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Louisiana (!) knocks us out of top disclosure spot

• Published June 25, 2009

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"Its politics … have a Third World quality, with its own peculiar election laws and a heritage of no-holds-barred conflict and demagoguery no other state can match: what other state has produced a Huey Long or an Edwin Edwards?" says the Almanac of American Politics.

But Louisiana, which has a famous "lazy tolerance of rule breaking," as the almanac says, and which operates off Napoleonic Code instead of English common law, is No. 1 in the Center for Public Integrity’s “States of Disclosure” rankings. Washington has been first in the survey since it started in 1999. The ragin' Cajun vaulted up from No. 44, and now we're No. 2.

The rankings are based on a 43-question survey that "measures public access to information on legislators’ employment, investments, personal finances, property holdings or other activities outside the legislature."

The center noted that 20 out of 50 states, including Idaho, get failing grades, or less than 60 on a 100-point scale. Oregon gets a "C."

"Too many states still get a failing grade when it comes to adequate transparency for their elected public officials," said Center Executive Director Bill Buzenberg in a press release. "The more information that remains hidden, the less likely the public will know about conflicts and undue influence."