It is fairly self-evident that we can't get purely self-interested and sufficiently coordinated with anyone who could displace them from their positions (in the sense that they value keeping their own bribes over denying their opponents bribes) politicians to support any measure that would actually make them no longer receive bribes.
If one of the two assumptions above fails: assuming we can legally define what exactly constitutes a bribe (and I imagine this is not a solved problem), it probably would be possible to pass a law that says that if you can prove as a politican that you were offered or given a bribe (for a sum n), the bribe-offering party gets fined (say) 100n (aiming for their economic destruction), of which 5n is given to you (thus incentivising you to report bribes) and some token amount is given to everyone else serving in the same elected body as you (to incentivise everyone to vote for the law).
The potential problem is that now you've created one of those loophole things. Now publically bribe the official n/105 of what you actually want, and it's totally legal!
> The potential problem is that now you've created one of those loophole things. Now publically bribe the official n/105 of what you actually want, and it's totally legal!
That would still reduce the influence by >95% because you have to pay 105x and the politician only gets 5x.
The actual problem is that if a politician is known for reporting bribes then they won't be offered any, so taking 1x every time is still more profitable than taking 5x once.
Well, if the law is set up in such a fashion that you can "keep receipts" and report retroactively to enjoy the full benefits, you would still have an incentive to dredge everything up the moment you retire (and put the extra 4x lifetime bribe earnings into your retirement fund or bequeath them to your kids), and while the crackdown would be delayed, the bribing parties would still eventually come under the hammer (so unless there is some way for them to take and run with their short-term earnings leaving a shell company to be punished, there would not be an incentive for them to bribe in the first place).
If one of the two assumptions above fails: assuming we can legally define what exactly constitutes a bribe (and I imagine this is not a solved problem), it probably would be possible to pass a law that says that if you can prove as a politican that you were offered or given a bribe (for a sum n), the bribe-offering party gets fined (say) 100n (aiming for their economic destruction), of which 5n is given to you (thus incentivising you to report bribes) and some token amount is given to everyone else serving in the same elected body as you (to incentivise everyone to vote for the law).