<div class="header">
<div class="left">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/"><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo153x23.gif" alt="The New York Times" align="left" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0"></a></div><br></div>
<br clear="all"><hr align="left" size="1">
<div class="timestamp">March 19, 2012</div>
<h1>The States Get a Poor Report Card</h1>
<div id="articleBody">
<p>
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. </p>
<p>
The study, <a title="Study web site" href="http://www.stateintegrity.org/state_integrity_invesitgation_overview_story">issued Monday by a consortium led by the Center for Public Integrity</a>,
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. </p>
<p>
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. </p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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. </p>
<p>
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 <a title="Ethics report card for NJ" href="http://www.stateintegrity.org/new_jersey">New Jersey</a>,
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. </p>
<p>
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 <a title="Ethics report card for NY" href="http://www.stateintegrity.org/new_york">New York</a>,
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. </p>
<p>
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. </p>
<p>
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. </p>
<div class="articleCorrection">
</div>
</div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br>