Study: Statehouses at High Risk for Corruption

Study: Statehouses at High Risk for Corruption
By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press
March 19, 2012 (AP)

State governments lack transparency and accountability to citizens, and remain at high risk for corruption, according to a new study of all 50 statehouses.

Not a single state received an A in the State Integrity Investigation ranking, a product of the Center for Public Integrity, Public Radio International and Global Integrity.

"It's telling that no state received an overall grade of A," said Caitlin Ginley, a staff writer for the Center for Public Integrity and a project manager on the study. "In every state, there's room to improve the ethics laws, the level of transparency on government proceedings, the disclosure of information, and — most importantly — the oversight of these laws.

"One of the major findings was that even when ethics laws are passed, they are difficult to enforce and lack meaningful consequences for violators."

Only five states got rankings of B, led by a surprising recipient: New Jersey. It got a B-plus, with an overall score of 87 out of a possible 100.

Despite — or perhaps because of — recent corruption scandals, New Jersey got the top ranking because of steps it took to combat corruption, including tough ethics and anti-corruption laws it adopted in response.

New Jersey has a colorful tradition of corruption in government, including a U.S. congressman taking a bribe from an FBI agent posing as a wealthy Arab sheik, a Jersey shore councilman caught on tape bragging to an undercover officer that he would never get caught because "I could smell a cop a mile away," and a decade-long string of 150 state and local officials who were either convicted or pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges. The cases ranged from Motor Vehicle Commission employees selling fraudulent licenses to politicians peddling their influence for kickbacks.


Cases stemming from the 2009 roundup of 44 people in what was dubbed by the feds as "Operation Bid-Rig" are still working their way through the courts.

But that history of corruption also led to strong reforms designed to prevent it in the future. Among them was a law prohibiting campaign contributions by most firms doing business with the state.

"It's nice to be recognized for being ahead of the curve," said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Gov. Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney who prosecuted many of the recent cases. "The governor is proud of the changes he's made and the resources he's made available to the public in terms of government transparency. Government operates and behaves better when it's open and transparent, and taxpayers feel informed and a part of the process when they can see how their money is spent, who is getting contracts and who's on the payroll and such."

The report found that states with well-known scandals or histories of corruption often have the toughest laws and enforcement that bring them to light. Conversely, the report found, so-called "quiet" states may be at higher risk for corruption, with fewer means to bring corrupt practices to light.

Reporters in each state researched 330 corruption risk indicators across 14 government categories, including 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 commissions, and redistricting.

Rounding out the top five states were: Connecticut (B, 86), Washington state (B-minus, 83), California (B-minus, 81) and Nebraska (B-minus, 80).

Nineteen states got grades of C, and 18 got a D. Eight states got an 'F,' with grades of 59 or lower: North Dakota, Michigan, South Carolina, Maine, Virginia, Wyoming, South Dakota and Georgia.

Individual reports for all 50 states can be found at http://www.stateintegrity.org.

Nathan Fletcher in the dark of night gets stealth stadium deal into California's budget

In the Dark of Night
Voice of San Diego
Randy Dotinga
October 9, 2010

Should law be patched together in the middle of the night when hardly anyone is watching? Sacramento seems to think so: in a last-minute move that sent local eyebrows skyward, the state legislature slipped a bill into budget negotiations Thursday night that would pave the way for San Diego's downtown redevelopment agency to more easily pay to build a downtown football stadium.

This is hardly a case of simple bureaucracy at work. As we report, the mayor's promised "transparent process" over this issue is now history, and the effect of the deal on the city's day-to-day budget is unknown, just as voters begin considering boosting their sales taxes to bail out the city. On top of all that, "the deal was done in stunning secrecy."

The assemblyman who spearheaded the deal defends his move, saying it's a big job creator, but acknowledges that the county wasn't thrilled about the idea. County supervisors issued statements, with one saying the deal could actually spell trouble for the stadium.

Also: the city attorney says a public vote on the stadium won't be necessary if only redevelopment funds are used to build it. The city's head of redevelopment says this deal will save the city money.


Fletcher: Bill About Jobs, Not Chargers
October 8, 2010
by Liam Dillon

Republican state Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher said the word "no" a lot when we spoke on the phone about the last-minute deal that removes a major financial hurdle to the city building a new Chargers stadium downtown.

Fletcher authored a provision introduced and approved in last night's state budget that lifts San Diego's downtown redevelopment cap, a necessary step before the city could build a new Chargers stadium using public money.

Was this bill something you required to support the state budget? No, he said.

Was this bill done to build a Chargers stadium? "Not exclusively, no," Fletcher said.

Fletcher emphasized that lifting the downtown redevelopment agency's cap would affect hundreds of projects, not just a football stadium. He did say a football stadium was the most high-profile effort now being discussed. He said he had been in contact with the Chargers in the last week, along with other stakeholders.

Is this deal similar to the 2009 one the city of Industry received, and Fletcher opposed, to help build a potential football stadium there? No, he said. That was an environmental waiver specific to the stadium, he said. This action affects lots more, Fletcher said.

