The tales are sadly familiar to even the most casual observer of state politics.

In Georgia, more than 650 government employees accepted gifts from vendors doing business with the state in 2007 and 2008, clearly violating state ethics law. The last time the state issued a penalty on a vendor was 1999.

A North Carolina legislator sponsored and voted on a bill to loosen regulations on billboard construction, even though he co-owned five billboards in the state. When the ethics commission reviewed the case, it found no conflict; after all, the panel reasoned, the legislation would benefit all billboard owners in the state — not just the lawmaker who pushed for the bill.

Tennessee established its ethics commission six years ago, but has yet to issue a single ethics penalty. It’s almost impossible to know whether the oversight is effectively working, because complaints are not made available to the public.

A West Virginia governor borrowed a car from his local dealership to take it for a “test drive.” He kept the car for four years, during which the dealership won millions in state contracts. 

The public’s trust in politics is at an all time low, as various public opinion polls show. Or is it politicians that people mistrust? How to address these issues and restore the public’s trust in their elected officials? These questions were the focus of the 2012 Leadership Forum, organized by the State Legislative Leaders Foundation and Brown University in Providence on May 10-12.

The conference brought together around 50 legislative leaders from both political parties across the country, an equal number of private sector representatives and civil society members working on government ethics and accountability. Stephen Lakis, President of the State Legislative Leaders Foundation, Teresa Paiva Weed, President of the Rhode Island Senate, Gordon Fox, Speaker of the Rhode Island House, and Angel Taveras, Mayor of Providence opened the conference.

The State Legislative Leaders Foundation invited Global Integrity and the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) to present the recently released findings of State Integrity Investigation (SII), an evaluation of effectiveness of anti-corruption mechanisms in all US states conducted by Global Integrity, CPI and Public Radio International. 

The invitation was also recognition for Global Integrity and the Center’s efforts to engage reform-minded partners in state government and civil society to push for evidence-based reforms based on the SII. After the publication of the SII findings, Global Integrity and other partner organizations have been reaching out to state-level public officials, connecting decision-makers, institutions and civil society from different states so they can exchange knowledge and collaborate around SII findings.

Iowa’s only F grade on the State Integrity Investigation was in the category of public access to information, partly due to a lack of strong enforcement measures.

But Governor Terry Branstad signed a bill last week that would create the Iowa Public Information Board, a nine-member commission that will oversee and enforce the state’s open records laws. The governor noted that the lack of enforcement was highlighted by the State Integrity Investigation and affected Iowa’s overall grade. Iowa ranked 7^th among the 50 states and earned an overall grade of C+. 

“Hopefully this will move us up from [C+] to a better grade,” Branstad said at the signing on May 3.

On the scorecard’s public access information section, Iowa received low marks on questions about whether citizens could easily resolve appeals when requests are denied and whether there is an agency that effectively monitors the laws, initiates investigations, and imposes penalties on offenders.

Branstad hailed the creation of the new board as an “important and significant step forward” for government transparency and accountability. The board, which will consist of local advocates and journalists, will not only have the authority to hear complaints and negotiate settlements, but levy fines and order corrective action if necessary. Branstad said the board could be ready to operate July 1.

Rhode Island garnered a respectable ninth in the nation ranking from the State Integrity Investigation in late March, but that was before elimination of the state’s internal auditing agency was proposed as part of the governor’s  budget.  

Rhode Island’s Chief Auditor, H. Chris Der Vartanian,  announced his resignation Wednesday in the wake of Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s plan to cut the Bureau of Audits, citing the state’s ranking as a reason to keep the independent auditing arm in place.

“Ironically, this proposed elimination comes at a time when the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) one of the country’s oldest and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organizations categorized the Bureau as one of the highest performing state internal audit agencies in the country and one of the major factors leading to the state of Rhode Island achieving a ranking of [9^th] in the nation in terms of preventing corruption,”  Der Vartanian  wrote in a resignation letter to Gov. Chafee and Richard Licht, the director of administration.

Rhode Island received a B+ in internal auditing on its corruption risk scorecard. It received its highest grade, an A, for redistricting, and scored its lowest, an F, on state civil service management.  The state’s overall grade was C.  

Der Vartanian, who worked in state government for 21 years, said he thought it was important for public officials to review the report card to determine what policies need improvement.

In the past five years, Massachusetts residents have been forced to witness an embarrassing parade of fallen public servants caught up in corrupt acts, handcuffed and led away. Their names still prompt a wince: Finneran, DiMasi, Wilkerson, Turner, Marzilli and more. The scandals’ cost to the public purse is untold; the cost to public confidence in government leadership incalculable.

