7 ms·

Local politics is absurdly corrupt in many cases as nobody pays attention.

myko 5y ago
Yep. ~10 years ago the case this book is about came to national attention: https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Mafia-Brutality-Consent-Decrees-ebook/dp/B07CPZGVB6 https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Mafia-Brutality-Consent-Decrees-... It talks about local PD and politicians protecting individuals from consequences and sweeping their crimes under the rug. Sadly it is more common than folks think, a similar thing happened at my HS (also in Ohio, a similar small town) in 2002.
- technothrasher 5y ago
  Back in the 1980s, my father was a selectman of our little town (Many New England towns have a board of selectmen instead of a mayor, for those who aren't familiar). The selectmen were also honorary members of the police, and the employment application for police officers asked if you would ever arrest a member of a town selectman's family. If you answered, "Yes", you didn't get the job. For this and other reasons, after my dad's single term as selectman, he vowed never to be involved in politics again.
thr0wawayf00 5y ago
Local politics is also absurdly boring which, I would argue, is why nobody pays attention. It's such an inconvenience to participate in the local political process because we're so used to the theatre that is Federal politics. I mean honestly, can we all name the members of our city council, our mayor, etc.? Our culture is so addicted to stimulation that we just don't want to spend time on something as boring and banal as a city council meeting.
- e4e78a06 5y ago
  That's because local politics is dedicated mostly to establishing inane bureaucratic blockers for policies that would benefit everyone except the existing homeowners in the city. My city council recently spent until 1am debating zoning regulations for California's new ADU law instead of doing the sane thing and just letting people build ADUs.
  - jozzy-james 5y ago
    our city council tries to do some stuff occasionally - but usually just ends up with the state legislature (90+ other counties) deciding they know best for our city.
    - SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago
      Austin, TX by chance? We have some pretty infamous examples of that here. One of the sillier ones was the ban on plastic grocery bags that was overturned by the state legislature.
      - jozzy-james 5y ago
        Indianapolis - state legislature here really hates the idea of us having functional public transit or roads that aren't crumbling
  - thr0wawayf00 5y ago
    It's sad how true this is. What makes this particularly challenging is that most people that have the resources to seriously run for office have assets like real estate, which has a major impact on the decisions that you're talking about.
    - SyzygistSix 5y ago
      It takes less money than ever to run for office. What they do not have is the network and connections, nor are most of the public engaged. The segment of the public that is engaged and votes in the primaries for local elections tend to be business, real estate, and home owners.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    What did you do to change the outcome? Talk to any of their offices? Donate to a competing candidate?
- CrazyCatDog 5y ago
  With all due respect—I have something which will blow your mind! The city of Santa Monica broadcasts city council meetings. And both the items being adjudicated and the members from the public stepping up to the mic, are every bit as colorful as the brightest Hollywood blockbusters. I listened for years after leaving LA… KCRW Thursday evenings, grab some popcorn and enjoy!!
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    With all due respect (seriously) - you're making the problem worse. The problem is national politics sucks all the attention in the political arena away from local politics. Suggesting that people add yet another competing attention grab that occupies not only the politics but the local politics itch is just another push away from listening to what city hall is doing in their town. There's also the fact that if Santa Monica's politics are that interesting, then people are more likely to be disappointed with how boring their local politics are.
  - Nbox9 5y ago
    > The city of Santa Monica broadcasts city council meetings Tangential —- a lot of cities/towns stream city council and other committees on the internet.
  - thr0wawayf00 5y ago
    My town also broadcasts their meetings, and they're pretty darn tough to actually watch and focus on. Not that I expect my public officials to entertain me or cater to my interests, but it's not a particularly engaging format for a variety of reasons.
    - kelp 5y ago
      Yeah and it's cured me of any idea of ever running for one of those offices. No way could I handle sitting in every one of those meetings for several years.
  - csomar 5y ago
    Link to 25 Jan meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi2Ee4766-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi2Ee4766-E Santa Monica City has around 100K population. That video has ~500 views and it's on the Internet. The public barely cares.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  I’m curious why this is downvoted as I agree. It is about garbage and zoning and fire trucks. Not exactly hot issues.
  - mulmen 5y ago
    Zoning is a huge issue. Houses are unaffordable to all but the upper middle class in my city because we can’t build fast or dense enough. Permits are an equally huge issue. Garbage trucks provide a critical public service. Without them I would have to buy a different vehicle.
    - thr0wawayf00 5y ago
