Which states have the highest rates of corruption convictions among politicians?
Executive summary
No single authoritative ranking of U.S. states by "corruption convictions among politicians" appears in the available reporting; federal datasets and compilations instead provide counts by federal district, lists of convicted officials, and periodic DOJ tallies (for example, TRAC reported 31 official corruption convictions in January 2025 and 28 in July 2025) [1] [2]. Historical analyses note that New York, California and Illinois have been among states with high numbers of federal public‑corruption convictions across multi‑decade windows, but those counts reflect prosecution patterns, not a definitive per‑capita “most corrupt” ranking [3].
1. How the data that people cite are actually compiled
Most publicly cited tallies of politician convictions come from two kinds of sources in the record: (a) DOJ case tallies and TRAC’s month‑by‑month analyses that report “official corruption convictions” nationally, which produce short‑term counts such as 31 convictions in January 2025 and 28 in July 2025 [1] [2]; and (b) databases and lists — like Wikipedia pages and the GovTrack misconduct database — that aggregate individual convictions and misconduct findings over long periods [4] [5]. Neither approach produces a single, standardized state‑by‑state rate adjusted for population, number of officeholders, or prosecutorial priorities [1] [5].
2. Which places show up repeatedly in long‑run counts
Longer historical summaries and encyclopedic lists identify New York, California and Illinois as frequent locations of federal public‑corruption convictions over multi‑decade stretches; for example, Illinois has been singled out repeatedly for endemic corruption and ranked third in federal convictions between 1976 and 2012 behind New York and California [3]. These citations reflect the number of federal convictions recorded in those states during particular historical windows rather than an unambiguous, current per‑capita corruption rate [3].
3. Why prosecutions do not equal underlying corruption levels
Prosecution tallies reflect enforcement choices, resources and the reach of federal prosecutors as much as they reflect wrongdoing. The Department of Justice and specialized offices (e.g., U.S. Attorney’s Offices such as SDNY) run high‑profile public‑integrity work that can concentrate convictions in certain districts; TRAC’s monthly counts show national fluctuations (e.g., 31 in January 2025 and 28 in July 2025) that mirror enforcement activity [1] [2]. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and other watchdogs also note policy and personnel shifts — such as changes to the DOJ Public Integrity Section — that influence how and where cases are brought [6].
4. What the specialized lists record — and their limits
Compilations like Wikipedia’s lists of federal politicians convicted of crimes and lists of state officials convicted of federal corruption offenses collect names and case details; GovTrack’s misconduct database extends back to 1789 with 504 instances listed and provides case‑level metadata [4] [5] [7]. These are valuable for tracing individual accountability but do not produce normalized state rankings: they omit state‑court convictions in many instances, exclude acquittals, and reflect editorial inclusion criteria that vary by list [4] [7].
5. Recent high‑profile convictions that shape perceptions
High‑profile federal convictions — such as the January 2025 sentencing of former Senator Robert Menendez to 11 years for bribery and related charges — shape public impressions and can make particular districts look more corrupt even when they represent discrete cases that attracted national attention [8] [9]. Such headline cases are heavily documented in DOJ and legal‑industry summaries and can drive coverage without answering the broader state‑level rate question [9] [10].
6. What a rigorous state comparison would require
A defensible state‑by‑state comparison needs consistent inclusion rules (federal vs. state convictions), a defined time window, per‑capita or per‑officeholder normalization, and controls for prosecutorial resources and jurisdictional reach — data that the current DOJ monthly tallies, Wikipedia lists and advocacy‑group reports do not assemble into a single normalized ranking [1] [4] [5]. Available sources do not mention a standardized per‑state corruption‑conviction rate meeting those criteria.
7. Bottom line for readers and researchers
If you want a short answer from existing reporting: historical federal conviction counts highlight New York, California and Illinois as frequent loci of convictions in multi‑decade reviews, but the available sources caution that these figures reflect enforcement patterns and list‑compilation methods rather than a definitive measure of which states have the “highest rates” of corrupt politicians [3] [5]. To produce an authoritative state ranking, researchers must assemble DOJ case‑level data, include state‑court outcomes, choose a time frame, normalize by population or number of officials, and explicitly account for enforcement intensity — steps not yet completed in the cited materials [1] [7].