She Could Use Some Help, but Too Many Politicians Only Help Themselves I find Jacqueline Babich sitting on a bench in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, clasping a green bag filled with the detritus of her battle to save her home. She begins to pull out receipts. Here's the proof she faxed and re-faxed, and mailed and re-mailed, her financial information to her bank. Here's proof of her income as a schoolteacher. She says the bank keeps losing all of this. Then she shows you the photographs of two little boys, who are the loves of her life. I'm a black single mother and I work from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Her smile is shy and she rolls her large brown eyes. I'm embarrassed; I made a mistake; I shouldn't be here. She grew up in Brooklyn Heights before moving to Brownsville. That sounds like a rough bounce, but it isn't. Brownsville is a neighborhood filled with hard-working strivers. If only their politicians were their equal. John L. Sampson represents Ms. Babich in the State Senate. His district sits in Brooklyn's foreclosure belt, misery found on every block. He moonlights as a foreclosure referee, and stands accused of embezzling $440,000 from New Yorkers who lost their homes. His lawyer, Zachary W. Carter, complains that Mr. Sampson's alleged misdeeds should not be considered public corruption, as they have nothing to do with his day job in Albany. This is a distinction drained of meaning. If proved guilty, Mr. Sampson picked clean the bones of his neighbors. Five miles east of Brownsville, you reach South Ozone Park. That is where the not-so-estimable Shirley L. Huntley served as a state senator until she was sentenced to prison last week. In a district overburdened with failing schools, she constructed a butterball turkey of a fake education nonprofit organization. She stuffed it with state dollars, and her supporters - who doubled as the nonprofit's officials - engorged themselves. Ms. Huntley's lawyer wrote a self-pitying letter to the judge, saying her client took but a few dollars. Ms. Huntley agreed to reimburse taxpayers for $87,000. A few black politicians mutter of racial conspiracy. Prosecutors are picking on them, relying on snitches (Ms. Huntley wore an F.B.I. wire while sipping Zinfandel with nine now deeply uncomfortable former colleagues). State Senator James Sanders Jr. spoke at a forum last week of white "folks who've been in power longer" and are smarter, slicker and perhaps better thieves. Where to begin? I once covered Marion Barry, Washington's crack-smoking mayor. His favorite move, when confronted with evidence of his dysfunctional mayoralty, was to pick at the scab of race. Yet those who suffered most because of his misrule lived on the poorer, black side of that deeply segregated city. In New York, wrongdoing has an ignoble and multicultural lineage. A corrupt conga line extends from Queens, the lair of Assemblyman Anthony S. Seminerio, to upstate State Senator Joseph L. Bruno. Brooklyn gave us State Senator Carl Kruger; the Bronx tossed in State Senator Pedro Espada Jr. and Queens coughed up Assemblyman Jimmy K. Meng. Yonkers offered a twofer: Councilwoman Sandy Annabi and State Senator Nicholas A. Spano. Italian, Irish, Jewish, black, Latino, Chinese, Arab: it's a gorgeous mosaic of corruption. The legal divisions of the party machines are particularly clever. Years back, Mr. Sampson needed extra money. He turned to his Democratic friends on the Brooklyn Supreme Court bench. The judges tossed him four postings as a foreclosure referee. Two of those judges, Michael J. Garson and Reynold N. Mason, would be forcibly ejected from the bench. Mr. Garson pillaged the estate of his aunt and Mr. Mason dipped into an escrow account. Mr. Garson is white; Mr. Mason is black. As if that matters. Mr. Sampson is accused of ripping off these accounts to underwrite his campaign for Brooklyn district attorney in 2005. The "What If" embedded in that last sentence is staggering. Back in Supreme Court, I listen as Ms. Babich explains her predicament: She got pregnant and missed a payment, and now her mortgage is a bus she can't quite catch. "I've put happiness on hold," she says. But I'm going to build my life, I know it. She could use a little guidance, though. She asks if she should talk to a politician; it's a tough question. On Monday her assemblyman, William F. Boyland Jr., another politician with the wheels coming off, pleaded not guilty to yet another indictment. A hard-working woman struggling to save her home deserves much better. E-mail: powellm@nytimes.com Twitter: @powellnyt