      I agree that things like zoning and trash are important, I don't think anyone disputes that. However, they're not particularly accessible, engaging topics to discuss. That doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about them, but on the issue of a lack of engagement in the community and local government, citizens are asked to devote time to talking about zoning and trash as opposed to whatever else they choose to fill their time with, whether it's entertainment, side hustles, primary job, etc. On top of that, a growing number of people are being priced out of the market as you point out, which I suspect reduces engagement further. Why would the average person who can't even afford a starter home despite working full-time care about an issue like zoning? It feels like somewhat of a paradox.
      - vel0city 5y ago
        > Why would the average person who can't even afford a starter home despite working full-time care about an issue like zoning? Maybe because zoning and permitting are a large part of the reasons why they can't find an affordable house in the area?
  - thr0wawayf00 5y ago
    A big part of the problem IMO is that as wealth inequality increases, more and more people just don't have a desire to participate in the system because the system perpetually disadvantages them. As the share of the population with enough income to own assets like real estate decreases, the overall engagement in the community decreases, which makes sense.
- acomjean 5y ago
  The fact that local media has been pretty much disappeared doesn't help. I live in a small city and they few times I've tried to see what was going on (I missed a couple infrastructure public information meetings) I was thankful the local university has a student paper.
  - mulmen 5y ago
    My hyperlocal blog is awesome. I’m sure not everyone has such a resource but most neighborhoods in Seattle do.
- mulmen 5y ago
  > I mean honestly, can we all name the members of our city council, our mayor, etc. Of course I can. Off the top of my head: City Council: Lisa Herbold - neighborhood Teresa Mosqueda - at large Sara Nelson - at large, newly elected Mayor: Bruce Harrell - newly elected, replaced Jenny Durkan after one term. Was previously on the city council for 13 (?) years. City Attorney: Ann Davison - newly elected, replaced Pete Holmes who failed to advance through the primary after 12 years. County Executive: Dow Constantine - narrowly re-elected. Recently granted additional power to appoint the county sheriff. These are the elected positions I vote on. I am also aware of appointed positions like parks, police, and city transit. I’m aware of the the parts of the council I don’t vote for. I’m also aware of policy. Hazard pay for grocery workers. Attempting to stop catalytic converter theft. Fixing the bridge. Mask mandates. Public transit expansion. Defunding police. I get a lot of my coverage of these events from the hyperlocal blog that covers my neighborhood. I have their number saved to text reports when I see them. They publish coverage of most local government meetings. I visit that site as often as HN.
  - thr0wawayf00 5y ago
    That's great that you know, that probably puts you in the top 1-5% of engaged citizens in the country.
    - mulmen 5y ago
      It’s not hard. Just a simple choice. Democracy in action. Or perhaps inaction.
      - throwaway98797 5y ago
        some folks are time poor
      - Aeolun 5y ago
        I could care about them if they were people I knew. For the most part I’m happy to leave the running of my city to the people interested in doing the job (with all the perks and mind numbing boringness it brings).
- kelp 5y ago
  And also local and even to state politics are incredibly accessible. It's quite easy to end up having a 1:1 conversation with a serious candidates for local office. Just 2 weeks ago I donated $500 to a candidate for CA state assembly and the next day I got a call from the candidate thanking me for the donation. And it's pretty easy to volunteer for various organizations involved in local politics and get access to the current supervisor or state assembly member who is aligned with that organization. And public comment is actually just like it's portrayed on Parks and Recreation.
bbitmaster 5y ago
- the_only_law 5y ago
  Would you please point me to where GP said that?
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Not anywhere near the same level of blatantness as there is far less oversight.
zetazzed 5y ago
https://www.berkeleyside.org/ https://www.berkeleyside.org/ live tweets all of our city meetings. Great summaries. Of course you can always just join the Zoom if you're particularly interested and the live tweets draw you in. Local journalism can play a key role here, so please consider supporting your local paper if they do a good job.
dayvid 5y ago
Billy Corben's Instagram has better reporting on local Miami politics than our city newspaper! (https://www.instagram.com/billycorben/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/billycorben/?hl=en) The current mayor's father was also a mayor of Miami and was subject to intense fraud in his election campaign (https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/05/us/fraud-ruling-invalidates-miami-mayoral-election.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/05/us/fraud-ruling-invalidat...). They also hired a police chief recently who was almost immediately fired when he exposed how corrupt the city commission is (https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/01/19/fired-miami-police-chief-art-acevedo-sues-city/ https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/01/19/fired-miami-po...). The same city commission is being sued and investigated by the feds for extorting and trying to shut down a local business one of the commissioners didn't like (https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miamis-joe-carollo-sued-for-allegedly-attacking-ball-and-chain-bar-10816257 https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miamis-joe-carollo-sued-f...).
