The standard political response to these outrages reveals the institutional quality of the city's Democratic corruption. When Rep. Chaka Fattah was convicted of running a criminal organization last month, not a single high-profile Philadelphia Democrat expressed public disapproval or called for his resignation. Former Gov. Ed Rendell had testified on behalf of the former deputy mayor who bribed Fattah; Rep. Bob Brady, the city's Democratic chairman, had recently endorsed the congressman for reelection. The city's overmatched Republicans, meanwhile, have too often been complacent or even complicit.