Yet the overwhelming majority of public servants embroiled in criminal or ethical scandals since 2007 are people most in Massachusetts have never heard of. They draw their paychecks far from power centers like Beacon Hill or city halls, but in small town schools and libraries, municipal police and fire stations, in local housing projects, on rural postal routes, in state prisons, county jails and courthouses dotting the Bay State. From a former Springfield school teacher accused of insurance fraud to a Lawrence police officer charged with rape to a Dighton town official sanctioned for hiring his relatives, hundreds of ordinary individuals paid to serve the public interest have been charged with or admitted to crimes and ethical misconduct in Massachusetts, according to a new analysis by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.

The NECIR compilation of public servants accused of crimes or ethical misconduct was culled over the past several months from news reports, agency press releases, state and federal court records, Ethics Commission dispositions, government annual reports and interviews with municipal, state and federal officials.  

Citing the state’s F grade for redistricting in the State Integrity Investigation, Common Cause/NY filed an amicus brief earlier this week supporting a challenge to the constitutionality of New York’s newly-drawn 63^rd Senate district.

“The entire process was tremendously opaque,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause/NY. “It is a very discouraging for the average citizen to see the state carved up in districts as a result of political negotiations behind closed doors.”

The Common Cause brief supports a lawsuit brought by New York Senate Democrats who claim that Senate Republicans, currently the majority, manipulated the state constitution’s population counting formula – used every 10 years to determine the size of the Senate –  to their advantage. The lawsuit alleges that Senate Republicans  applied two different methods of calculating census growth in different  counties,  allowing them to manipulate the numbers to give them an extra seat in Republican upstate New York.

The lawsuit was dismissed by the state Supreme Court on April 13. The court ruled that increasing the size of the state Senate was not unconstitutional, but found the use of different counting methods “disturbing.” A spokesman for Senate Republicans said “we were required to add a 63^rd seat to comply with the Constitution.” Democrats appealed to the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, and arguments are set for today.  

Open government advocates in Florida are using results from the State Integrity Investigation to push for grassroots ethics reform. The Sunshine State received a C- on its corruption risk scorecard, ranking it 18^th among the states.

Dan Krassner, executive director of Integrity Florida, said the project’s scorecards provide an easy roadmap for reform, with 330 specific policy questions and measurable outcomes.

“We looked at where our state scored the lowest,” said Krassner, who noted that Florida received its only F grade for ethics enforcement agencies.

Florida is one of about 30 states where the ethics commission is unable to self-start investigations; commissioners can only investigate citizens’ complaints. But Integrity Florida, a group that aims to promote accountability in government and expose corruption, is pushing for changes that would allow the commission to initiate its own probes.  

“That is a direct response to the State Integrity Investigation,” Krassner said. “Our organization is following up with state-level research to pass that policy reform next legislative session.”

Integrity Florida, which launched in late March, aims to inspire reform by engaging with ethics organizations and government officials, while also producing reports on potential corruption risks in the state.  A report to be released this week will highlight the lack of transparency at Florida’s economic development agency.

AUGUSTA — Maine has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations run by legislative leaders or the spouses of high-level state officials since 2003. But because of a loophole in ethics law, the public didn’t know about it.

That won’t happen again.

A bill to require disclosure of state contracts with legislators and executive branch officials has sailed to approval through the House and the Senate.

The bill, L.D. 1806, now awaits the signature of Gov. Paul LePage, who said Thursday he will sign it.

“It is reasonable to ask our elected leaders to disclose who is paying them. It is good for the health of our democracy and the people of Maine,” said LePage.

“This will increase trust in the system and ensure that people have the opportunity to take appropriate action and make decisions accordingly.”

LePage proposed the bill after a January investigation by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting revealed that organizations run by top legislators or the family members of executive branch officials had received $235 million in state contracts between 2003 and 2010.

In some cases, lawmakers served on the committees that controlled the spending that went to their organizations.

But the spending was never disclosed to the public in state ethics filings.

Sen. Kevin Raye (R-Perry) the senate president, was the lead sponsor of LePage’s bill. He said Thursday that the bill’s passage “means a greater degree of transparency” for citizens, who will be able to spot potential legislative conflicts of interests.

“They can be more confident that they’re aware of the circumstances surrounding individual legislators and their votes in the legislature,” said Raye.