- 0xbadcafebee 5y ago
  Corruption is just part of Miami's character, like cuban coffee, and needles on the beach.
- enkid 5y ago
  This is why the federal government is important. People talk about the "swamp in DC" not realizing how swampy it is in their local courthouses, and would be a lot swampier without the federal government looking over it.
  - KennyBlanken 5y ago
    Yup, this sort of thing likely falls under the FBI's color of law investigations.
nrp 5y ago
For folks in San Francisco (I assume a disproportionately large chunk of HN readership), Mission Local has been great at shining light on local corruption: https://missionlocal.org/category/local-government/ https://missionlocal.org/category/local-government/
asdff 5y ago
The FBI has indicted like four sitting LA councilmembers now over the past 5 years or so. It's amazing how corrupt our public offices are, especially at the local level. It's not just elected officials either. Both Sanitation and the Water and Power department are pretty openly corrupted, many other city departments too. The LA Sheriffs department has multiple gangs within its ranks, and the sheriff himself has been ignoring subpoenas on the issue.
- wahern 5y ago
  Americans don't understand what corruption, let alone open corruption, really looks like. Circa 2008 I was pulled over by a cop in Mexico for "speeding", even though I was in tight traffic driving the exact same speed as everybody else around me, which was half the posted speed limit on account of the cop conspicuously parked in the unobstructed median. After pulling me over, he explained that I needed to pay him $500 on the spot if I didn't want to go to jail. This was a demand to pay "la mordida" for which Mexico was infamous, but by this time had (AFAIU) become much more rare in practice except in this particular region (Monterey), notwithstanding that the infamy among Americans remained undiminished. He even offered to take me to an ATM! It took me a good 10 minutes on the side of the road to talk him down to $20. (I would have preferred to go to jail just for the story, but this being modern Mexico we both knew he'd get in trouble if he tried to bring me into the station.) A few years earlier something similar happened to me when crossing a rural border station near Organ Pipe National Park in Arizona--the officer demanded I pay an "import tax" for the stuff in my car. (I was moving from DC back to SF, taking the more scenic routes wherever I could. The American border guards were sitting in lawn chairs a mile up the road.) I think I talked him down to $10 after 5 minutes of haggling, at which point his supervisor walks over, smiling, and tells him to leave me alone just as the money was about to exchange hands. The supervisor had been peeling an orange while enjoying the spectacle. I guess he must've been bored that day. Now that's open corruption. And where there's any amount of open corruption, it's a good guess that hidden corruption is extremely pervasive. But if there's not such open corruption (and it's exceedingly rare if not non-existent in the U.S.), we can't make any wild assumptions about hidden corruption. If you look at the data, actual corruption is quite rare in the U.S., relatively speaking. As mentioned elsethread, in global terms we're near the tippy top. It didn't used to be this way. Even open corruption was once not uncommon in the U.S. At the turn of the 20th century, as civil service reforms gained momentum across the country--municipal, state, and Federal--some elected politicians openly defended kick-back schemes as being democratic. But they lost. This removed much of the opportunity and incentive except when privately and discretely dealing with elected officials or public-facing servants (e.g. cops, inspectors, etc). Later, private rights of action that permitted people to sue municipalities, and the creation of FBI criminal units to proactively investigate corruption schemes even among high-level elected officials, helped to dramatically reduce remaining corruption by creating very real costs at all levels of government. Your example is literally an example of why the U.S. doesn't see much corruption--it comes with very real risks. The FBI and DoJ are still beyond repute when it comes to corruption, even if state-based enforcement officials still too often look the other way. Every politician sweats even the prospect of drawing attention from the Feds. Instead, Americans now call "corruption" whatever policies and decisions they disagree with if they don't understand the motivations behind them. It's pure cynicism and, ultimately, fatalistic. (And being illegal doesn't ipso facto make something corruption either; no more than violating copyright turns you into a willful criminal.) That doesn't mean things couldn't be better. Or that real corruption of the type normally implied by the term doesn't actually exist--the cited conspiracy among some LA councilmen is classic corruption, albeit not open. But like with the term "racism", in order to sustain the same prevalence of accusations people have had to dramatically expand the scope of the term when forced to defend themselves. That doesn't mean what's now being referred to isn't unfair, wrong, or otherwise illegitimate, but we've long since descended into word games. Which is unproductive as within this expanded set of problems, there are no common ways to address and resolve them (e.g. simple, across-the-board reforms or related measures); by equivocating we're hurting our ability to identify causation and meaningfully mitigate and remediate actual, substantive issues.

