The Hamilton scandal tells us it’s time to overhaul the General Assembly.

Delegate Phil Hamilton (R-Newport News) is in a lot of trouble for ethics violations, and rightly so. FOIAd e-mailed records show that Hamilton had Old Dominion University hire him as a consultant, using funding he’d allocated from the state budget, contingent on the earmark going through. Basically, he put in an earmark for himself, funneling …

Data geeks uncover congressional corruption.

The good folks at the Sunlight Foundation have been studying the correlation between campaign contributions and congressional earmarks, and in doing so they caught Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN) red-handed getting earmarks for major donors. Is it legal? Assuming that there was no bribe menu, probably. But it’s almost certainly not right. This is a great …

DoJ drops charges against Ted Stevens.

It’s tough to find a silver lining in the DOJ’s decision to drop all charges against convicted bribe-receiver Ted Stevens. Stevens is quite clearly guilty of receiving bribes and, as a U.S. Senator, I think he’s deserving of severe punishment. Public officials who breach the public trust must be made an example of. But the …

Blagojevich arrested on corruption charges.

Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff have been arrested on corruption charges and, after skimming through the criminal complaint, it looks to me like this guy’s as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. Given this laundry list, this isn’t a case of him being caught in the midst of using bad judgment—he …

Rep. Jefferson loses in runoff.

Corrupt Louisiana congressman William Jefferson has been tossed out on his ass by the voters. Rep. Jefferson is best known for the $90,000 that the feds found in his freezer; Jefferson denied that it was bribe money, apparently thinking people would believe that he just keeps enormous amounts of money in his icebox. The district …