A wag (possibly Benjamin Disraeli) once observed that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Is that what’s at work in this recently-released study (PDF available for download) showing that Massachusetts is among the least corrupt states in the union, both in terms of what the authors call “legal corruption” (“the 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”) and “illegal corruption” (“the private gains in the form of cash or gifts by a government official, in exchange for providing specific benefits to private individuals or groups”)? Can this possibly be right, given the recent probation trial, the three indicted Speakers, Chuck, Dianne, etc.? Or is our perception skewed because we are too close to it? Or are things bad here, and just a lot worse in other states?
Interesting to ponder. First of all, the important thing to know about this study is that it results from querying reporters. Why?
[W]e surveyed the news reporters covering state politics, and investigative reporters covering issues related to corruption, in the fifty states during the first half of 2014….
Boylan and Long [who conducted a similar study several years ago] make a compelling argument regarding why we should survey reporters, instead of other professionals such as trial lawyers or small business owners, to measure government corruption. Reporters have a better knowledge of state governments, and spend a great deal of time observing and interacting with government officials. We identified close to one thousand reporters through an extensive search of the internet and contacted them, during January and June of 2014, via email.
And here is an important, and unfortunate, caveat:
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; results from these states should be interpreted with caution.
That’s really too bad (especially because the study was conducted out of the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard). Wouldn’t it be nice to know whose perceptions we’re actually dealing with? But I asked the authors that question, and they declined to elaborate, explaining that they promised their respondents complete confidentiality.
Anyway, here’s the key finding:
What are the most and least corrupt states, taking all three government branches into account? … With respect to illegal corruption, … Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, the Dakotas, and Vermont are perceived to be the least corrupt states overall … With respect to legal corruption, … Massachusetts is the least corrupt state ….
Also of interest, from the tables at the end of the paper, is the finding that when it comes to illegal corruption specifically of the legislative branch, Massachusetts and 6 other states received the best “not at all common” rating. Even more surprising, when it came to legal corruption of the legislative branch, only Massachusetts and Vermont were rated “not at all common.”
Your thoughts?
Christopher says
Therefore it sounds like the grade, if you will, should be “incomplete”. Do they control for what is and is not legal from state to state? I’d love to believe this is true, but reporters need to do their jobs, which maybe some do better than others. There just seem to be too many variables and too much room for subjectivity to be able to rank states on something like this.
SomervilleTom says
About as accurate as voting on how many oceans there are.
In grade school, I had a teacher who was using an out-of-date geography text, and the text extensively explained that there were six oceans in the world, including the “Antarctic Ocean”.
Being the nerd that I am, I was a fan of National Geographic, and the magazine had just published the revolutionary news that LAND had been discovered under the Antarctic ice cap (hopefully before a submarine attempted a traversal of the south pole), and included a redrawn map of the world showing the (new) CONTINENT of Antarctica and the reducing the ocean-count to 5.
So I raised my hand and shared this with the class. Mrs. Budd was NOT pleased, and disciplined me for “talking back”. A few days later, after various communications had happened with the school, Mrs. Budd held a vote in the class to see how many oceans there were.
Astonishingly, having seen my treatment, “6” was the vote of the overwhelming majority (I might have had 1 or 2 supporters).
Asking the handful of Boston-based political reporters a question like this, coming from a Harvard University research center, is like Mrs. Budd asking those 5th-graders. What it tells me is that the Boston-based reporters contacted know better than to say ANYTHING to burn their sources.
Similarly, some companies use a “360 review” process, and invite subordinates to give an annual review of their boss. In a group comprised of four people, how likely is ANYBODY to say anything except “excellent” for every question? I know I learned MY lesson in 5th grade.
How many other states have a near-perfect record of three of four criminal convictions for the four most recent state congressional leaders, with the fourth an unindicted co-conspirator in a huge criminal conspiracy involving a state agency placing dozens of unqualified hires at the request of sitting representatives, senators, and judges?
Would that be “legal” or “illegal” corruption, or do the reporters or study authors agree with Mayor Walsh that no crimes occurred?
Pure hogwash.
Bob Neer says
Just wondering 🙂 I know about the seven seas …
Christopher says
North Atlantic
South Atlantic
North Pacific
South Pacific
Indian
Arctic
Antarctic (There’s still an ocean surrounding the namesake continent even with land underneath the ice cap, so I’m not sure why the objection to including it.)
SomervilleTom says
I rely on sources like this.
By size:
Pacific
Atlantic
Indian
Southern
Arctic
Christopher says
Atlantic and Pacific always being considered single oceans, but I’ve seen plenty of sources with Antarctic (though some call it the Southern Ocean as if the other name were politically incorrect or something). This article has an interesting discussion of views of the ocean’s existence, boundaries, etc. (Yes, it’s Wikipedia, but it seems to be one of their better sourced and researched articles.)
Mark L. Bail says
Rankings based on a biased sample (those who choose to respond) are not reliable, never mind valid.
Compared to no corruption, Massachusetts has a frightening amount of corruption; compared to other states, not so much. In other words, there is a normative amount of state-level corruption going on in any state at any given time. Like most crimes, some degree of corruption is not going to be caught. You’d have to have a way of defining those crimes and counting them. Voluntary surveys of reporters ain’t gonna do it.
The Center for Public Integrity has the State Integrity Project that’s worth looking. They rank Massachusetts as 12th in risk of corruption, which ought to make some people here happy..
The question looms, compared to what? Is Massachusetts more corrupt than:
Sheldon Silver who’s been corrupt Speaker in NY for 20 years and with whom the Feds finally caught up.
Gov. John Rowland of Connecticut who went to jail once for corruption and may be going again?
