Mark Twain once said, “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” A large number of Americans share that skepticism.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 43% of the nation’s voters believe that most members of Congress are corrupt. Only 27% disagree and doubt that most national legislators are that dishonorable. Thirty percent (30%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Interestingly, there’s little difference of opinion on this question between Republicans and Democrats. But voters not affiliated with either of the major parties are more doubtful: 51% think most members of Congress are corrupt.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on April 19-20, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.