myko 5y ago

Yep. ~10 years ago the case this book is about came to national attention: https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Mafia-Brutality-Consent-Decrees-ebook/dp/B07CPZGVB6 https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Mafia-Brutality-Consent-Decrees-... It talks about local PD and politicians protecting individuals from consequences and sweeping their crimes under the rug. Sadly it is more common than folks think, a similar thing happened at my HS (also in Ohio, a similar small town) in 2002.

technothrasher 5y ago
Back in the 1980s, my father was a selectman of our little town (Many New England towns have a board of selectmen instead of a mayor, for those who aren't familiar). The selectmen were also honorary members of the police, and the employment application for police officers asked if you would ever arrest a member of a town selectman's family. If you answered, "Yes", you didn't get the job. For this and other reasons, after my dad's single term as selectman, he vowed never to be involved in politics again.

thr0wawayf00 5y ago

Local politics is also absurdly boring which, I would argue, is why nobody pays attention. It's such an inconvenience to participate in the local political process because we're so used to the theatre that is Federal politics. I mean honestly, can we all name the members of our city council, our mayor, etc.? Our culture is so addicted to stimulation that we just don't want to spend time on something as boring and banal as a city council meeting.

e4e78a06 5y ago
That's because local politics is dedicated mostly to establishing inane bureaucratic blockers for policies that would benefit everyone except the existing homeowners in the city. My city council recently spent until 1am debating zoning regulations for California's new ADU law instead of doing the sane thing and just letting people build ADUs.
- jozzy-james 5y ago
  our city council tries to do some stuff occasionally - but usually just ends up with the state legislature (90+ other counties) deciding they know best for our city.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago
    Austin, TX by chance? We have some pretty infamous examples of that here. One of the sillier ones was the ban on plastic grocery bags that was overturned by the state legislature.
    - jozzy-james 5y ago
      Indianapolis - state legislature here really hates the idea of us having functional public transit or roads that aren't crumbling
- thr0wawayf00 5y ago
  It's sad how true this is. What makes this particularly challenging is that most people that have the resources to seriously run for office have assets like real estate, which has a major impact on the decisions that you're talking about.
  - SyzygistSix 5y ago
    It takes less money than ever to run for office. What they do not have is the network and connections, nor are most of the public engaged. The segment of the public that is engaged and votes in the primaries for local elections tend to be business, real estate, and home owners.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  What did you do to change the outcome? Talk to any of their offices? Donate to a competing candidate?
CrazyCatDog 5y ago
With all due respect—I have something which will blow your mind! The city of Santa Monica broadcasts city council meetings. And both the items being adjudicated and the members from the public stepping up to the mic, are every bit as colorful as the brightest Hollywood blockbusters. I listened for years after leaving LA… KCRW Thursday evenings, grab some popcorn and enjoy!!
- HWR_14 5y ago
  With all due respect (seriously) - you're making the problem worse. The problem is national politics sucks all the attention in the political arena away from local politics. Suggesting that people add yet another competing attention grab that occupies not only the politics but the local politics itch is just another push away from listening to what city hall is doing in their town. There's also the fact that if Santa Monica's politics are that interesting, then people are more likely to be disappointed with how boring their local politics are.
- Nbox9 5y ago
  > The city of Santa Monica broadcasts city council meetings Tangential —- a lot of cities/towns stream city council and other committees on the internet.
- thr0wawayf00 5y ago
  My town also broadcasts their meetings, and they're pretty darn tough to actually watch and focus on. Not that I expect my public officials to entertain me or cater to my interests, but it's not a particularly engaging format for a variety of reasons.
  - kelp 5y ago
    Yeah and it's cured me of any idea of ever running for one of those offices. No way could I handle sitting in every one of those meetings for several years.
- csomar 5y ago
