The Center for Public Integrity

State transparency and accountability

In just four days our State Integrity Investigation — a corruption-risk grade card for every state — has been quoted, praised, assailed or otherwise cited by more than 200 media organizations, from The New York Times to NPR and dozens of public radio stations, and from Foreign Policy magazine to scores of local AOL Patch outlets and state newspapers and TV stations.

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.

There is nothing like a failing grade, however, to prompt states to push for reform, and that is starting to happen, too. We’ll be reporting on where states are going right as well as wrong in weeks and months to come.

Until Next Week,

Bill

Ugly Money

En route to the November elections, American voters are getting a vivid demonstration of how unbridled money is twisting our political system. Trust me, it’s going to get worse -- and uglier.

The negative campaign TV ad is now the preferred cudgel of candidates bent on destroying each other. The current GOP presidential primary has been less certain and bloodier than usual as a few billionaires keep contenders viable much longer than in past contests.

What remains to be seen is the inevitable onslaught of negative ads in the general election, from both Democrats and Republicans, paid for largely with outside super PAC money from hedge fund billionaires and private equity managers. Such ads have already tipped the balance several times in the GOP primary and there’s no doubt this will play a huge role in the presidential contest as well.

Until Next Week,

Bill Buzenberg
Executive Director

Super PACs, super spending
Heading into Super Tuesday, spending by super PACs aligned with presidential candidates surpassed spending by all super PACs in the 2010 mid-term election. To date, super PACs associated with one of the 2012 White House hopefuls spent more than $66 million. Notably, the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future accounts for almost 50 percent of this spending. The Romney super PAC has spent more than $32 million so far this election, nearly all of it on ads bashing his opponents. That’s nearly twice as much as the $16 million spent by pro-Newt Gingrich Winning Our Future. And it’s roughly six times as much as the $5.3 million spent by the pro-Rick Santorum Red White and Blue fund.

Surgical Safety

It’s a fact of human nature that stories that turn people’s stomachs are sometimes necessary to fix problems. Our report this week on dirty surgical instruments fits the bill – and points up a major hygiene problem in America’s operating rooms.

It’s hard enough to go under the knife for routine surgical procedures. It’s another matter entirely to contract a life-threatening infection due to poorly cleaned instruments. Yet that’s what is happening at hospitals around the country as some common modern surgical tools prove difficult – or impossible – to sterilize. Another problem: Workers responsible for cleaning these instruments often toil in hospital basements earning minimum wage.

It’s an important story and we partnered with the Today show to help make hospitals and the public aware of the danger.


Until next week,

William E. Buzenberg
Executive Director

State Corruption

Crooked politics is a state government specialty. Just look at Illinois. But what about the other 49 states? We’re undertaking an unprecedented look at transparency and accountability in the upcoming State Integrity Investigation.

Unlike previous rankings, the investigation does not rely on the number of scandals or a tally of recent officials sent to prison for graft. Rather, it grades every state on its risk of corruption by gathering data on a checklist of over 300 risk indicators across fourteen categories of state government -- from campaign finance, ethics laws and lobbying regulations to management of state pension funds -- as they apply in each state.

We’ll be ranking every state on March 19, but you can get a peek at the data now at www.stateintegrity.org. The project is in partnership with Public Radio International and Global Integrity.

Until next week,

William E. Buzenberg
Executive Director

Four Obama lieutenants ready to shill for PACs
At least four Cabinet members appear ready and willing to answer President Barack Obama’s call to help fill the coffers of Democratic outside spending groups, which have to date been badly outgunned by better-funded Republican organizations. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk have all indicated they would be open to participation in activities designed to help the nascent Democratic super PACs, like “Priorities USA Action,” raise money.

Winning work

The ultimate goal of investigative journalism is impact. We want our reports to change laws, effect policy – and even alter the way people understand issues. At the Center for Public Integrity, we dig deep and swing for the fences.

Our Looting the Seas series on global overfishing has helped lower quotas for Atlantic blue fin tuna, started government investigations in Europe, and called attention to rampant over fishing of the lowly jack mackerel in the Southern Pacific. The oily fish is increasingly being scraped from the world's oceans to feed farmed salmon. Our International Consortium of Investigative Journalists will continue to report on the global debate we've stirred up.

Meanwhile, we were also gratified to see that the Costa Rican government is now studying the causes of a mysterious and chronic kidney disease among Central American sugarcane workers. Our stories on this illness have led the country’s biggest sugar producer to revamp its worker safety and health policies. The epidemic was the subject of our Island of the Widows investigation.

 Until Next Week,

William E. Buzenberg
Executive Director

Susan is interviewed for California Report story on youth inmates.

Super PACs file expenditure reports

January 31st was the deadline for super PACs to file their latest expenditure reports. The Center dug into the numbers quickly to identify the major donors – and their special interests. These are the people who, in many respects, are attempting to buy the 2012 election. One thing is obvious: Most of these donors aren’t part of the 99 percent.

The Supreme Court Citizen’s United decision has made it possible for individuals, labor unions and corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on advertising for or against specific candidates. Worse, that money can now come from anonymous sources. The Center has dedicated itself to tracking this special interest money in a new project called Consider the Source. Please bookmark the page and visit often. --Bill Buzenberg, executive director

Pro-Romney PAC surges with $30M - mostly from investors
Restore our future, the super PAC backing presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, received nearly $30 million in donations in 2011. The investment industry was far and away the most generous donor to the group. Supporters included several buddies from Romney’s old employer, Bain Capital, who gave a combined $750,000. Restore our Future has spent $17.5 million so far in the primary races, just about double that of pro-Gingrich PAC Winning Our Future. The super PAC has poured millions of dollars into advertising criticizing the former House Speaker as the Republican presidential nomination race heats up.

Free-for-all in southern Pacific decimates fish stocks

Asian, European and Latin American fleets have devastated fish stocks in the southern Pacific, once among the world’s richest waters, a new investigation by the Center’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found. Governments with the power to stop the plunder have stalled for years, and no binding rules are in place. The result: Stocks of jack mackerel are down 90 percent to less than 3 million metric tons in just two decades. The oily fish is a staple in Africa, but people elsewhere are unaware that it is in their forkfuls of farmed salmon. Jack mackerel is a vital component of fishmeal for aquaculture. Today, industrial fleets bound only by voluntary restraints compete in what amounts to a free-for-all in open waters from the west coast of South America across much of the southern Pacific. The investigation also found that in Peru, at least 630,000 metric tons of anchoveta have vanished over the past two and a half years between the holds of boats and factory scales. That is more than all the fish British fleets land in a year.

The defense cuts that aren’t