Until Monday night, Eric Schneiderman was regarded as a model progressive in the #MeToo era—a powerful Democrat who, as New York’s attorney general, sued Harvey Weinstein for civil and human rights violations over the movie mogul’s alleged abuse of women. But Schneiderman’s reputation and career have collapsed after The New Yorker revealed that he, too, allegedly abused women.

Four women, including two longtime partners, told the magazine that Schneiderman slapped, spat on, or punched them. He also used his political authority to intimidate them. When one of them tried to ward off his attack, he said, “You know, hitting an officer of the law is a felony.” Schneiderman’s political position served as a shield in another way: It made the women reluctant to report his actions for fear of hurting his political career. When one former girlfriend talked to friends about the abuse she suffered, according to reporters Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow, “A number of them advised her to keep the story to herself, arguing that Schneiderman was too valuable a politician for the Democrats to lose.”

Schneiderman, who has denied the allegations but resigned nonetheless, is not just another powerful man brought down in the #MeToo era. He’s also a prime example of a specific phenomenon: the immoral New York politician. The state, and its namesake city, seem to produce more than their share of men who abuse their political power, whether for financial gain, career advancement, or the mistreatment of women.

This is neither just a regional problem, nor a strictly partisan one. New York has always had an outsized influence on national politics, and although Democrats are dominant in the state, the current president is very much a product of its political culture, too. New York’s toxic politics are further poisoning Washington’s politics—and yet, it may take other New York politicians to clean it up.

The claim has been fact-checked: New York is the most corrupt state in America. Or at least it was in 2016, when PolitiFact found that the media had “chronicled more than 30 corruption cases in the past decade,” more than any other state. In fact, “The data shows New York State has led the nation in public corruption for decades.”