Citiwire.net

For Release Sunday, March 18, 2012
© 2012 Washington Post Writers Group

While hyper-partisanship and ugly derogation of opponents infect Congress and national politics, we needn’t despair. In fact, “The United States is really awash in quality leadership.”

That’s the case made by Bruce Katz, Brookings Institution vice president and founder director of its Metropolitan Policy Program.

“Everywhere you turn, at the city, at the metropolitan or state scale,” he contends, “you find either individual leaders, or more likely networks of leaders, who tend to put place over party and ideology.”

It’s true — facing real local problems, partisanship fades. As New York Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia famously remarked, “there is no Democrat or Republican way to pick up garbage.”

But it’s more than service delivery, Katz insisted in a recent interview. He sees local, metro, and many state leaders teaming up to address three core challenges in the globally competitive 21st century — shaping a stronger, entrepreneurial economy, creating urban quality that draws talented workers, and building citizens’ basic skills.

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For Release Sunday, March 18, 2012
© 2012 Washington Post Writers Group

For imprisoned governors, Illinois excels: last Thursday Rod Blagojevich, following in the footsteps of his predecessors George Ryan, Dan Walker and Otto Kerner, began his penitentiary time on serious corruption charges.

But now there’s more heartening news. A State Integrity Investigation, 18 months in the making, was released this Monday, covering all 50 states — easily the most thorough look at ethics laws and susceptibility to corruption ever focused on America’s state governments.

Teams of freelance journalists — at least one in each state — did the on-the-ground reporting. They didn’t just look for some glaring abuse. Rather, over months of investigation, they checked each state’s anti-corruption and transparency safeguards on 330 “corruption risk indicators,” ranging from accountability of governors, legislators and judges to lobbying disclosure.

What they found were open records laws riddled with exceptions. Scores of legislators — suddenly becoming lobbyists, lawmakers voting on measures that benefit from directly, and near-toothless disclosure laws.

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