The Center for Public Integrity

In response to South Carolina’s failing grade from the State Integrity Investigation, House Democrats there have proposed historic ethics reforms. South Carolina was ranked 45^th out of 50 states, with a score of 57 percent.

“It is time for South Carolina to get serious about ethics reform,” said Rep. Boyd Brown, (D-Winnsboro), in a press release that cited the investigation’s “scathing” assessment of South Carolina. “Corruption is plaguing our great state and it’s high time we do something about it. South Carolina is ripe for another ‘Operation Lost Trust’ and I refuse to stand idly by while that happens again.”

Operation Lost Trust, a vote buying scandal that involved more than two dozen lobbyists and lawmakers, sparked a major ethics overall in South Carolina in the early 1990s, severely restricting gifts and campaign contributions from lobbyists.The new proposal includes term limits, a revamping of the State Ethics Commissions and a two-year ban on the revolving door between legislating and lobbying.

South Carolina’s scores on the State Integrity Investigation indicate the state has a variety of problems. Out of the 14 categories investigated in the project, South Carolina received an F in nine areas: public access to information, executive accountability, legislative accountability, judicial accountability, state budget processes, state civil service management, state pension fund management, ethics enforcement agencies and state insurance commission oversight.

The state received B grades for lobbying disclosure, procurement, and redistricting.

In just its first two days, our State Integrity Investigation — a corruption-risk grade card for every state — has been quoted, praised, assailed or otherwise cited by more than 100 media organizations. The investigation has been featured in outlets such as The Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Miami Herald and the Chicago Tribune, as well as the Bangor Daily News, the Tucson Sentinel, The Bellingham Herald, NPR and The Huffington Post, just to name a few.

The idea of measuring accountability and transparency in state government seems to have touched a reformist nerve. Our state-by-state comparison, produced with partners Global Integrity and Public Radio International, has illuminated the often obscure, closed-door politics of state governments — from the budget process to pension management, from ethics enforcement to public access to information. State officials who have previously talked about openness and accountability are, in fact, often overseeing backroom bastions with little public scrutiny.  

The tales are sadly familiar to even the most casual observer of state politics.

In Georgia, more than 650 government employees accepted gifts from vendors doing business with the state in 2007 and 2008, clearly violating state ethics law. The last time the state issued a penalty on a vendor was 1999.

A North Carolina legislator sponsored and voted on a bill to loosen regulations on billboard construction, even though he co-owned five billboards in the state. When the ethics commission reviewed the case, it found no conflict; after all, the panel reasoned, the legislation would benefit all billboard owners in the state — not just the lawmaker who pushed for the bill.

Tennessee established its ethics commission six years ago, but has yet to issue a single ethics penalty. It’s almost impossible to know whether the oversight is effectively working, because complaints are not made available to the public.

A West Virginia governor borrowed a car from his local dealership to take it for a “test drive.” He kept the car for four years, during which the dealership won millions in state contracts. 

The State Integrity Investigation is a first-of-its kind, data-driven assessment of transparency, accountability and anti-corruption mechanisms in the states. The result is a grade and score for each, and a ranking of all 50 states, along with analytical pieces about every state.    
 
Unlike previous government rankings, this months-long effort does not rely on a simple tally of scandals. Rather, it measures the strength of laws and practices that encourage openness and deter corruption. Reporters in each state researched 330 “Corruption Risk Indicators” across 14 categories of government: access to information, campaign finance, executive accountability, legislative accountability, judicial accountability, budgeting, civil service management, procurement, internal auditing, lobbying disclosure, pension fund management, ethics enforcement, insurance commission operations and redistricting. In addition to the overall rankings, states are also ranked in every category.   
 
The State Integrity Investigation is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International.
 
The project received major funding from the Omidyar Network and the Rita Allen Foundation, with additional support from the Rockefeller Family Fund.

New Jersey, contrary to its national reputation, is not all concrete and blacktop; nor is the Garden State one giant, toxic waste dump; and the majority of its 8.8 million residents are not bed-hopping, scantily-clad, tough-talking beach bums.

And neither, then, is New Jersey the most corrupt state in the nation, according to the State Integrity Investigation, a collaboration of the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International. In fact, the months-long probe ranks New Jersey ranks No. 1 for transparency and accountability in state government, with a grade of B+ and a numerical score of 87.

The ranking may seem counter-intuitive.

Yes, Gov. Chris Christie made his reputation by busting more than 100 public officials when he was a U.S. attorney in the state. And yes, at least five state legislators have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to official misconduct since 2004. And yes, others were investigated for lesser misdeeds or resigned before being charged.

There was also a string of costly procurement debacles involving the motor vehicle inspection program, implementation of a toll road payment system and state-funded school construction.

But thanks largely to these moral missteps and hard work by good-government groups and legislators, New Jersey now has some of the toughest ethics and anti-corruption laws in the nation. The Garden State ranks first in the integrity probe for ethics enforcement, first for executive branch accountability and fourth for procurement practices.

Georgia law books are chock-full of statutes written to curtail undue influence on political activity and public policy.

So utilities and insurance companies can’t give to a candidate seeking an office that regulates them. Legislators can’t take political donations while in session. Politicians can’t use campaign money for personal benefit. State workers can’t accept gifts from vendors or lobbyists.

Except when they can.

Time and again, Georgia journalists and watchdog groups have found that money finds a way to flow around those laws:

Some 658 state workers accepted sports tickets, speaking fees, fancy meals and other gratuities over a two-year span. It’s been 12 years since the state last fined a vendor for failing to disclose such gifts. 

Political action committees set up by governors and legislative leaders collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in amounts and at times forbidden for other contributions. Two officials dumped $1 million of campaign money into PACs where they could spend it almost any way they wished. “It’s ripe for the opportunity for corruption,” former ethics enforcer Rick Thompson said.

Collectively, executives of insurance companies, public utilities and other regulated entities have become the largest single source of campaign money for regulators running for re-election. Utility officials raise money and work to help re-elect incumbents; a lobbyist for the cable TV industry managed one incumbent’s campaign in 2008.

The State Integrity Investigation mobilized a network of state reporters to generate quantitative data and qualitative reporting on the health of the anti-corruption framework at the state level. Reporters scored 330 questions about their state’s accountability and transparency framework — what we call Corruption Risk Indicators — by combining extensive desk research with thousands of original interviews of state government experts. Among those interviewed were current and former officials with experience inside the bureaucracy, as well as private sector researchers, journalists and executives from civil society and ‘good government’ organizations.

To identify the project’s Corruption Risk Indicators, staff from Global Integrity and the Center for Public Integrity contacted nearly 100 state-level organizations working in the areas of good government and public sector reform nationwide. We asked them a simple question: what issue areas mattered most in their state when it came to the risk of significant corruption occurring in the public sector? The outcome was a list of questions, rooted in the day-to-day realities of state government operations. In addition, Global Integrity and the Center for Public Integrity included additional indicators that the two organizations had previously fielded in similar projects. Specifically, these indicators were drawn from the Center’s States of Disclosure project and Global Integrity’s Global Integrity Report and Local Integrity Initiative efforts.