The media often covers the trials and incarcerations of New Jersey’s corrupt politicians and, indeed, the state has a lot of officials doing hard time, standing trial or awaiting sentencing. There are so many of them that folks in other states think New Jersey is the center of political corruption. Not true. New Jersey’s politicians are no more corrupt than other politicians throughout the world and history. What gives the state a bad name is that we investigate and prosecute more politicians that the other states do. These other states suffer from corrupt politicians just as much as New Jersey does; the difference is that New Jersey does something about it.
Instead of snickering at New Jersey, the voters in these other states should demand that their prosecutors follow New Jersey’s example and investigate more of their politicians. It is my belief that if that happens, New Jersey will become ‘average’ in terms of its number of jailed politicians.
