Florida may have eclipsed our fair state in population, but we've got those yahoos in Tallahassee beat—we've got the most corrupt state government in the country! This makes up for the time a real estate blog pretended D.C. residents were more stressed out than Manhattanites. Which was ridiculous, since you can just murder your enemies there, and we're forced to push up against them on the 6 train until they move back to Ohio.
According to Politico, the Empire State has out-corrupted states like Illinois, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, thanks to a recent spate of corruption-related arrests. So far this year, the Assembly Speaker and the State Senate majority leader have gotten their corruption covers blown and, as Politico points out, those are two of the "three men in the room" responsible for making most of the state's major decisions. And considering the third man, Governor Cuomo, disbanded a commission meant to investigate corruption once they started investigating him, well, feel free to let your imagination run wild.
And though it's unprecedented to have both the Senate majority leader and the (now former) Assembly Speaker on the chopping block, the state has a long history of corruption, with indictments smacking bigwigs like Joe Bruno (also a Senate majority leader), Alan Hevesi (ex-State Comptroller), and Pedro Espada (ex-State Senator). To name a few.
There are more indictments on the way—U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's got Albany shaking in its taxpayer-subsidized dress shoes with his dogged investigation into the government's corruption. Which is good news for us, because you know what else New York is #1 in? Taxes.
