Corrupt Data

A recent study showed North Dakota had the highest per capita corruption rate of public officials of any state in the country.
There have been 53 convictions from 1998 to 2007, according to the USA Today story. Combined with North Dakota’s low population, a high per capita calculation is inevitable.

Per capita rankings, of course, are inherently unfair. North Dakota’s population is small. As are the populations of Delaware (44 convictions), Montana (59), South Dakota (41), and Alaska (51), which joined North Dakota (53) near the top of list, along with larger states like Pennsylvania (555), Ohio (527), and Florida (824).

Obviously, ranking states by numbers of convictions alone puts North Dakota much further down the list, but again: smaller population, smaller number of public officials, smaller number of corruption cases.

According to the New York Times, a survey of reporters put North Dakota in a three-way tie for the least corrupt state (South Dakota and Colorado were the other two). So perception and statistics are two very different things.

Outrage, of course, followed the USA Today story. But why?

Is North Dakota seen in a worse light now than before the story? Possibly. Though from conversations I’ve had with people who live in other states, most people don’t view North Dakota at all (one person memorably asked me if North Dakota was part of Saskatchewan or Manitoba).

Having a discussion about North Dakota—even if it’s about our seemingly high rate of convicting officials for corruption—isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Considering that most of the 53 convictions came from only a few cases (and no state legislator or executive has been in legal trouble in many years), we don’t have much to worry about. Those are good statistics we can be proud of.

And, while North Dakota’s laws make it easy to avoid trouble when it comes to political campaigns (since reporting laws are lax compared to other states), it means we’re still rooting out corruption where it does exist and spending our resources to fight it.

Not a bad image for our state. Rather than being first in corruption, we can consider ourselves first in cleaning up what little corruption exists.
And if none of that cheers you, just remember: When people do think about North Dakota, they’re usually thinking of one of our colleges, Lewis and Clark, or blizzards.

The Flickertail Statistics

The Animal Legal Defense Fund (aldf.org) ranks North Dakota as one of the five worst states when it comes to protecting animals through legislation.
North Dakota is America’s No. 10 most livable state, according to CQ Press’ 2008 state rankings report. Another CQ Press report on crime pegged North Dakota as the No. 3 safest state in the country.

We went from the No. 19 fattest state to the No. 21, according to Calorie Lab’s rankings (calorielab.com).
Governing.com has a variety of interesting rankings for North Dakota: population (No. 48), total state government spending (No. 49), spending per capita (No. 15), and average per capita income (No. 35). They gave North Dakota’s state government an overall grade of B-minus.

And of course, Wikipedia. We have the No. 47 lowest population density, the No. 19 largest state in terms of land, the lowest percentage of non-religious people of any state, and the highest number of churches per-capita.

We’re No. 24 in terms of value of agricultural revenue and No. 21 highest in the nation for total state taxes. The Fargo-Grand Forks and Bismarck-Minot media markets are No. 119 and No. 158 largest in the country, respectively.

Finally, a good bit of news as the cold, dark winter starts to blow snow in our faces: The Mental Health America and Thomson Healthcare study about each state’s mental health put North Dakota as ninth best.

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