Corruption in Illinois has been well-documented for decades, perhaps more so in the media than any other state. But how exactly can something intangible like corruption be measured?
The majority of corruption cases in the U.S. originate within state and local government, but adequately measuring corruption is a tricky task, which is evident in a recent study conducted by the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.
The most commonly used measure of state and local corruption derives from the U.S. Department of Justice’s “Report to Congress on the Activities and Operations of the Public Integrity Section.” However, the Center for Ethics notes the report’s data is flawed for numerous reasons, particularly because it only takes into account federal conviction rates and not corruption cases prosecuted at the state and local levels. Additionally, measuring corruption based on conviction rates leads to highly variable results for states with smaller populations.
Using an alternative approach, the Center for Ethics surveyed hundreds of journalists who cover state politics to create a perception-based index that measures two forms of corruption: illegal and legal:
As defined by the study’s authors:
- Illegal corruption – private gains in the form of cash or gifts by a government official, in exchange for providing specific benefits to private individuals or groups.
- Legal corruption – political gains in the form of campaign contributions or endorsements by a government official, in exchange for providing specific benefits to private individuals or groups, be it by explicit or implicit understanding (e.g., super PAC donations by unions, corporations and individuals).
To be able to know where in state government to push for reform and to be able to measure the effectiveness of these reforms, we need to have a somewhat more disaggregated index measuring different forms of corruption in different branches of government. To construct such a disaggregated index, we surveyed the news reporters covering state politics in addition to the investigative reporters covering issues related to corruption during the first half of 2014…Reporters have a better knowledge of state governments and spend a great deal of time observing the government officials and interacting with them.
Reporters in each state were asked how common illegal and legal corruption were in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of their respective governments in 2013:
The response scale ranged from “not at all common” to “extremely common.” For each reporter responding to the survey, we assigned a score of 1 if he/she chose “not at all common,” 2 if he/she chose “slightly common,” and so on. The score of 5 meant that the reporter responding to the survey perceived corruption to be “extremely common.” We then calculated the state scores as the median of these individual scores, which are presented in the tables and maps below.
Illegal corruption in Illinois
Respondents from Illinois perceived illegal corruption to be moderately common in the executive branch, very common in the legislative branch and slightly common in the judicial branch. See the tables below for a nationwide overview (click to enlarge the tables and maps).
[Note from authors: “Unfortunately, in some states (Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Massachusetts, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and South Dakota) only a small number of reporters responded to our survey. Hence while interpreting the results from these states we should be cautious. Surprisingly enough, we received no responses from Louisiana, which is historically one of the more corrupt states in America.”]
Illegal corruption in the executive branch
Illegal corruption in the legislative branch
Illegal corruption in the judicial branch
Legal corruption in Illinois
As is the case for all 50 states, and agreed upon by both liberals and conservatives, legal corruption is perceived to be more common than illegal corruption among all three branches of government. In Illinois, legal corruption in the executive branch is seen as very common; extremely common within the legislative branch; and moderately common in the judicial branch.
Legal corruption in the executive branch
Legal corruption in the legislative branch
Legal corruption in the judicial branch
Most and least corrupt states in the U.S.
To determine which states are the most and least corrupt, the authors added the median scores of illegal and legal corruption in each branch of government to calculate an aggregate score. States with higher aggregate scores are perceived to be more corrupt.
Illinois ranked as the fifth-most corrupt state in illegal corruption, and the second-most corrupt state with regard to legal corruption.
It is all bad news for Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania as their aggregate scores are in the highest quartiles of both illegal and legal corruption. Not so bad news for the Dakotas, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Vermont, and Wyoming, which are perceived least corrupt both illegally and legally.
NEXT ARTICLE: Legal and illegal corruption — they both matter, especially in Illinois
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