  Link to 25 Jan meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi2Ee4766-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi2Ee4766-E Santa Monica City has around 100K population. That video has ~500 views and it's on the Internet. The public barely cares.
MattGaiser 5y ago
I’m curious why this is downvoted as I agree. It is about garbage and zoning and fire trucks. Not exactly hot issues.
- mulmen 5y ago
  Zoning is a huge issue. Houses are unaffordable to all but the upper middle class in my city because we can’t build fast or dense enough. Permits are an equally huge issue. Garbage trucks provide a critical public service. Without them I would have to buy a different vehicle.
  - thr0wawayf00 5y ago
    I agree that things like zoning and trash are important, I don't think anyone disputes that. However, they're not particularly accessible, engaging topics to discuss. That doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about them, but on the issue of a lack of engagement in the community and local government, citizens are asked to devote time to talking about zoning and trash as opposed to whatever else they choose to fill their time with, whether it's entertainment, side hustles, primary job, etc. On top of that, a growing number of people are being priced out of the market as you point out, which I suspect reduces engagement further. Why would the average person who can't even afford a starter home despite working full-time care about an issue like zoning? It feels like somewhat of a paradox.
    - vel0city 5y ago
      > Why would the average person who can't even afford a starter home despite working full-time care about an issue like zoning? Maybe because zoning and permitting are a large part of the reasons why they can't find an affordable house in the area?
- thr0wawayf00 5y ago
  A big part of the problem IMO is that as wealth inequality increases, more and more people just don't have a desire to participate in the system because the system perpetually disadvantages them. As the share of the population with enough income to own assets like real estate decreases, the overall engagement in the community decreases, which makes sense.
acomjean 5y ago
The fact that local media has been pretty much disappeared doesn't help. I live in a small city and they few times I've tried to see what was going on (I missed a couple infrastructure public information meetings) I was thankful the local university has a student paper.
- mulmen 5y ago
  My hyperlocal blog is awesome. I’m sure not everyone has such a resource but most neighborhoods in Seattle do.
mulmen 5y ago
> I mean honestly, can we all name the members of our city council, our mayor, etc. Of course I can. Off the top of my head: City Council: Lisa Herbold - neighborhood Teresa Mosqueda - at large Sara Nelson - at large, newly elected Mayor: Bruce Harrell - newly elected, replaced Jenny Durkan after one term. Was previously on the city council for 13 (?) years. City Attorney: Ann Davison - newly elected, replaced Pete Holmes who failed to advance through the primary after 12 years. County Executive: Dow Constantine - narrowly re-elected. Recently granted additional power to appoint the county sheriff. These are the elected positions I vote on. I am also aware of appointed positions like parks, police, and city transit. I’m aware of the the parts of the council I don’t vote for. I’m also aware of policy. Hazard pay for grocery workers. Attempting to stop catalytic converter theft. Fixing the bridge. Mask mandates. Public transit expansion. Defunding police. I get a lot of my coverage of these events from the hyperlocal blog that covers my neighborhood. I have their number saved to text reports when I see them. They publish coverage of most local government meetings. I visit that site as often as HN.
- thr0wawayf00 5y ago
  That's great that you know, that probably puts you in the top 1-5% of engaged citizens in the country.
  - mulmen 5y ago
    It’s not hard. Just a simple choice. Democracy in action. Or perhaps inaction.
    - throwaway98797 5y ago
      some folks are time poor
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      I could care about them if they were people I knew. For the most part I’m happy to leave the running of my city to the people interested in doing the job (with all the perks and mind numbing boringness it brings).
kelp 5y ago
And also local and even to state politics are incredibly accessible. It's quite easy to end up having a 1:1 conversation with a serious candidates for local office. Just 2 weeks ago I donated $500 to a candidate for CA state assembly and the next day I got a call from the candidate thanking me for the donation. And it's pretty easy to volunteer for various organizations involved in local politics and get access to the current supervisor or state assembly member who is aligned with that organization. And public comment is actually just like it's portrayed on Parks and Recreation.

