A new 50-state report by the Center for Public Integrity dug into each state’s campaign-finance, ethics, disclosure and accountability laws – those created to deter corruption and promote government transparency.
Advertisement
Such loopholes are a common part of statehouse culture nationwide, according to the 2015 State Integrity Investigation, a data-driven assessment of state government by the Center for Public Integrity and Global Integrity.
According to a press release, “State governments are plagued by conflicts of interests and cozy relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists, while open records and ethics laws are often toothless and laced with exemptions”. Meanwhile, feckless, understaffed watchdogs struggle to enforce laws as porous as honeycombs.
Ohio’s grade and ranking are an improvement from the 2012 State Integrity Investigation, though results are not directly comparable because of updates to the study’s methodology. And since the 2013 scandal of Virginia’s Gov. Robert McDonnell, where he was accused of accepting more than $170,000 in gifts, the newly-elected Gov. Terry McAuliffe has enacted legislation to dissuade corruption, including a $100 cap on gifts to public officials from people seeking state business. Only two others earn better than a D+; 11 states receive failing grades. Frank is a part-time copy editor at the Courant.
Ethics reform was one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s top priorities when he took office, but the 2015 State Integrity Investigation suggests right now the state’s ethics reforms are mostly bark and very little bite.
Idaho ranked 6 in the nation for public access to information, but its score earned the state only a D-.
Overall, states scored notably worse in this second round.
Many inside Georgia’s government gave the report a chilly response in Walter Jones’s piece on the matter. A few of that decline is because of changes to the project, such as the addition of questions asking about “open data” policies, which call on governments to publish information online in formats that are easy to download and analyze. Out of the 50 states, only three scored higher than a D+.
Advertisement
“Minnesota, which at one time was at the forefront of these issues, is now so entrenched that we’ve stood still in comparison with other states”, David Schultz, political science professor at St. Paul’s Hamline University, told the organization.
