A team of political scientists at the University of Illinois in Chicago, headed by Professor Dick Simpson, has studied crime statistics and has determined that in the period starting in 1976, Louisiana has had the most political corruption of any state, on a per capita basis. The study also finds that Chicago has the most corruption of any large city. Here is the 15-page report.

Most of the news about this study focuses on Chicago, but the reference to Louisiana is on the fourth page.

Louisiana has used the top-two system for state and local office starting in 1975, and has used it for Congress 1978-2006 and also again starting in 2012. Chicago has used non-partisan elections for Alderman starting in 1920, and has used non-partisan elections for the three citywide elected executive posts starting in 1999. “Top-two system” is defined as a system in which party labels appear on the ballot, but parties do not actually nominate candidates. There are different kinds of top-two systems. Fans of top-two systems sometimes argue that the Nebraska legislature is elected in a top-two system, but Nebraska legislative races do not have party labels on the ballot and most neutral commenters never list Nebraska in connection with top-two systems.

IndependentVoting, a nationwide organization headquartered in New York city, has been advocating for top-two systems for almost a decade. IndependentVoting also advocates for non-partisan elections. One wishes that IndependentVoting (whose leaders are quite influential in New York city mayoral politics, due to their control over the Independence Party’s nominations process) would acknowledge this study, and would explain why they seem to feel that Chicago is better governed than New York city. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

On February 20, the Oklahoma House Rules Committee passed HB 2134. The vote was 7-0 and the Committee did not amend the bill. The bill lowers the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party to exactly 5,000 signatures.

Two years ago, the same Committee also passed a similar bill (HB 1058), but first amended it to raise it to 22,500 signatures. Thus, it appears the Oklahoma House is more in favor of ballot access reform now than it was two years ago. Two years ago, the House passed the bill at 22,500, probably thinking the Senate would see that as a compromise between 5,000 and 5% of the last vote cast. But the Senate spurned the compromise and refused to pass any bill other than 5% of the last gubernatorial vote. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.

On February 18, the Kansas House passed HB 2130, which repeals the Kansas ban on out-of-state petitioners. The vote was 118-1. This bill exists because the Constitution Party won a ballot access lawsuit in 2011 against the out-of-state circulator ban.