[rmc]

But that only works at the shallow level. A crook can get around that by asking/bribing/convincing someone else to be the one who's responsible for the amenment.

[liscovich]

There is very little outright corruption in Congress. Special interests exert most of the influence through campaign contributions that are publicly disclosed. Larry Lessig has a great book on this: http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Corrupts-Congress---eboo.... And here is the link to his TED talk on the same topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g