bbitmaster 5y ago

the_only_law 5y ago
Would you please point me to where GP said that?
MattGaiser 5y ago
Not anywhere near the same level of blatantness as there is far less oversight.

zetazzed 5y ago

https://www.berkeleyside.org/ https://www.berkeleyside.org/ live tweets all of our city meetings. Great summaries. Of course you can always just join the Zoom if you're particularly interested and the live tweets draw you in. Local journalism can play a key role here, so please consider supporting your local paper if they do a good job.

dayvid 5y ago

Billy Corben's Instagram has better reporting on local Miami politics than our city newspaper! (https://www.instagram.com/billycorben/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/billycorben/?hl=en) The current mayor's father was also a mayor of Miami and was subject to intense fraud in his election campaign (https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/05/us/fraud-ruling-invalidates-miami-mayoral-election.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/05/us/fraud-ruling-invalidat...). They also hired a police chief recently who was almost immediately fired when he exposed how corrupt the city commission is (https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/01/19/fired-miami-police-chief-art-acevedo-sues-city/ https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/01/19/fired-miami-po...). The same city commission is being sued and investigated by the feds for extorting and trying to shut down a local business one of the commissioners didn't like (https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miamis-joe-carollo-sued-for-allegedly-attacking-ball-and-chain-bar-10816257 https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miamis-joe-carollo-sued-f...).

