By Madeline Hancock
By Madeline Hancock

The Oklahoma state government is the 11th most corrupt in the union, according to yet another list. Researchers at Indiana University and the University of Hong Kong studied 25,000 convictions of public officials in the U.S. and blah, blah, blah.

So, we’ve made another list. The news here is that we aren’t the No. 1 most corrupt state in the nation. That is a surprise, as it seems like we always have some corruption cooking on a back burner somewhere.

I guess things have changed since the ’80s, when our state belched up one of the worst scandals in the nation and more than 200 people across 60 counties (out of 77, that is almost the entire state) were convicted. Yes, so much has changed since 2008 after a handful of democrats and a republican (Rep. Randy Terrill) were accused and later convicted of bribery. Change indeed; with nuggets of gold like Senate Bill 1456, the “solar surcharge bill,” these days we just call it legislation instead of corruption.

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