The news that Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty has resigned and will probably face a jail term is disheartening at best. Ms. McCarty is the fifth politician in Palm Beach County to resign in disgrace in three years. Her removal raises the question of how widespread is corruption in Palm Beach County and does power corrupt?

There are jokes that the Commission can now have a quorum in jail. Rumors are circulating that the investigation is still on-going with other potential targets will be revealed. To answer the question about the scope of the corruption, it appears that we may not have yet seen the full extent of the frauds perpetrated on the citizenry of Palm Beach County.

The question of why appears to have been answered by Lord Acton (1834–1902), a historian and moralist, who wrote in 1887 that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." It is sad that his words still ring true over 120 years later. It is even more upsetting that these Palm Beach County politicians have not learned any lessons from the past.

Once the investigation is complete and the replacement politicians are appointed and elected, let us hope that the new officials will live up to our public trust.

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