You bring shame to yourself and your political party

Penalties for convictions for political corruption should be political, as opposed to say jail time.

Here are some ideas:

Fines levied against re-election campaign finances. With the permission of donors, fines may be paid out out of donations.

Prohibition of campaign spending, including advertisement and payment of campaign workers, until the fines are paid.

To circumvent the loophole, "third" parties are prohibited (with the penalty of imprisonment) from campaigning for a convicted candidate until the fines are paid. Third parties may contribute toward paying the fines.

You bring shame not only to yourself but also to your party. This is the second component: penalties that other candidates of the party face because of corruption of one member. This places a burden on the party to nominate honest candidates and maintain oversight so they remain honest. This is a good thing.

Penalties to the party are especially relevant if the convicted politician is not running for re-election due to term limits, for example.

We establish a hierarchical notion of "taint". A convicted corrupt politician taints all candidates of his or her party below himself or herself in the hierarchy in his or her political district. The hierarchy is ordered by power, or number of constituents governed: President, governor, U.S. senator, U.S. representative, state senator, state representative, city councilor.

To simplify the exposition, we also say a tainted politician taints himself or herself.

A tainted candidate is also prohibited from campaign spending until fines are paid.

Another way to punish corruption is to change the ballot.

Tainted incumbent candidates lose their incumbency designation on the ballot.

In order to vote for a tainted candidate, a voter must jump through an extra hoop. For example, underneath a tainted candidate's ballot bubble "This candidate belongs to the same political party whose lack of ethics gave us convicted politician Ted Stevens. To confirm that you really intend to vote for this candidate despite his (her) party's lack of ethics, please fill in only bubbles 1, 4, 5, and 8 below."