"It's like comparing apples to carburetors," he said.

Instead, he said, this was all about jobs. Fletcher released a fact sheet saying it would create 110,000 permanent and temporary jobs.

But not everyone's happy. San Diego County, for one.

"The county expressed their opposition to this," Fletcher said.

County leaders had been meeting with city officials to discuss increasing the cap and potential financing for a stadium. In June, the city hired a consultant to examine the need for further redevelopment downtown. The $500,000 study was expected to take 18 months and City Council members had praised it as a public process.

This deal ends both of those things.

Fletcher conceded the process wasn't pretty.

"We can have a long debate on the process," he said. "There's probably fair criticism. I criticize the legislative process frequently, but at the end of the day what we're focused on is the product and the results. If we have the opportunity to take action to get tens of thousands of San Diegans working again, we had to do it."

How corrupt does Juan Vargas have to be to make voters turn against him? His lucrative job at Safeco after accepting gifts as assemblyman

I still have high hopes that Mary Salas will win this contest, but I can't believe there are so many Democrats in the South Bay who would vote for Juan Vargas, who went straight to a lucrative job in the insurance industry when he left the California Assembly and gave up his seat on the insurance committee.


40th STATE SENATE DISTRICT
Vargas maintains 6-vote lead over Salas
Riverside County votes uncounted
By Michele Clock, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
June 28, 2010

State Senate candidate Juan Vargas maintained a six-vote lead Monday over rival Mary Salas in a South Bay Democratic race, but while the vote count is almost over, the dispute may go on for some time.

Not only is a recount likely, but a controversy over uncounted ballots could alter the vote totals from the Riverside County portion of the district.

Updated tallies by the San Diego County registrar’s office from the June 8 primary election in the 40th state Senate District showed Vargas with the same lead he had Friday. Both candidates gained 45 votes in the latest batch of results.

There are 50 absentee and provisional ballots left to be counted in San Diego County.

The district reaches into Imperial and Riverside counties, and registrar officials in both those counties said Monday that they have finished counting votes.

However, questions over uncounted votes in Riverside County could be a wild card. About 12,500 mail-in votes were delivered after the 8 p.m. June 8 deadline, meaning the votes wouldn’t be counted. Elections officials there are exploring whether they have the legal right to count those votes.

There were reports of miscommunication between the county and the U.S. Postal Service, which resulted in the ballots arriving late...


Vargas takes insurance job
Ex-assemblyman's reversal draws fire
By Bill Ainsworth
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE S
December 8, 2006

Profile Juan Vargas

Job as of last Sunday: Assemblyman, insurance committee chairman

Interesting fact: $335,000 in campaign contributions from insurers over the years.

Notable quote: “I'm not going into insurance or finance. I'm just not interested.” (April) New job announced this week: Vice president of California external affairs for Safeco insurance

During his campaign for Congress, Juan Vargas was harshly criticized for accepting $335,000 in campaign contributions from insurers and frequently taking their side while chairman of the Assembly Insurance Committee.

The San Diego Democrat not only disputed that but he went further and said he would not take a job in the industry after leaving office.

Now he has done just that.

Vargas, whose Assembly term ended this week, is the new vice president of California external affairs for Safeco, a Seattle-based company that sells auto, surety and homeowners insurance to 4.3 million customers nationwide...

Tri-City Hospital probe kept secret: Does that prove there's no serious wrongdoing?

Should San Diego be called "Enron by the see-no-evil"?

Does keeping a probe secret prove that there was no serious wrongdoing? Quite the opposite, I would say.

Tri-City Hospital isn't releasing the probe conducted after CEO Art Gonzalez and eight administrators were placed on administrative leave. My guess is that the board doesn't want to go through litigation which would be expensive for the hospital. My guess is that the former employees don't want a trial, either, because the information in the secret probe would no longer be secret. Instead, both parties want to settle, keep the report secret, and preserve the reputations of both the former employees and the board members who worked with them.

Terry Francke, counsel for Californians Aware, says, "If they did find serious misconduct by these employees, then it becomes a matter of public interest" and the report must be released.

I agree, but in San Diego, wrongdoing is regularly hidden by public entities. Maybe the city should be called Enron by the see-no-evil.

Welfare for the rich: top California officials bill taxpayers for nonessential travel

Report: Top Schwarzenegger staff traveled on taxpayer's dime
Channel 6, San Diego
Feb. 28, 2009

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A news report says in the midst of a budget crisis, top officials in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration charged taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars for airfare, hotels and meals despite a ban on nonessential travel.

The Los Angeles Times says 10 high-ranking staff members who live in Southern California billed the state for routine trips from their homes to Sacramento.

And Carrie Lopez, the director of the state Department of Consumer Affairs, billed the state for transportation costs to attend a Justin Timberlake concert with her daughter. Lopez said the transportation cost was for a meeting with an energy company executive but the company denies it.

The Times says expense reports and calendars show many of the expenses submitted by top staff were incurred after the governor issued an executive order a year ago requiring state agencies to reduce travel costs because of the budget crisis.

The governor's office says the travel expenses will be reviewed.