0xbadcafebee 5y ago
Corruption is just part of Miami's character, like cuban coffee, and needles on the beach.
enkid 5y ago
This is why the federal government is important. People talk about the "swamp in DC" not realizing how swampy it is in their local courthouses, and would be a lot swampier without the federal government looking over it.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  Yup, this sort of thing likely falls under the FBI's color of law investigations.

nrp 5y ago

For folks in San Francisco (I assume a disproportionately large chunk of HN readership), Mission Local has been great at shining light on local corruption: https://missionlocal.org/category/local-government/ https://missionlocal.org/category/local-government/

asdff 5y ago

The FBI has indicted like four sitting LA councilmembers now over the past 5 years or so. It's amazing how corrupt our public offices are, especially at the local level. It's not just elected officials either. Both Sanitation and the Water and Power department are pretty openly corrupted, many other city departments too. The LA Sheriffs department has multiple gangs within its ranks, and the sheriff himself has been ignoring subpoenas on the issue.

wahern 5y ago
Americans don't understand what corruption, let alone open corruption, really looks like. Circa 2008 I was pulled over by a cop in Mexico for "speeding", even though I was in tight traffic driving the exact same speed as everybody else around me, which was half the posted speed limit on account of the cop conspicuously parked in the unobstructed median. After pulling me over, he explained that I needed to pay him $500 on the spot if I didn't want to go to jail. This was a demand to pay "la mordida" for which Mexico was infamous, but by this time had (AFAIU) become much more rare in practice except in this particular region (Monterey), notwithstanding that the infamy among Americans remained undiminished. He even offered to take me to an ATM! It took me a good 10 minutes on the side of the road to talk him down to $20. (I would have preferred to go to jail just for the story, but this being modern Mexico we both knew he'd get in trouble if he tried to bring me into the station.) A few years earlier something similar happened to me when crossing a rural border station near Organ Pipe National Park in Arizona--the officer demanded I pay an "import tax" for the stuff in my car. (I was moving from DC back to SF, taking the more scenic routes wherever I could. The American border guards were sitting in lawn chairs a mile up the road.) I think I talked him down to $10 after 5 minutes of haggling, at which point his supervisor walks over, smiling, and tells him to leave me alone just as the money was about to exchange hands. The supervisor had been peeling an orange while enjoying the spectacle. I guess he must've been bored that day. Now that's open corruption. And where there's any amount of open corruption, it's a good guess that hidden corruption is extremely pervasive. But if there's not such open corruption (and it's exceedingly rare if not non-existent in the U.S.), we can't make any wild assumptions about hidden corruption. If you look at the data, actual corruption is quite rare in the U.S., relatively speaking. As mentioned elsethread, in global terms we're near the tippy top. It didn't used to be this way. Even open corruption was once not uncommon in the U.S. At the turn of the 20th century, as civil service reforms gained momentum across the country--municipal, state, and Federal--some elected politicians openly defended kick-back schemes as being democratic. But they lost. This removed much of the opportunity and incentive except when privately and discretely dealing with elected officials or public-facing servants (e.g. cops, inspectors, etc). Later, private rights of action that permitted people to sue municipalities, and the creation of FBI criminal units to proactively investigate corruption schemes even among high-level elected officials, helped to dramatically reduce remaining corruption by creating very real costs at all levels of government. Your example is literally an example of why the U.S. doesn't see much corruption--it comes with very real risks. The FBI and DoJ are still beyond repute when it comes to corruption, even if state-based enforcement officials still too often look the other way. Every politician sweats even the prospect of drawing attention from the Feds. Instead, Americans now call "corruption" whatever policies and decisions they disagree with if they don't understand the motivations behind them. It's pure cynicism and, ultimately, fatalistic. (And being illegal doesn't ipso facto make something corruption either; no more than violating copyright turns you into a willful criminal.) That doesn't mean things couldn't be better. Or that real corruption of the type normally implied by the term doesn't actually exist--the cited conspiracy among some LA councilmen is classic corruption, albeit not open. But like with the term "racism", in order to sustain the same prevalence of accusations people have had to dramatically expand the scope of the term when forced to defend themselves. That doesn't mean what's now being referred to isn't unfair, wrong, or otherwise illegitimate, but we've long since descended into word games. Which is unproductive as within this expanded set of problems, there are no common ways to address and resolve them (e.g. simple, across-the-board reforms or related measures); by equivocating we're hurting our ability to identify causation and meaningfully mitigate and remediate actual, substantive issues.