Can you guess which state has the most effective financial disclosure requirement for its legislators?
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
06/25/09 7:38 AM EDT
This will probably come as a shock to anybody who has read Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men," or who has even the mos passing familiarity with Louisiana politics, but the Bayou State ranks on top of the Center for Public Integrity's latest compilation of state legislative financial disclosure requirements.
Go here for CPI's color-coded inter-active map that provides info on how all 50 states compare. Joining Louisiana with a grade of A and ranking second is Washington state, while Hawaii is third and the only other state getting the top grade. States getting a B include Texas, Alaska, Arizona and Georgia.
Way down in the ranking are Maryland and Virginia, with the former getting a D and ranking 23rd and the latter getting an F, with a rank of 31. The worst states in the nation for financial disclosure of state legislators are Idaho, Vermont and Michigan. Other states getting the F include: Nevada, Montano, Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvanis, West Virginia, Tennessee, New Hampshire and Maine.
The rankings are based on a 43-question measurement used by CPI to determine what requirements apply to state legislators. The measures range from employment and corporate positions held to whether the disclosures are made publicly available and whether such availability is via the Internet.
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