A few people in Baltimore did not wake up as excited to be in the city as Tracy Turnblad earlier this week.Councilwoman Helen Holton and developer  Ronald Lipscomb were indicted Wednesday on bribery charges related to tax breaks for buildings under construction on the city's harbor waterfront.From the Baltimore Sun:Prosecutors say Holton, head of a committee that oversees tax incentives, approved tax breaks worth millions of dollars for projects involving Lipscomb at Inner Harbor East, after Lipscomb paid $12,500 for a political survey for Holton last year. Bribery charges are, of course, hard to prove. And this battle is far from over. But even if Holton and Lipscomb are cleared of the charges, the appearance of corruption will always remain under a privately financed system. The Baltimore Sun's editorial board, in a seemingly prescient editorial, bemoaned the current system and endorsed public financing for elections on Tuesday:There are any number of half-remedies. States can tighten contracting rules, and Maryland has adopted those kinds of reforms. There are limits on political donations - but clever lawyers and operatives always seem to find new loopholes. What's needed is a chance for political candidates to get off this favor-go-round ride entirely. Maryland and other states need to offer public campaign financing and give office-seekers a chance to wage campaigns without going hat in hand to those who do business with the state. That might not guarantee scandal-free state government, but it would raise the chances of it.