Alaska, of course, is well represented in the corruption field. Yes, prosecutorial misconduct led to a lot of vacated convictions, but there was a whole lot of corruption going on.
The Gov. McDonnell’s going to jail in Virginia.
The Clueless Kitzhaber in Oregon.
Illinois in general.
Or this list from Wikipedia of convicted government officials?
judy-meredith says
Who regularly charge political figures and the political process as being corrupt and using un-indicted co-conspirator as a prefix instead of Mr.
SomervilleTom says
I’m careful to refer to the speaker as either “Bob DeLeo” or “Mr. DeLeo”.
Come on now, let’s be fair.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
You have no idea what corruption is. Not the phony perjury charge against Finneran (no money involved) Not the bullshit probation scandal (which may get flipped)
Not Bulger, Not Charlie Flaherty,
Bot much. Corruption is not a city hall employee leaving early on Friday. Corruption is not ethics violations.
Corruption is whne a public official takes money to guarentee a result regardless of the public interest.
And it does and is happening. There are lcoal cops and inspectors anf other big fish in small ponds who play games.
Hello Everett.
SomervilleTom says
I know, and I’m sure those who think that date rape is phony also have no idea what rape is. Rape is when a crazed maniac ravishes his victim while holding a gun to her head.
Anything else is just “seduction”.
Right?
SomervilleTom says
n/m
TheBestDefense says
and ST you should ask to have it removed. Next up: invoking Godwin’s Law.
SomervilleTom says
We’re not supposed to mention that there are some who argue that date rape is “phony”? I guess it was ok when a GOP candidate got in very hot water (appropriately so) for attempting to distinguish “forcible rape” from “rape”. I guess we aren’t supposed to mention that candidates make statements like that because they believe (correctly or not) that the comments will find a receptive audience.
I’ll tell you what I find “disgusting” — the assertion that the corruption in MA government is “phony”. Claiming that three successive speakers were set up by some sort of political conspiracy. Claiming that “Bulger” is not corrupt. Who knows whether the comment meant Bill, his son Christopher, his other son John (who lost a state pension in 2003), his other son Patrick who retired from the MBTA in 2007 with a comfortable pension, the list goes on and on. I guess nepotism is not a form of corruption. Claiming that the Probation Department racket was not corrupt.
I find the assertion that I “have no idea what corruption is”, and citing these canards, strikingly similar to some misanthrope saying that the victim of a date rape “has no idea what rape is”.
I’m sorry you don’t like my comparison. I stand by it.
SomervilleTom says
I’ll go a little further, and say that it is, in fact, EBIII who doesn’t know what corruption is. I wonder if EBIII has perhaps been so immersed the Beacon Hill cesspool for so long that he or she no longer smells the stench — it happens, you know. Ask somebody who lives near a fish processing plant.
dave-from-hvad says
the fact that government in Massachusetts is run by three people– the governor, House speaker and Senate president? The rest of the Legislature plays little or no role in the decision-making, particularly when it comes to the state budget. A rigorous comparison of Massachusetts with most other states on, say, the budget process would be truly enlightening.
David says
I think all it takes into account is the assessments the authors received from the reporters who responded.
dave-from-hvad says
which I’ve just looked up:
SomervilleTom says
I’d love to explore the extent (however large or small) of the funding network that connects Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics in particular and Harvard in general to Massachusetts Democratic legislators. How many of the benefactors of the Center for Ethics are also deep-pocketed contributors to Massachusetts Democratic legislators?
This study, hastily published and with highly questionable methods, comes at an opportune time given the rising crescendo of outrage about the collapse of Massachusetts governance. Perhaps somebody with deep pockets had some informal conversations with somebody on Beacon Hill, along the lines of “is there anything I can do to help?” and heard a response along the lines of “Well, some good publicity might help”.
The institute describes itself, on the masthead of its website, as:
I’d say that Massachusetts government currently faces a number of “fundamental problems of ethics”. I fail to see the “practical benefit” of a “study” that claims, apparently, that other states are all worse (the most generous reading possible of the study’s conclusion) — and that makes the preposterous claim highlighted in the thread-starter.
Dr. Willie Soon has correctly been thrown into a bath of extremely hot water after neglecting to disclose the funding sources of his discredited “research” into the causes of global warming. I’d like to see some analogous probing into the funding sources that produced this “study”.
David says
Their email addresses are readily available on their university pages.
Mark L. Bail says
we’re having a problem with general semantics, i.e. you are defining “corruption” more broadly than Ernie. Legally, the probation scandal may not turn out to be criminal; morally, it’s pretty corrupt. Bribery is not just immoral; it’s illegal.
Not saying that either of you is right and wrong, just trying to clarify.
SomervilleTom says
I certainly have a broader definition than that used by EBIII.
In terms of semantics, I think the general public understands “corruption” to be pretty much as I use it here.
petr says
… but a corrupt speaker, or two (or three) are perhaps qualitative (sic) in nature: I find it very easy to believe that a legislative body in thrall to a strong, perhaps corrupt, single leader would (overall) possess a relatively small amount of (cumulative) corruption when viewed in quantitative terms. It might even be axiomatic: if individual members don’t have the cajones to take on the speaker they probably don’t have the cajones to do something corrupt or illegal; similarly, if the Speaker controls all the perks and/or doles out all the punishments, individual members won’t have power which can be corrupted, and so corruption might not be an option for them… or for outside influences to bother with trying to corrupt anybody but the Speaker… So the total amount of corruption is relatively small when viewed across all possible corrupt actors (the entire lege) but which would be rather stunning if concentrated in one person (the Speaker).