Looking At A Slice Of California Through That Lens
Ralph Vartabedian could have just as easily written “How Texas Became a New Center of Political Corruption” or “How Florida Became a New Center of Political Corruption,” but that doesn’t make the report he did file, How California Became a New Center of Political Corruption, any less true and compelling. In fact, Vartabedian’s scope is incredibly narrow in a state where the corruption is stunningly widespread. In the L.A. media now, a day doesn’t go by when we don’t hear something horrific about Republican Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do and his daughter Rhiannon, who conspired to steal between $10 and $14 million in tax-payer money from her non-profit, Viet America Society, and line their own pockets with it. Supervisor Do is widely considered the most corrupt politician in Orange County, with cases going back to the beginning of his Trump-like sojourn into politics with the intention of enriching himself.
“Over the last 10 years,” wrote Vartabedian, “576 public officials in California have been convicted on federal corruption charges, according to Justice Department reports, exceeding the number of cases in states better known for public corruption, including New York, New Jersey and Illinois... A heavy concentration of power at Los Angeles City Hall, the receding presence of local news media, a population that often tunes out local politics and a growing Democratic supermajority in state government have all helped insulate officeholders from damage, political analysts said.”
The lead character in Vartabedian’s piece is old news in L.A.: corrupt City Councilman Jose Huizar who “gained control of the influential committee that approves multimillion-dollar commercial development projects across the city. His spectacular fall— after FBI agents caught him accepting $1.8 million worth of casino chips, luxury hotel stays, prostitutes and a liquor box full of cash from Chinese developers— was cast by federal prosecutors as an epic Hollywood tale. They persuaded a judge in January to sentence him to 13 years in prison on charges of tax evasion and racketeering… This week, when Huizar is scheduled to report to prison, he will become the third recent Los Angeles City Council member to go down on charges of corruption, part of a much larger circle of staff aides, fund-raisers, political consultants and real estate developers who have been charged in what federal authorities called an ‘extraordinary’ recent wave of bribery and influence-peddling across California. Two other members of the City Council, Mitchell Englander (R) and Mark Ridley-Thomas (D), were convicted earlier on various corruption charges, as was the former head of the city’s Department of Water and Power. A fourth City Council member, Curren Price (D), is facing charges of embezzlement, perjury and conflict of interest.”
In Los Angeles, Huizar’s influence was even greater than that of most other council members: Not only did his district include downtown Los Angeles, where billions of dollars of foreign investment was transforming the skyline, but he also controlled the Planning and Land Use Management Committee that approves major developments all over the city.
“When you have that kind of power, pay-to play schemes run amok,” said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada, whose office has led many of the recent prosecutions in Los Angeles. “I wouldn’t call it ordinary what these folks did. It is extraordinary.”
Huizar, 55, pleaded guilty to racketeering, a charge often used in prosecuting organized crime or street-gang cases. The $1.8 million in bribes he received was twice the amount that recently convicted Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey was charged with accepting.
In March, a jury convicted Raymond Chan, a former Los Angeles deputy mayor whom prosecutors called the “architect” of the Huizar conspiracy, also on racketeering charges. In all, more than 50 key political figures and executives in Los Angeles and San Francisco have been convicted since 2019. Many more were investigated or resigned after allegations surfaced.
California also had cases of corruption in the days, now in the distant past, when Republicans held statewide office.
But political analysts say the Democrats’ present lock on political power leaves little opportunity for Republicans to effectively raise the issue of corruption as a campaign issue.
“When a political party enjoys that much uncontested power, there’s no penalty for stepping over ethical or legal lines,” said Dan Schnur, a former head of the state Fair Political Practices Commission and a former Republican who is now an independent.
And that brings us right to two DCCC priorities, corrupt-beyond-imagining congressional candidates Adam Gray and Rudy Salas. Both ran in 2022— with massive DCCC financial support— in blue districts, only to lose to Republicans, primarily because voters know who Gray and Salas are, each members of the Assembly at the time, neither ever arrested, but both infamous for corruption:
The DCCC encourages both conservatism and corruption in candidates. It isn’t just something they tolerate; since Rahm Emanuel became chairman in 2005, it’s what they prefer— even demand— in recruits. But even for the DCCC, Salas and Gray are a little extreme in their blatant corruption, taking money from special interests and voting against the Democratic agenda.
