What's the most politically corrupt state in the country?
When it comes to politicians getting busted for crooked deeds, three Deep South states and Kentucky have Chicago beat.
Lee Sigelman and John Sideshave created a graph plotting the "total number of publiccorruption convictions from 1997 to 2006 per 100,000 residents." Here's the graph:
As Matthew Yglesias notes:
Lee Sigelman and John Sideshave created a graph plotting the "total number of publiccorruption convictions from 1997 to 2006 per 100,000 residents." Here's the graph:
As Matthew Yglesias notes:As we can see here clearly, Illinois, though more corrupt than average,isn't close to the top. Louisiana is a lot more corrupt thanMississippi which is a lot more corrupt than Kentucky which issubstantially more corrupt than Alabama. After Alabama things getcloser packed.
We should also point out that the entire South doesn't fare poorly: Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina acquit themselves well -- at least in terms of their politicians not getting caught.
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Chris Kromm
Chris Kromm is executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies and publisher of the Institute's online magazine, Facing South.