Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a package of reform bills Wednesday night, bringing final approval for the first major overhaul of the state’s ethics laws in more than three decades. The two bills give significant new powers to the state’s ethics commission, extend a ban on lobbying for lawmakers after they leave office and rework the state’s campaign finance limits.

The new ethics legislation will address at least some of the weaknesses responsible for Florida’s overall grade of C- from the State Integrity Investigation, a state-by-state ranking of ethics and accountability released last year by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International. In the specific category of ethics enforcement, the Sunshine State had received an F.

The measures, which the legislature passed last week, had been top priorities for Senate President Don Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford, both Republicans. Watchdog groups followed the bills’ passage closely and largely praised the ethics bill.

“There’s been a 36 year drought of meaningful ethics reform legislation going anywhere in Florida,” said Dan Krassner, executive director of Integrity Florida, a statewide watchdog group. “The fact that our state leaders prioritized ethics reform and dedicated time and resources to serious debate and policy improvements on the issues is historic.”

A New York state senator and five other political officials have been named in a sweeping federal corruption case — the latest in a series of scandals that helped earn the Empire State a D grade from the State Integrity Investigation.

At the heart of the complaint unsealed Tuesday: federal prosecutors say Sen. Malcolm Smith, a Democrat from Queens, used a series of contacts in an attempt to bribe New York City Republican Party officials to approve his bid for mayor on the GOP ticket.

The case, which allegedly involved tens of thousands of dollars in bribes and agreements to secure state and city funds for development projects, highlights some of the endemic  corruption problems that have plagued New York’s legislature in Albany, where politicians are frequently accused of exchanging cash for securing state funds and candidates exchange donations for political support. The image was reinforced by the State Integrity Investigation, a state-by-state ranking of accountability and transparency carried out last year by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International.

According to the complaint, Smith had ambitions to run for mayor of New York City, but wanted to run as a Republican. As a Democratic state senator, he needed support from the party to get on the ticket. The solution presented itself in the form of a New York real estate developer, who was cooperating with an undercover FBI agent in exchange for leniency on unspecified charges.

It’s been exactly one year since publication of the State Integrity Investigation, an unprecedented, data-driven analysis of transparency and accountability in all 50 states — and a lot has happened since. The project — a collaboration of the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International, with cooperation from the Investigative News Network — has been quoted, praised, assailed or otherwise cited by hundreds of news outlets, good-government groups and legislators. The project was also a finalist for the prestigious Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting awarded by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Clearly, the idea of measuring accountability and transparency in state government has touched a reformist nerve — and our package is continuing to resonate across the country.

Since the State Integrity Investigation was launched, reform efforts have been initiated in 16 states. Four of those states — Delaware, Iowa, Maine and Rhode Island — have passed laws or issued executive orders improving disclosure and access to public information. Lawmakers in seven other states have proposed a broad slate of measures that would strengthen ethics oversight, tighten campaign finance reporting and more.

SANTA FE — On February 20, New Mexico’s House Energy and Natural Resources Committee gathered for one of its regular meetings in a drab room here at the capitol, a circular building known as the Roundhouse. On the agenda: a bill that would hike fees and penalties for energy companies drilling wells in the state.

The votes fell along party lines, with five Republicans lining up against the bill and the committee's Democratic majority voting to send the legislation to the House floor. The Republicans argued the bill would stifle business and cost jobs, and for one lawmaker, the issue hit particularly close to home. Rep. James Strickler spends most of the year running his own small oil and gas production company, JMJ Land & Minerals Co. The bill would directly affect his profits.

Strickler, a 58-year-old from the sparsely populated, gas-rich northwest corner of the state, speaks with a gentle western drawl. In an interview after the committee vote, he said the bill would put New Mexico’s regulations out of line with those in other states. Ultimately the bill was voted down on the House floor, and Strickler was among those voting ‘no.’ Over seven years in office, Strickler has been a staunch advocate for his own industry and has twice introduced legislation to reduce the amount of renewable energy that utilities must purchase. He has never recused himself from a vote on energy issues, he said, even when it directly affects his bottom line.

“I don’t think it’s a conflict of interest,” Strickler said. “I think it’s a blessing that a few of us have some understanding of that industry.”

The Republican-controlled Florida Senate unanimously passed a landmark ethics reform package on Tuesday, the first day of the legislative session, setting the stage for what could be the first major changes to the state’s ethics laws in decades.

The bills would strengthen provisions that prevent lawmakers from immediately becoming lobbyists, expand the powers of the state’s ethics commission and require that financial disclosure reports be posted online.

"Public office is a public trust," Senate President Don Gaetz said in hailing the 40-0 vote. "This legislation means the Florida Senate is serious about ethics reform. Higher ethical standards is just one more difference between Florida senators and Washington senators."

But the measures also contain several changes that critics say would actually weaken existing laws.

“I think it would be a step forward in some ways but several steps backward in others,” said Philip Claypool, a lawyer who served as executive director of the Florida Commission on Ethics until retiring in 2011. “The net effect I don’t think would be progress.”

While the legislation allows lawmakers to place investments in a blind trust in an effort to prevent conflicts of interest, for example, it leaves out several safeguards contained in similar laws in other states and at the federal level, Claypool said.

The bills would also allow lawmakers who have filed erroneous or incomplete financial disclosure reports to correct the forms before the ethics commission can investigate, in essence preventing the body from fining officials for their transgressions.

“Basically, they can get away with paying even less attention to the accuracy of a report,” Claypool said.

Gaetz spokeswoman Katie Betta disputed the characterization that the bills loosen existing law. She said the legislation would strengthen the ethics commission by allowing it to receive referrals from other state agencies.

The Georgia legislature has taken a major step toward strengthening the state’s ethics laws by moving a package of reform legislation through the House. The two bills in the package would impose limits on gifts from lobbyists and restore powers to the state’s ethics enforcement agency, among other changes.

The measures, which are sponsored by Speaker David Ralston, attracted little opposition,  sailing through the House on Monday with just four dissenting votes. But their fate in the Senate remains clouded. In January, the upper chamber adopted a $100 cap on lobbyist gifts in a rule change that does not apply to the House. Ralston told reporters on Monday that he would not negotiate on changing his proposed ban on gifts to match the $100 limit that the Senate enacted. While some senators have called for passing the House legislation unchanged, others have sounded more cautious.

“I’m sure several of us are going to sit down and talk about where we go from here,” Senate Ethics Chairman Rick Jeffares told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Neither Jeffares nor Ralston could immediately be reached for comment.

Documents released this week appear to show that Florida legislative leaders worked with state Republican officials to manipulate redistricting efforts, in apparent defiance of a constitutional amendment that banned such coordination.

The documents, the contents of which were first described by the Herald/Times of Florida, were ordered released by a judge presiding over a suit against the state filed last year by both individuals and government watchdogs. That suit alleges that new boundary lines for both congressional and state Senate districts are illegal because they came about partly as a result of politically-driven activities forbidden by the amendment. Among the documents are emails between political consultants, the staff of Republican leaders and two state representatives discussing the new district lines.

In nearly any other state, the revelation would not have been a surprise. As the State Integrity Investigation detailed last year, politicians are free to draw new Congressional and state legislative district lines for partisan gain in most states.

But in 2010, voters in Florida approved changes to the state Constitution that prohibit legislators, who control the redistricting process in the state, from drawing lines to favor a particular party or incumbent. Redistricting is done every 10 years to redraw congressional and legislative districts to guarantee equal representation in light of new U.S. Census data.