Corruption and a one-party system

Yes, yes, we all know Chicago's political system is corrupt. More stuff is coming out today, and I hope Patrick Fitzgerald keeps it up. No one is surprised, so I don't even find the details interesting.

What interests me is how often corruption festers in any system (local, state, or federal) where the levers of power are controlled by one party for too long. It's a pet theory of mine that any time that happens and we see dirty stuff, it's generally good for power to shift to the other party. Why? Then there is a totally fresh set of eyes and minds to clear out older practices. That means everyone from the politicians themselves to the staffers who perform much of the grunt work of running the operation.

(As a caveat, I understand that there are examples where a transfer of power makes no difference, such as the Illinois governor's mansion, where I thought it was actually a good thing for Blagojevich to take over for George Ryan and Republicans who had controlled it for 30 years or so. There are others, like the entire state of Louisiana, where corruption is just endemic in the entire culture, though they have a new governor who it trying to change that right now. Good luck to him, I say.)

That's one reason why I wasn't terribly worked up about Democrats taking over Congress in the 2006 elections. It's not that Hill Republicans were very corrupt or anything, especially compared to Democrats, but they had definitely gotten too comfortable with themselves and their power in the 12 years they were in charge (ignoring the brief Democratic Senate control earlier this decade due to a party-switcher). They still need to clean up their act to a degree, which is one reason Democrats can expect another big year in 2008.

The biggest example of such a shift that I can easily think of was in 1995 when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives. Democrats had it since 1954, and there were a fair number of scandals in the prior 15 years or so that played a factor. Besides my obvious bias towards the Republican party, it was certainly good for the sake of cleaning up the institution.

I often wonder what would occur in a city like Chicago if Republicans ever won the mayorship and a majority of the city council. Obviously such a thing is unlikely, but I'd be curious how that would affect the calcified beaurocracy.

Again, it's just a theory of mine.