What a coincidence. The same day that the legislature in Albany failed to act to raise the cap on the number of charter schools in the state, to allow civil confinement of potential sexual predators, and to make changes to the system for choosing judges, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michael Garcia, filed a superseding indictment against a state senator from the Bronx, Efrain Gonzalez Jr., for looting charities he funded through Albany’s semi-secret “member items” to help finance, among other things, his Dominican cigar company that offered cigars with names like “Senator” and ‘Speaker.”

The charity that Mr. Gonzalez, who insists he is innocent, is accused of looting is one that funded Little League baseball, the AP reports. An assemblyman from Queens, Brian McLaughlin, also was indicted for among other things, looting a Little League, which he denies. Though both politicians are entitled to a presumption of innocence, we can’t help but observe that most Little Leagues don’t even allow base-stealing, let alone actual stealing.

Honest politicians can sometimes do the wrong things on substantive matters such as the charter cap, and crooked ones can sometimes do the right things. But all New Yorkers on all sides of these substantive matters can agree that we would be better served by honest government. At least then there is a prospect that the legislators might devote their full attention to the challenges before the state, which are many, as opposed to the opportunities to fund cigar companies out of the pockets of the taxpayers and the Little Leaguers.