Chris Hayes' Tournament of Corruption - Funny and Sad.
Friday night fun at the news desk.
He had 4 people, each representing one state.
Louisiana, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey.
The lady from Louisiana quoted Earl Long: "The people of Louisiana don't want good government, they want good entertainment."
Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida said that in the last 12 years, convictions of public officials have averaged one a WEEK. Also, the ethics committee has no teeth, and if a citizen reports wrongdoing and doesn't prove it by clear and convincing evidence, (which is a pretty high standard) he has to pay the accused official's attorney's fees.
Aside: I went to law school with the son of the one-time mayor of Tampa, so I would be afraid to ask him about the level of sleaze. The father was famous for having the local cops arrest Jim Morrison for indecent exposure during a concert.
Representing Illinois, Chris Hayes said 4 out of the last 7 governors had gone "to the slammer," and played audio of Rod Bloggy trying to sell Barack Obama's senate seat after he was elected president.
The guy who represented NJ said "We have a prime time TV show about NJ corruption--Boardwalk Empire and Nucky Thompson."
Chris said it was a tossup but he would award his vote to NJ on the basis of the TV show.
Too bad they couldn't include Texas. Bo Pilgrim was handing out ten thousand dollar checks to legislators on the floor of the state House and Senate chambers in Austin, and they had to tell him he couldn't do that.
He owned a string of chicken processing plants. I learned that from a Molly Ivins book. 
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