Stupid metric. I could make a case that more convictions implies less corruption, because crooks are actually punished.
If the corruption extends to the DAs and the police, the arrest numbers are worthless.
This data assumes that convictions is an accurate basis for measurement. Truly corrupt states will not convict their own.
With a legislature that meets every-other-year and relatively light regulation in the state, I guess that's corruption I can live with.
If you look what happened in the cases of Terry McCauliffe, Charles Rangel and Jon Corzine, just to name a few, you might want to reconsider using a conviction as the key for saying which are the most corrupt. Whether they bribed or used political connections to get off the hook, only Rangel was convicted, if you will, and that involved nothing more than a slap on the wrist. He is still out there trying to be a civil rights “moral compass”, for goodness sakes! Like Al Sharpton, the media still go to him to get quotes on the struggle against the “Man”, when for all practical matters, Rangel the landlord is the Man.
In fact, you could argue that the more convictions obtained, the greater the anti-corruption forces are in that state.
I guess this depends on who you leave out. If Illegal aliens were convicted and counted the states boarding the south would be highest. Colorado would be much higher if political violations were counted.
Absurd. If pinkie is not at the top, there’s no use to this.
My first thought was Hawaii, but I’ll go with Louisiana. Any state with a considerable population on “Indian” land should be next.
Bad metric. In a truly corrupt state, there aren't any convictions for corruption. It's part of the normal way of doing business.
Having written Harry Reid’s only biography, I guarantee Nevada has it’s share of corruption hidden in plain view.
http://www.futurnamics.com/reid.php
I would think that the states with the highest conviction rates were the least corrupt..............
Arrests just mean the crooks pay a consequence for their actions and that there are people in government who work to prevent corruption.
A better measure of corruption would be total State government spending divided by total private sector jobs or total private sector payroll.
Unnecessary government spending ends up in the hands of bad people. Follow the money.
I also disagree with the “per-capita” notion. New Hampshire has an enormous legislature and a tiny population. California has an enormous population, and a fairly small legislature. One bad legislator in New Hampshire, by this metric, would make NH look as bad as if half of California’s legislature went to prison.
I guess the state is less corrupt if no one knows about the corruption. Which is usually the case.
Most of the corruption is institutionalized and legalized so arrests are not a realistic measure of anything. The only thing that may be a realistic quantification would be “percentage of the total cost of operating a business / living in a state resulting from government.”
If you have a fixed base percentage for services such as roads, police, fire, parks, etc then anything above that should by definition be corruption.
North Carolina should be in the top three. Our new governor McCrory is making huge strides in shutting down the “good ol’ boy” network that’s flim-flammed the citizenry for 80-100 years.
If DC were a state...
Silly metric - if you’ve got corruption down to an art form (and that would be us in Illinois), the only basis for conviction is hubris to the point of no hope of escape (Blagojevich and JJ Junior) or political revenge (Ryan).
In Illinois if the corrupt don’t rock the system they ease into a comfortable retirement or move onto higher office - hell, if you play your cards right, you can get the better part of a Kenwood mansion from a known slimeball like Tony Rezko, and just use that as a convenient stepping-stone to even nicer digs on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Illinois #16? B.S.
I would like to see these broke down by party. Mississippi has 4 CDs, 3 held by Rs, one by a D. This would be helpful but still skewed. I’ve read that 25% or 4 in 100 Americans are psychopaths to some degree, I believe that among elected officials the numbers are much higher because of their skills and lack of a conscience. Those with this defect are more likely to run as a member of the party that is stronger in a particular district and a psychopath would be at ease adopting an agenda that would help him obtain his goals, usually of wealth and power. I do believe a higher % of Ds are psychopath but the Rs have theirs as well.