damn-our reputation has hit the skids

some of our politicians were crooks.

I'm still not so sure about some of them, starting with Nathan Deal.

Alaska's politics are so corrupt, everyone has come to accept it as normal. I don't know how many more outrages we can accept.

A LOT more accurate. And, wow, we get a D+ and yet rank 32nd? How corrupt is this country anyway???

I'm glad to see they caught the redistricting on that and gave Alaska an F. The gerrymandering has already been through court once, the redistricting board played around with it some more, and our Supreme Court still rejected their plan, but it was too close to the election for them to go back a third time. The result is that the Republicans have a supermajority in the House, 30 to 10, and 13-7 advantage in the Senate. With many ALEC-based bills being proposed this year and our governor wanting to give the oil companies a $2 billion a year tax break, it's not looking good for us. If we can hold out to 2014 and a more fair redistricting, we might survive.

Inquiring minds wants to know.

all very upset. We have decided to go ahead with recall efforts, even though it's a time-consuming exercise and probably won't reach a final resolution until shortly before her term ends, especially with all the Republican obstacles that we'll face along the way. (Our lieutenant governor, who was the head of Mitt Romney's efforts in Alaska, is the one in charge of elections and deciding whether our reasons for recall are sufficient to hold a recall election.) The thought is, though, that enough damage will be done to her reputation, as people fan out to get signatures on a recall petition, that she won't stand much of a chance of re-election in 2014. We want to emphasize to the Republicans in the district, too, that she is untrustworthy and could backstab them just as easily as she did us. We're also going to keep up letter-writing efforts and anything we can do to keep attention on her. Our understanding is that she's somewhat "fragile" emotionally so there's even some possibility that she might quit under pressure, rather like someone else we can think of.

Her reasons for switching were so petty, really. She was miffed because the Democrats in the House wouldn't give her one of the few D seats on the finance committee, so when the Republicans offered it to her if she would join their party, she jumped at it. From what I understand from former reps who were at the meeting Thursday, she's kind of a spoiled little rich girl who doesn't work hard, likes to rack up the frequent flyer miles and stamps her feet when she doesn't get her way. We were told that the Republicans have little respect for her and are just using her to gain their supermajority so that they don't have to listen to any Democratic amendments or anything.

The fact is that District 19 in west Anchorage is one of the few districts in Alaska that went wholeheartedly for Obama, 52%, when he was at 40% statewide. This is clearly a Democratic-leaning district, even though the majority of registered voters are undeclared. If we had wanted a Republican representative, we would have voted for the other guy. Lindsey won this election 55 to 45, AS A DEMOCRAT. For her to switch parties even before she was sworn in (and after three terms as a Democrat) is almost fraudulent, in my opinion. We also have people following the money trails.

We have another meeting this afternoon to work on language for the recall petition, dividing up tasks and preparing press releases.

I can't believe they're ranked that high. Not surprised to see MI, VA, and GA at the bottom, too.

Darts at wall numbers?

who caucus with the Rethugs, the girl friend beater and the NYC crook from the Democrats who kept the Rethugs in control of the state Senate previously, and the long time majority leader (Rethug) in the state Senate who is in jail for corruption--the former state Comptroller (Democrat), serving time for corruption--the previous governor (Democrat) who resigned over a prostitute scandal. We have bipartisan corruption in NY. Other states would have to be horrible to beat us, I'm sure we are too far down the list.

This state is run by the Temple Square crowd. Corrupt to the core. Payoffs and bribes are a way of doing business here. Who did this survey,the Camber of Commerce? What a joke!!!

which states because of lack of transparency, etc. are at risk for corruption in the following categories:

Public Access to Information

Political Financing

Executive Accountability

Legislative Accountability

Judicial Accountability

State Budget Processes

State Civil Service Management

Procurement

Internal Auditing

Lobbying Disclosure

State Pension Fund Management

Ethics Enforcement AgenciesState Insurance Commissions

Redistricting