THE LIVES OF THE PARTIES : ETHICS REBORN

No column, commentary or Sunday morning sound bite on Washington’s wave of scandals explains the underlying dynamic more clearly than the sage words of a Southern demagogue. Willie Stark whispered them to his reluctant protege Jack Burden in “All The King’s Men,” Robert Penn Warren’s classic 1946 novel of political ambition and corruption. “There is always something,” Stark said, sending Burden off to find scandal rotting in the past of a seemingly upright opponent. “Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption . . . . There is always something.”

Almost daily the headlines honor Stark (or, more accurately, Penn Warren) as a bilious prophet. This year’s parade of political and personal scandals has offered “something” for everyone: politicians apparently enriching themselves with special favors from wealthy supporters; lobbyists enriching themselves by wiring federal grants at the Department of Housing and Urban Development; House members of all ideological and sexual persuasions--from liberal homosexual Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to conservative heterosexual Donald E. Lukens (R-Ohio)--enmeshing themselves in grimy webs of lapsed morality. All this after the indiscretions of Gary Hart, the investigations of Edwin Meese III and the rejection of John G. Tower. We may be nearing a point where the most useful capital directory might be one compiled by Masters and Johnson.

All this takes a predictable toll on the public view of politicians. Trust in Congress and other national institutions, including the Supreme Court, has eroded under the acid drip of revelation. In California, having endured federal and local investigations of the Legislature and the questionable financial dealings of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, more than 40% of residents surveyed in a recent Field poll said they did not consider local and state politicians honest.

Does this mean today’s elected officials are more venal, more corrupt than their predecessors? Probably not. Remember, there is always something. No code of conduct has ever repealed the immutable law of human imperfection. What makes current scandals so notorious is intensified press coverage--plus a lack of offsetting good works in the political ledger. Washington has been defined by its scandals largely because it has offered so little else to define itself. In Sacramento the same has been true. Along with the sense that government is corrupt and immoral comes a belief that it is incapable of grappling with basic problems.

That widespread disaffection corrodes government’s ability to function--and virtually invites more scandal. As people have lost faith in governmental good works, they have both demanded less of it and given it less attention. With politics receiving less attention, campaigns increasingly turn on tactical advantage--which side can mobilize more money to rush a fleeting message past a distracted electorate. Squeezing money from special interests--whose needs breed scandal like swamp flies--becomes the first order of political survival. In 1988, the candidate who spent more won 414 of the 435 House races, and 29 of the 33 Senate races, according to exhaustive research by the Center for Responsive Politics.

As those numbers suggest, few candidates have found issues compelling enough to overcome financial disadvantage. Concern about ethics isn’t likely to change that. Individual members implicated may face problems next fall, but there’s no sign of a wave developing to flush the rascals out. Polls show that voters don’t give either party any edge for ethical rectitude. The conviction that all politicians are dirty dilutes the political force of the accompanying disgust.

“This might contribute to some kind of greater anti-incumbent sentiment,” said GOP pollster William McInturff, “but I’m not even sure of that because people may not believe the next round of challengers are any different.”

Yet elected officials are eager to further inoculate themselves. Talk of ethics reform is rampant in Congress; how much reform is another matter. The Senate is drafting an ethics package; the House is likely to take up ethics reform by mid-October, and perhaps also consider further campaign finance restrictions. Yet the most eagerly sought ethics change, a ban on honorariums from special interests, will be difficult to achieve without a pay raise, a fight many legislators may not wish to revisit. Major campaign finance reform is unlikely because there is no consensus behind public financing, the key to imposing spending limits. “We are pretty much dead in the water on that,” said Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento), who heads a bipartisan House task force studying ethics rules.

In California, the state Assembly is expected to join the Senate in passing a substantial package of reforms later this month, including restrictions on honorariums and gifts, and new controls on the use of campaign funds for personal benefit. Attorney General John K. Van de Kamp, front-runner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, wants to put a much more ambitious package before the voters, one limiting state legislators to 12 years in office. Among politicians the idea is anathema. For that reason alone, it may prove extremely popular with voters.

All these changes could be salutary; approved, they would probably diminish public belief that government is bought. But they won’t eliminate mistrust altogether, because such reforms by themselves can’t end the gridlock that symbolizes government’s breakdown. Ethics rules alone can’t solve the problems that create the demand for them.

More than the paralyzing influence of special-interest money has tied up both Congress and the state Legislature. Government is not moving boldly at any level; few politicians have a clear sense of where they want to take it. After lively debates on government’s role in the early Reagan years, Washington is in a period of pause. Through the first eight months of the Bush Administration, neither party has shown much ideological passion.

Having abandoned Reagan’s anti-government bromides, Bush has only replaced them with the pragmatic problem-solving he ridiculed during the campaign. And Democrats have been remarkably reticent about confronting Bush, uncertain about their own identity after the third straight presidential blowout.

Nothing in politics is static. As in science, the observation of a phenomenon changes it. As politicians are accused of being frozen and ineffective, they instinctively bustle. Some signs are encouraging. Many observers, for example, believe criticism of the California Legislature’s inaction helps explain the compromise reached over gasoline taxes and the current willingness to consider serious ethical reforms. “Legislators are finally getting a real sense of the low regard in which the public holds them. And I think they are fairly uncomfortable with that,” said Walter Zelman, executive director of California Common Cause. The uncharacteristic boldness of an achingly conventional officeholder like Van de Kamp may foreshadow changing times.

Similarly, the new Democratic leaders in Congress, well aware of the damage to their reputations from the Jim Wright and Tony Coelho scandals--and more recently from the misadventures of a male prostitute attached to Frank’s office--are anxious to present a more purposeful image. “If we don’t do anything between now and November, 1990, then there is a vacuum,” acknowledged one senior aide in the House Democratic leadership. “On the other hand, if we pass a clean-air bill, if we pass a child-care bill, and we do something in terms of oil-spill legislation, about education, we do something about drugs, then I think people will feel we’re getting some things done.”

That analysis rings true. As long as both parties are mired in tactical debates and incremental tinkering with the edges of fundamental needs, scandal will cut more deeply.

In politics, there is always something corrupt; the issue is whether there is also something inspiring or ennobling to balance the picture. In small times, even small lapses loom large.