A couple of former City of Houston aides have had a rough spot lately, but frankly our corruption is blase’ compared to what’s going on at City Hall in San Diego recently.
First, the San Diego mayor resigned a couple of weeks ago amidst a pension fund scandal. Then, after about 60 hours on the job, the mayor’s interim successor — along with another member of the San Diego City Council — was convicted of conspiracy, extortion, and fraud in connection with a scheme to receive money for changing a city law to benefit strip club owners. With a new interim mayor and another mayor to be elected in a special election, that makes four mayors by my count in the space of just a few months. All of which prompted economist and San Diego resident James Hamilton to observe:

Forgive me if this sounds paranoid, but isn’t this the same crowd to whom the Supreme Court gave the power to kick me out of my home in order to hand it to some developer? Not that any City Council members would ever let how much money they got from that developer influence their decision on something like that.