Sticking to Southern California, Vartabedian wrote that “What happened in Los Angeles had been playing out on a smaller scale for years in the small industrial cities of Los Angeles County that have been described as a ‘corridor of corruption’: South Gate, Bell, Lynwood and Vernon, among others, where civic leaders were prosecuted for taking bribes or tapping into city funds. ‘You have large immigrant populations, largely marginalized communities that do not have the resources to watch their politicians closely,’ said Mr. Estrada, the U.S. attorney, whose parents emigrated from Guatemala. ‘I think you have a pretty unique cauldron of factors in Los Angeles and the greater Los Angeles area that allow for these things to happen.’ The arrival of large-scale investments from China starting in 2011 heightened the risks. Over the next half-dozen years, about $26 billion of direct investment from Chinese firms and their billionaire owners arrived in the state.”
San Francisco has had its own round of corruption cases, many of the recent ones surrounding the former Department of Public Works chief, Mohammed Nuru, who pleaded guilty in 2021 to accepting gifts, including a tractor for his ranch outside the city, a Rolex watch and millions of dollars, from various people with business before the city.
Florence Kong, the owner of a recycling company, pleaded guilty to offering some of the bribes in exchange for city contracts. Zhang Li, a Chinese developer also accused of offering bribes, signed a deferred prosecution agreement.
Now scheduled to surrender to prison by Aug. 31, Huizar made a public apology at his sentencing hearing, saying he had long been dedicated to his community. “Shiny things were dangled in front of me, and I could not resist the temptation,” he said in a letter to the judge asking for leniency. “The money, the fancy dinners, luxury flights. It was there for the taking, and I could not say no.”
Estrada, the U.S. attorney, said that Huizar’s corruption offended him as a Latino.
“It feels like a real betrayal,” said Estrada, the U.S. attorney. “Because for those of us whose families came from Latin America, and know that system, there’s just rampant corruption there. You come to this country, you have more opportunities, you are offered to be part of a system that is theoretically supposed to operate cleanly.”
This kind of political corruption isn’t an isolated phenomenon but part of a broader, global pattern where power, money, and weak oversight intersect to breed malfeasance and corruption. Think about Kushner and the Saudis, for example. This pattern is alarmingly similar to the kind of blatant, naked corruption— rather than the more hidden kind the way it’s done in the U.S. and Europe— seen in developing countries like China, India and across Latin American, where bribery and corruption are not just occasional occurrences but deeply embedded in the fabric of how business and governance are conducted. The concept of baksheesh— a common form of bribery (tipping)— illustrates how deeply ingrained these practices can be. In these countries, business deals are virtually always facilitated by under-the-table payments, and for government contracts to be secured through a web of kickbacks and favors.
This cultural acceptance of corruption is often imported when capital from these countries flows into regions like California. The tens of billions of dollars in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Israeli, Singaporean, Arab investments that flooded into the U.S. is a prime example. Many of the investors came from environments where corruption is rampant, and they brought with them the expectations and practices that had become second nature in their home countries. When these investors encountered local officials like Jose Huizar, the stage was set for an explosion of corruption. Huizar’s case could have just as easily been playing out in Beijing, Dubai, Moscow or Mumbai.
And the parallels don’t stop at the acts of bribery themselves; they extend to the structural conditions that allow such corruption to thrive. Just as in developing countries, where institutions are too weak to hold the powerful accountable, the U.S.— especially with the rise of Trump, the most corrupt U.S. leader in history— has seen our own accountability mechanisms falter. The receding presence of local news media, a populace disengaged from local politics, and a political landscape dominated by a single party— whether Democrats in California and New York or Republicans in Florida and Missouri— create an environment where corruption flourishes unchecked and embeds itself as it becomes the norm. The concentration of power in the hands of a few, combined with discretionary decision-making and a lack of meaningful oversight, mirrors the very conditions that make corruption so endemic in places like China, the Middle East, Mexico and India.
This connection is especially poignant when considering the immigrant communities in Los Angeles and other parts of California, many of whom have fled countries plagued by corruption only to find similar patterns in their new home. As Martin Estrada noted above, there’s a deep sense of betrayal among those who came to the U.S. seeking a better, more just society, only to find that the “shiny things” Huizar lusted after are just as tempting and accessible here as they were back in Latin America. The corruption they hoped to leave behind has, in some ways, followed them across the border.
Moreover, the influx of foreign capital into the U.S., particularly from countries with high corruption indices, serves as a cautionary tale about the globalization of corrupt practices. When investment dollars come from environments where bribery is the norm, it warps local politics and governance, leading to a situation where pay-to-play schemes become not just possible, but almost inevitable. California, like many developing countries, has become a case study in what happens when too much power is concentrated in too few hands, and when those hands are allowed to operate without sufficient oversight or accountability.
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