other Rights Kept by the People

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment 10
- Undelegated Powers Kept by the States and the People

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Some citizens might say, isn’t that the power we use when we vote in elections. Electing representatives is certainly part of that, but the powers available to the people are not enumerated. The definition of reserved powers for the people is up to us - We, The People. For example, 25 states have ballot initiative laws. These initiative laws CREATE new laws when citizens vote for them on their ballots.

When citizens have the power to create their own laws, it’s called democracy (small d).

As everyone seems to be agreeing, the national, Federal government has become almost totally corrupt. They used the people’s seeming lack of concern about the national laws our Federal elected and appointed officials create, except for protests, as a license to take advantage of us. And why did the people let this go on? Because the Federal Government said there is NOTHING you can do. Our national government became controlled by our mega-corporations, who also conveniently controlled our everyday news media.

Former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel tried multiple times to implement the national initiative into law, but Congress wouldn’t have it. Gee, it couldn’t be because of their corruption - could it?

Well - we, the people, can still implement the national ballot initiative by way of the completed legislation by Senator Gravel called the National Citizens Initiative for Democracy documented in his book Citizen Power: A Mandate for Change available on Amazon. It appears the website for this legislation has been taken down by some swamp leftover.

USE YOUR POWER PEOPLE!