How did New Jersey rank tops in integrity?
This week’s news from New Jersey was, let’s be honest, probably no surprise to any veteran of Garden State politics. Some 19 months after the infamous Bridgegate scandal broke, three one-time Chris Christie allies were either indicted or pleaded guilty to a variety of conspiracy charges regarding their behavior in the matter. Just a month earlier, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) was indicted on corruption charges for allegedly exchanging favors for gifts and campaign contributions.
The two recent cases are but the latest in a long string of New Jersey scandals that have given the state a uniquely sleazy image in American politics. Abscam. The troubled, if brief, reign of Gov. James E. McGreevey. The 2009 conviction of the newly elected mayor of Hoboken, part of a corruption case that included a motley outfit of small-town executives, state lawmakers, building inspectors, even rabbis. The Garden State is utterly corrupt, a national joke, the storyline reads. And there’s no hope.
But a closer look reveals a more complicated reality. Until Bridgegate, the past decade had seen few corruption charges against state-level officials in New Jersey, and that may be no coincidence; the shame of the McGreevey scandals actually led the Garden State to pass some of the nation’s strongest ethics and transparency laws in 2005. Those reforms even helped New Jersey earn the top rank, a B+, in the 2012 State Integrity Investigation, a national ranking of state government transparency and accountability by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International.
Reformers say Bridgegate is a symptom of backsliding in Trenton in recent years, some of it tied to Gov. Christie's presidential ambitions. Perhaps. Bridgegate notwithstanding, however, New Jersey’s recent history may offer lessons for the growing inventory of other shamed state capitals where old-fashioned graft and cash-in-a-bag bribery cases are actually making headlines more often. Like that state capital over the river and up the Thruway in New York, for instance.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
