Maybe its just the conspiracy theorist in me, but I think all of these "episodes" are just smoke in mirrors. Take our free food, take our free money, and before you know it your hooked. You can do whatever you want, as long as its what we tell you to do.
I think the reps are way over paid and over pampered. The amounts of money involved are mind blowing. The amounts are so high, that its Eff you money. They can do whatever they want, and there is nothing, short of armed revolution, that will change it. Nothing. Do you really think your vote counts? How do you know? When the pres can buy his way in to the office, whose to say the same doesn't happen at the state level?