Monday, July 13, 2009

National Journal Online - The Six Most Dysfunctional State Governments

National Journal Online - The Six Most Dysfunctional State Governments

Fortunately, Wisconsin isn't on this list (yet).

12 comments:

  1. I guess I can be proud to say that my great state of New York is number 1 on the list. Although, I doubt it is anything to brag about. I was born in New York before moving to the great suburbian state of New Jersey, which fortunately didn't make the list, since our own sex scandal is old news, while Ensign and Sanford are making headlines, allowing for my state to look good, for now. However, this summer I am residing in the great state of New York. Yet, Manhattan is somewhat uneffected and seemingly isolated from all of the dramatic happenings upstate. It almost seems like complete children's play up there. I used to go to sleepaway camp right by Albany, I think the Senator's need a week in a cabin to get all of their anger out, then finally get back to work (which means actually passing legislation and doing what they were elected to do, I think many of them forgot that definition, so I'm just clarifying).

    The common trend in all of the poor leadership striking the governorship nationwide is that we the people elected them. We thought that these individuals would put the Criminality and Statewide Challenges to rest. Make the numbers lower and therefore benefit as a state. But they have not. 2010 elections are going to be very intersting. The governorship is going to be a highly scrutinized position and background checks (and email records) are going to be more rigorous then ever before. It will be very intersting to see how everything plays out.

    Gena W.

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  2. I suppose this article gives us a different perspective on state politics. It shows that although there are many problems with Wisconsin politics, it could be worse. In an earlier post, we mentioned many problems with the state of Wisconsin. I think this helps us realize that aside from a bad economy, we could have serious scandal in office (like many other states have). Also, though our economy is bad, an unemployment rate of 8.9% isn't as bad as some of these states that are in the 12% range. Michigan's unemployment rate is over 14%!

    - Luke D

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  3. Wisconsin, is not nearly in the state of disrepair as these states, and based on the criterion used to evaluate dysfunctionality in this article, it probably would be tough for Wisconsin to make the list (thankfully.) because it is not going to have the media frenzy that can exist in other states. We do see examples of almost all of the problems that are discussed in the article, with the exception of mistresses in South America, or attempts to sell senate seats, but the severity of the problems seems to be somewhat limited. It seems as though Wisconsin, and in particular Madison, has been at least somewhat insulated from the effects of the economic downturn thus far, but unemployment has been rising and who knows what the future has in store.

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  4. I cannot believe Illinois only got a 6 on the criminality portion. WIth 4 out of its last eight governors going to prison on corruption charges (yes I am counting Blago), and all of this information that is now coming out about the University of Illinois' admissions department they should have at least been an 8 or 9 on the criminality scale. Alaska got a 6, and the only real criminal charges brought upon any major politician have been against former Senator Ted Stevens. Sure Sarah Palin has had ethics complaints but they have all been of relatively minor importance. Nevada has a 7 in criminality when not one person in government has been convicted of anything.

    Blago was trying to sell a senate seat, and 3 out of the last 7 before him got actually convicted of corruption charges. The University of Illinois, while not technically part of government, has been alleged to let students into its law school based on prominent family status. It has to be one of the most corrupt states in the union, and I cannot believe the ranking does not reflect this.

    Jake V

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  5. This comment is for both this article and the above piece. The two make for an interesting comparison. The WPRI paints an incredibly bleak picture of Wisconsin's job market and financial future. However, the article here shows six states where things are much, much worse than they are in Wisconsin.

    A $21.6 billion dollar budget deficit with a Republican governor and Democratic supermajority in the legislature? Three (possibly four) out of eight governors in the slammer on criminal charges? A superstar governor's resignation? Wisconsin's situation is far removed from problems as big as these. Yes, we do have a fiscal deficit, jobs are on the decline, and on the whole things are fairly bleak financially. Right now, that's the place our country is at. Every state is dealing with it, and I tend to agree with Doyle's spokesperson Sensenbrenner in accusing the WPRI of cherry-picking statistics. I see a lot of doom-and-gloom in their article, and not a lot of constructive answers for the problems now faced by Wisconsin. Things are obviously bad right now, and time can be spent analyzing just exactly how bad they are compared to the rest of the country, or we can spend time trying to dig ourselves out of this mess.

    -Eric Maloney

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  6. It is comforting to know that Wisconsin did not make the list, and that our state still has a ways to go before making such a list. However, rankings such as these tend to be difficult to analyze. The facts, such as unemployment rate, are objective, while the leadership problems are subjective, especially when considering every person that has extramarital affairs automatically received a “10” for “leadership problems.” It is important to consider state comparisons, but for a more in depth evaluation, I would do more specific research beyond this article.-Sarah K.

