Looks like Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is getting formally charges with “misconduct in office, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and perjury” including charges of “authorizing the city of Detroit to settle an $8.4 million lawsuit with several former police officers “with the corrupt motive” of preventing the release of text messages which would have revealed that he had lied under oath in the case.” This, unlike last week’s city council vote, may actually get the dude out of office.
The city of Detroit is obviously facing structural problems that go beyond any one person’s conduct, but this sort of corruption among public officials doesn’t help. Meanwhile, at the bottom of this post, Dave Weigel notes some Royce-esque re-election icononography.