The State Integrity Investigation, a partnership between the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International to measure the risk of corruption in every state, released full state report cards today. They include letter grades, reporter comments and research details, as well as each state’s rank among all 50 states.
The State Integrity Investigation is an unprecedented, data-driven analysis of each state’s laws and practices that deter corruption and promote accountability and openness. Experienced journalists graded each state government on its corruption risk using 330 specific integrity indicators. The Investigation ranked every state from one to 50. Each state received a report card with letter grades in 14 categories, including campaign finance, ethics laws, lobbying regulations, and management of state pension funds.
Read ‘em and weep – or cheer. New Mexico surprised me by being 12th from the bottom. I wouldn’t have assumed we’d do that well. :)
Every research will have mistakes but this one is glaring: CA in “green”?!? IL in “green”?!?!! Sorry, BS study.
Now, if you can find the link to Obama and Emanuel supporter who’s about to be paid back by enormous purchase of spying traffic cameras in Chicago, by above mentioned Mayor (Crook in Chief) Emanuel. Side benefit – Progressive spying over the public for better control. That is typical corruption of IL. I will not even start with quagmire that is CA corruption, pick any regulation or law there and you’ll find it deeply ingrained.
Traffic cameras are a sign of corruption? Har.
NJ in green? Have you not heard or seen Christi in action?
Right. NJ is the poster child for corruption, by dollar volume, unless you go to the amount of dollar distribution (viz: the number of people on the take.)
In which case the 1%ers are keeping all of those tax dollars for themselves, (except for the USDA and FDA payouts to the state’s share of the 12,400 rich pricks [I’m talking about you, Mrs. Mars, Mr. Newhouse, Mr. Kellogg, Mr. Price and your respective retinue of hangers-on.])
Meanwhile the 99%ers are just hanging around with a tube of K-Y an praying that it’ll get used this time…
or Corsine much more “colorful” example
So North and South Dakota are much more corrupt than Illinois and California? Bullshit!
The study must be corrupt, if they honestly believe that Illinois deserves a C (74%). Come on, get real!
No kidding. This study must have some serious head in the sand bullshit to come up with a score like that.
Where is the grade for the federal government? Now we see that one of Obama’s green energy companies is getting subsidies to sell products to itself.
must be an Onion story
Whats happened to this country?
Lets see….
WHO VOTES?? 1/3 of this nation.
REGISTERED democrats and republicans.. Those with enough TIME to go and have a say, the rest of us, WORK. They vote for themselves…NOT for us.
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There is NO BUTTON for ‘NONE OF THE ABOVE’
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When MONEY is king, and not a persons intelligence/wisdom/…
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When the only people YOU KNOW that are running for office are on TV 24/7..
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When those we elect, arent OUT HELPING us build our community..
Hahahaha… You actually believe that the ballot you may or may not have cast is actually going to the self-selected millionaire 1%er you held your nose and pulled the lever for?
<wipes a tear from laughing so hard>
How quaint…
Its whoever bought the election machines.
Love it!
Louisiana got a B+ on State Insurance Commissions.
Three of the past four Insurance commissioners went to prison on federal criminal charges, including money laundering and extortion.
So what’s the problem. At least they went to jail.
Consider what the other guys are doing that didn’t get caught…
B+ is pretty darn good
From my short reading of the above paragraphs, it appears that the study did not look at convictions, etc but at the laws, regulations and practices.
I.e., does the state have a strong open meeting law, is there a whistle-blower law, are there checks on appointees?
Some of the above named states may have a strong framework to prevent corruption, but the culture of the state and local bureaucracies encourage and overcome the preventive measures.
The Soviet Union and other Communist countries had strong protections for human rights and free speech in its constitution. The practice was not ideal.
Our local KPBS station had an interview and report on this this morning and it was great insight into what they are doing and more importantly how they go about grading the states. It is obvious to me from reading the comments here that you people did not take the time to inform yourself beyond this article. Do yourself a favor and see why New Jersey was rated the way it was and CA the way it is. The details will surprise you.
Okay so if we know there’s corruption why can’t we do anything about it? sue? press charges? something? I mean the whole concept of corruption is “wrong doing” with out any evidence of it, other than the results of it. So if this study can see where corruption is then what/where is the proof?
Why no color code key? I assume green is less corrupt than red? WTF is California doing in the green then? Fact is all stares are corrupt; are they just saying CA is not AS corrupt as the rest of the nation? What about the nation it SELF? (Washington DC)
-or- they are all about as corrupt as one another but California and others have enough money/income/taxes/fraud to cover the corruption up just a little bit longer until the entire country gets flushed?
Thats what I was thinking watching the show on PBS NewHour from last Friday on the Bankrupt City of Stockton California. As we see all over the USA–the city ((from my faulty memory)) is spending 9 Million per year for 1000 retired city employees while spending 8 Million per year for the actively working. Show said the health benefit package was promised without any funding for it except for “income from future growth and the taxes therefrom”===ie FRAUD. Fraud just like in almost every other government vs public employee program of retirement and health benefit.
you been LIED to!!!! The money ain’t there.
It wasn’t the point of the show, but impliedly, Cities can go bankrupt and own up to their fraud. States SUPPOSEDLY cannot do that. I think theres going to be an ex post facto law allowing that very thing.
No other way. ♫ Dont Cry for me Argentia……♫ No different than for the USA government as has been said. The money for Soc Sec is “on the books” but not in the bank.
Government and Fraud. Its the nature of the beast.
Don’t forget the federal government doing much worse.
Cali and New Jersey are the clean ones? Oh yeah, I believe this.
