Leonida State Capitol

The gleaming dome of the Leonida state capitol in Gloriana, a marble monument to civic ambition and the state's long history of colorful corruption convictions.

The Leonida State Capitol is where the state pretends to run itself. The building is a classical domed marble affair in the middle of Gloriana, surrounded by a government district of agency headquarters, lobbying offices, and steakhouses whose lunch specials are the actual policy apparatus. Inside, the legislative chambers handle the state's business with a theatricality that has produced decades of excellent political journalism and federal indictments. The governor's office is on the second floor, with a view of a fountain that costs the state thirty thousand dollars a year to maintain. Public tours are free and escorted, with guides who can recite the founding history while discreetly avoiding the list of governors, legislators, and agency heads convicted of various felonies over the last fifty years — a list so long it would turn the tour into an ethics seminar.