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  7. Well it's good to know that even if Wisconsin isn't doing so hot, we're not doing that horribly. It's good for people to know that although Wisconsin is experiencing some hard times economically, at least we're not having government leaders with extramarital affairs and love scandals. Everybody always wants to bring our Governor down but at least he's focused on the budget and the state and not on his next trip to South America. I agree with Jake V when he addresses the criminal ranking in the article, it's pretty inconsistent. They're harsh on some leaders, and not harsh enough on others. It's important after reading these kinds of articles that we research the information ourselves.

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  8. Wisconsin does look better in comparison to these states and their extramarital affairs, drugs and rock and roll. This type of research is important and helpful (taken with a grain of salt of course), but wow, how many top tier legislators have been doing illegal things is beyond me!
    I am glad that Doyle chooses his wife over Visions, and I am also glad to know that Wiisconsin is not star struck with anoying media blazing at some tv perosnality. GO DOYLE, you old extra regular guy you!
    America's problems are heightened with this type of research, and gives a much clearer picture as to how much turmoil is present nationally.

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  9. After reading the WPRI article, this one made me feel a little bit better about Wisconsin's economy compared to others. However, these rankings all seem to be fairly subjective depending on the leadership roles and any drama sounding them. Yes, leadership of course is important and poor leadership can hurt a state. On the other hand, it does not have anything to do with underlying state economy problems. What I mean is that if a governor or other leader is found to be corrupt they resign or are replaced by another politician waiting in line for the seat. Soon any problem caused by the corruption is gone, problem solved. But when there are underlying job creation and unemployment problems that we have, having a different leader does not affect that. So even though we are not in this article as being the worst do we really have much to boast about?

    So Wisconsin does not have any drama and news about our politicians' lives are not headlines in our newspapers; but much worse is the fact that our essential infrastructure of our state is what receives all the attention. I think this article was a bit superficial and based off of newsworthy stories. If we had leadership drama along with our infrastructure problems and high unemployment our state would be horribly worse off. The other states at least have tourism and well known past business climates, which Wisconsin does not necessarily have. Let's all hope Doyle does not vacation in South America; otherwise we could be at the top of this list.

    -Lauren C

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  10. I think William raises a good point about Wisconsin not being in the spotlight. I think many of these states made the list because their problems are more attractive from a media perspective. It’s not in the interest of the national news networks to cover a budget shortfall when there are Governors jetting of to South America for affairs. While these rankings did take into account several factors to determine just how dysfunctional a state is, I believe they focus too much on media hyped stories.

    I agree with Elle that it’s good that our Governor isn’t having an affair (if only so that Wisconsin isn’t bombarded with the same media attention). However, I don’t think that it necessarily alleviates the more severe problems that Wisconsin is faced with. Bill Clinton may have been fooling around but he still managed to keep the country running smoothly. We may not be on this list because we don’t have any glamorous scandals, but I still think that we aren’t too far from dysfunctional.


    -Paul L.

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  11. This article was very eye-opening as to what's going on around the country. Yes, as an earlier post pointed out, everyone is in an economic bind since the whole country is in an economic bind, but I was unaware of some of the infrastructure problems some states were facing. For example, I would never have guessed that New York would get the #1 spot, but I expected the other 5 states to be on there due to the media attention their scandals have received. I agree with many of the earlier posts in that this article seemed to rank states, for the most part, by focusing too much on the media stories. I think more attention should have been paid to the actually internal problems states are facing...not who's been sleeping around with who. Overall, it's sad that the government seems to be more and more are scandal-ridden and now we have to seriously question the integrity of politicians. Although Wisconsin may be facing issues internally, at least there can be a somewhat of a sense of trust in our politicians (hopefully!)

    -Leslie W.

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  12. The state of Wisconsin may not have made the list of dysfunctional state governments, but one thing I have noticed working with legislators is the strange way things are done in government. It seems that efficiency is definitely not number one on the list of importance and much time and resources are wasted in the proposal of bills and the implementation laws and programs. While the state budget was being finalized there were items included in it that seemed very out of place, and many times the two party system caused legislators to simply follow their party despite their opinion. Although this is only my opinion, I believe that the first step to correct dysfunctional government is to eliminate strict partisan politics and work together to achieve goals that would help restore faith in government.

    -Kris G

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