[Vision2020] The States Get a Poor Report Card

[Ron Force]

Wonder where Idaho ranks?

The State Integrity Investigation took 18 months and $1.5 million to 
complete. The nonprofits, the Center for Public Integrity, Global 
Integrity and Public Radio International, evaluated the "risk of 
corruption" in all 50 states, based on rules around campaign finance 
disclosure, ethics, procurement policies and every other measure of 
government openness. Nathaniel Heller, the executive director of Global 
Integrity, says they discovered that lots of states have great laws in 
place.
Heller: "They're just simply underfunded, understaffed, and there's just a huge gap when it comes to better enforcement." 
Each state received a grade and a ranking. While no state received an A, the top state in the country is New Jersey. Yes, New Jersey, and the state's reputation as a hotbed for corruption is actually the reason 
it's so squeaky clean now. Again, Nathaniel Heller: 
Heller: "When you see prosecutions and perp walks and scandals and 
resignations, we tend to think things are really broken. And what we've 
learned over the years is oftentimes that's a really good sign that 
things are working."
Washington state was close behind New Jersey — the state is ranked 
third, with a grade of B–. It was the strongest in the region on 
government transparency. Oregon ranked 14th and Idaho was 40th. 
 
Ron Force
Moscow Idaho USA


________________________________
 From: Art Deco <art.deco.studios at gmail.com>
To: vision2020 at moscow.com 
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 9:42 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] The States Get a Poor Report Card
 



________________________________
 
March 19, 2012
The States Get a Poor Report Card
State governments have long been accused of backroom dealing, cozy 
relationships with moneyed lobbyists, and disconnection from ordinary 
citizens. A new study suggests those accusations barely scratch the 
surface. 
The study, issued Monday by a consortium led by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group, found that most states shy away from 
public scrutiny, fail to enact or enforce ethics laws, and allow 
corporations and the wealthy a dominant voice in elections and policy 
decisions. The study gave virtually every state a mediocre to poor grade on a wide range of government conduct, including ethics enforcement, 
transparency, auditing and campaign finance reform. No state got an A; 
five received B’s, and the rest grades of C, D or F. 
For all the reform talk by many governors and state lawmakers, very 
little has really changed in most capitals over the decades. Budgeting 
is still done behind closed doors, and spending decisions are revealed 
to the public at the last minute. Ethics panels do not bother to meet, 
or never enforce the conflict-of-interest laws that are on the books. 
Lobbyists have free access to elected officials, plying them with gifts 
or big campaign contributions. Open-records acts are shot through with 
loopholes. 
And yet all the Republican presidential candidates think it would be a 
good idea to hand some of Washington’s most important programs to state 
governments, which so often combine corruptibility with incompetence. In a speech on Monday, Mitt Romney said he would dump onto the states most federal anti-poverty programs, including Medicaid, food stamps and 
housing assistance, because states know best what their local needs are. 
States, however, generally have a poor record of taking care of their 
neediest citizens, and could not be relied on to maintain lifeline 
programs like food stamps if Washington just wrote them checks and 
stopped paying attention. In many states, newspapers and broadcasters 
have cut their statehouse coverage, reducing scrutiny of government’s 
effectiveness and integrity. 
The new study shows that several of the states doing the best 
anti-corruption work had to endure years of scandal to get there. The 
state with the best grade (B+) was New Jersey, which may be surprising considering its reputation for cronyism and 
payoffs. In 2005, however, after years of embarrassing scandals, the 
state passed some of the toughest ethics laws in the country. Lobbyist 
gifts are prohibited, state contractors cannot give to campaigns, ethics training is mandatory for state employees and an ethics board has real 
power to enforce the laws. 
New Jersey still has problems, including lax financial disclosure laws 
and no ban on lawmakers’ holding two public jobs, but it is doing much 
better than New York, which got a D. There is little enforcement in Albany of campaign 
finance limits, and the final budget process is done in secret. Gov. 
Andrew Cuomo’s new ethics commission is filled with many loyal to him 
and the Legislature and is still untested. 
At the bottom of the heap was Georgia, which came in last for not 
enforcing what ethics laws it has on the books. The study noted that 650 state employees accepted gifts from vendors in recent years, clearly 
violating ethics laws, but no one was punished. Seven other states also 
receiving F’s were hardly better. 
The report shows that most statehouses can barely be trusted to maintain the rudiments of good government. Without deep reforms, they certainly 
should not be asked to handle more federal programs on which millions 
rely. 

-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com

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