As a teacher, if my class of students had these grades (majority D’s and F’s), I’d be fired.
No you wouldn’t. You would be given more money from the government because you are more in need.
Not if the students aren’t meeting NCLB standardized test requirements… which they aren’t.
All states have corruption issues. On the whole though TN finances have been pretty solid. The one that is personally most important to me is that so for the state employee retirement program seems to be solid. It may not be nearly as generous as some but unless things get worse I can expect to draw what I worked 39 years to get.
CA and the states that are more or less bankrupt are well known as well as why they are in the state they are in: They have made deals with Unions and given perks to state employees they are never going to be able to come up with the money to pay for even in a good economy and the locals are working hard to render unprofitable any poor smuck who tries to do business in their states.
HAHAHAHA! California green…. That’s hilarious! This MUST be an Onion article….. right?
This is the biggest load of crap i’ve ever seen.
-s
“Experienced journalists graded each state government on its corruption risk using 330 specific integrity indicators.”
Journalists that have been bought & paid for …
Will (earth’s) citizens EVER learn?
Interesting how two of the states with the largest aerospace and defense contractors resident, are the few “green” good states. And yet Texas still manages to screw up, with that going for it as well. New Jersey’s probably green, only because of all huge tax breaks they’re giving major industries.
My local Fox news station just reported this story. And mentioned a call for full disclosure of politicians of their investments and such. Sounds good, until you realize that they’ll just disclose the name of some obscure investment firm, that itself won’t have to explain what its clients are tangled up in. And without a lot digging, you’re not likely to know what your elected official has going, that influences his or her votes.
If full disclosure were real and detailed, we’d probably see just how most of them stand to profit from the AGW hysteria.
The metrics used look good. Also, at first glance it seems about right – the coastal and northern states grade generally well, whereas the bible thumper and yahoo south score poorly on ethics, grease money and general corruption.
Surprised that Tennesse did well and Maine did poorly though.
Texas looks about right : An “F” on redistricting, poltical grease money and hiding the books. Perfect place to look for a GOP prez candidate.
Texas got an F in redistricting? The Supreme Court just sided with Texas 9-0 over their redistricting when a lower court tried to put in its own map. They probably got the F just for having to go to court.
That’s not even the map that’s at the link. The right map shows 4 swaths of B or C grades, the west coast, Mass,RI,Conn, Penn,NJ,Del, and a big blob in the middle to south.
Going into the rankings and looking at the questions they evaluated reveals what a joke this study is. Let’s see why New Jersey scored so high.
4.1 Can members of the legislature be held accountable for their actions? 95%
4.2 Are there regulations governing conflicts of interest by members of the state legislature? 75%
4.3 Are regulations governing conflicts of interest by members of the state legislature effective? 45%
4.4 Can citizens access the asset disclosure records of members of the state legislature? 85%
4.5 Can citizens access legislative processes and documents? 95%
So a 45% in effectiveness on conflicts of interest, but they get a higher score because they have ineffective regulations.
It cannot be any simpler for NJ being Green than this. NJ is a very corrupted state, for years now…governor after governor. This is the main reason why NOW disclosure is ever more important and agreed upon almost unanimously by all voting. This is why they are green because if, as a citizen, you want to know something you can find it and most importantly find it EASILY.
CA is almost the opposite. Although there are disclosures most of them are NOT readily available for access by citizens and even reporters. Why you may ask? Well, the documents are not transferred to all formats particularly the old micro-film (forgot name) where one can easily scan through and find certain words quickly. PDF and online is not as quick if that’s what you’re thinking. Therefore, CA ranks lower because accessing these disclosures are somewhat difficult for just about anyone.
Damn people, do some more research! Many of these people are doing good but all I see here are complaints and ignorant comments.
California was given a A for re-districting. It is well known that California districts were gerrymandered for years to favor incumbents. The recent “reform” is a failure having basically put re-districting into the hands on the left and effectively making California a one-party state. This report is a joke.
California, Illinois and New Jersey are GREEN????
Hilarious.
Beat me to it.
I don’t care what presumed criteria was used. It’s not even advisable to visit those top states they are so damn corrupt.
Hell Dvorak devotes hours of time on no agenda talking about what a perpetual scam California is.
The primary things states can do to be less corrupt is to have more government.
I don’t think anyone will argue that Georgia does not belong in last place. The most corrupt state in the union, in my opinion.
I live in Washington State, and it does not really belong in ‘not corrupt’ state. The last election the Demoncrats were losing by 5% and they just keep find votes, way past the time limit, until the Demoncrats had made that up by .5% and then disallowed the votes of absentee Military personnel. The most corrupt on the California level or New Jersey, no; but it is very very corrupt and stacked against the citizens in favor of corporations. It’s about on the level of New York.
Illinois is green at 75%, where the dead vote thrice over in each district….Te, he, he…….This is like a study showing China as a Human Rights leader in the Globe Community.
Whatever……………………………………………………………………………….
Traaxx
I’m not sure corruption can be adequately measured using a set of “rules”.
Isn’t the definition of corruption a situation where the rules are being subverted?
If laws could make corruption illegal, I’m sure corruption would have been outlawed and eliminated a long time ago.
It doesn’t work like that, though.
Wasn’t Syria and Iran on the Human Rights Commission?
Statistically and according to “the books”, shouldn’t that make them world leaders in human rights?
Corruption at the state level. How about corruption at the government level? No need to write another book about that. I think it is well documented more and more every day now. Dictating other countries how to behave? Ron Paul is right. Better clean up the giant corrupt mess at home first.