With the start of the Republican National Convention this week, the presidential election makes the turn from the preliminaries to the main event. The conventions, debates and relentless campaign ads will dominate the political landscape until election day in November.

While the focus turns to electing a chief executive, the executive branch of government at the state level actually can have more direct impact on the lives of citizens. One of the 14 categories we examined in the State Integrity Investigation focused on executive accountability, in which reporters looked at the laws that keep watch on the actions of governors across all 50 states.

The State Integrity Investigation ranked New Jersey as the top state the executive accountability category, in part because of the laws there requiring disclosure of any conflicts of interest for the governor and the auditing procedures in place to review those disclosures. Governors are required to submit an asset disclosure statement, which is posted online for citizens to view within 24 hours. The statement is audited by the State Ethics Commission.

South Carolina brought up the rear in this category, with an 'F' grade. In South Carolina, the governor is required to file a "statement of economic interest'' before taking the oath of office; however, the governor isn't required by that statement to disclose any information about her assets or sources of income. South Carolina has poor financial disclosure laws for all state officials; proposals on the table now from both legislators and Gov. Nikki Haley take aim at that weakness and may be considered in the 2013 legislative session.

One area in which both New Jersey and South Carolina scored poorly -- along with most other states -- involves the ability of governors to set up non-profit organizations that can be used to reward political supporters or circumvent campaign finance laws. Neither state addresses that possibility through statute, and it is a gap in regulation among most other states as well. Tennessee, which scored third in this category, views this kind of organizations in the same category as political action committees and requires disclosure.

Early last month, lawmakers in Iowa completed work on a new open records statute. Senate File 430 creates the Iowa Public Information Board, a nine-member commission charged with enforcing the state’s open records and meetings laws.

For good government advocates in the Hawkeye State, the new legislation was cause for celebration — sort of.

Indeed, there were smiles all around as Gov. Terry Branstad signed the law on May 3 in the ornate Capitol Building, surrounded by lawmakers and journalists — many of whom spent six years on the effort. And the law is undoubtedly a victory of sorts for open government in the state, where enforcement was spotty at best, divided among several local and state entities. If a citizen’s request for information was denied, the only option was to sue — a time-consuming and costly course of action. Now, the Board can investigate complaints and bring them to court on citizens’ behalf.

It all sounds good — except for the fine print.

State integrity news for New Jersey, from the Times of Trenton:

The township's two Democratic assemblymen say they will introduce a bill requiring politicians to follow state campaign finance and pay-to-play laws when holding legal defense fundraisers.

The announcement comes as critics have raised questions about a fundraiser Mayor John Bencivengo will hold June 5. Bencivengo is fighting federal corruption charges after he was accused of accepting $12,400 in bribes from the school district's insurance broker.

Read the rest of the story at the Times of Trenton.

State integrity news for New Jersey, from the Newark Star-Ledger:

A State Police trooper pulls over a South Jersey assemblyman one day in February. The lawmaker tries to get out of the ticket, and later complains the trooper targeted him as payback because the Legislature voted to make public employees pay more for health and pension benefits.

The trooper says that after he refused to throw out the lawmaker’s ticket, his own union leaders pressured him to make it disappear as a favor to a "personal friend."

Read the rest of the story at the Newark Star-Ledger.

State integrity news for New Jersey, from the Newark Star-Ledger:

"In some cases, contractors may be evading the intent of pay-to-play restrictions and contribution limits by giving indirectly through these PACs," said Jeffrey Brindle, executive director of the state Election Law Enforcement Commission, which has proposed making it more difficult to form the committees.

While PACs have sprouted up in New Jersey from Newark to Belvidere, The Star-Ledger review found two of the state’s top Democrats — Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who is chairman of the Democratic State Committee, and state Sen. Bob Smith — both of Middlesex County, have ties to several of the higher-spending organizations.

Read the rest of the story at the Newark Star-Ledger.

State integrity news for New Jersey, from the Times of Trenton:

The Center for Public Integrity’s finding that New Jersey is one of the least corrupt of all 50 states is good news. The good news in the report covers only one aspect of corruption in New Jersey: law-breaking by government officials.

But there is another area of public corruption where New Jersey comes up short: ethical misconduct by public officials that violates time-honored standards of government integrity but breaks no laws. Following the rationale that “if it’s legal, it must be OK,” this behavior has a negative impact on the quality of government.

Read the rest of the story at the Times of Trenton.

Integrity news for New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania from SII partner WHYY:

After spending months looking into how state governments fare fighting public corruption through transparency and accountability, the State Integrity Investigation found that Delaware fared much worse that Tony Soprano and the Garden State.

Read more from WHYY - Philadelphia.

State Integrity news for New York and New Jersey from SII partner WNYC:

In a new report that grades every state by transparency and corruption, New York ranks 36th and New Jersey is ranked as the least-corrupt state in the nation. WNYC reporters Cindy Rodriguez and Bob Hennelly discuss the findings, the (somewhat flawed) methodology, and what's important when it comes to measuring corruption.

Listen to the discussion from WNYC - New York.

From Eric Walter at SII partner WHYY:

A haiku, inspired by reports coming today from the State Integrity Investigation:

Anyone surprised
by corruption in the state
is far too trusting

New Jersey should be excited that the state was found to have among the nation's toughest ethics and anti-corruption laws. But to rank the best in the nation for transparency and accountability, all it needed was a B+. No state could be called an overachiever, but New Jersey's upset has us feeling poetic.

Read more from WHYY - Philadelphia.

State integrity news for New Jersey from SII partner WNYC:

New Jersey has done the best job of any state in the nation in enacting anti-corruption laws designed to insure both transparency and public accountability, according to a study done by the Center for Public Integrity, Public Radio International and Global Integrity.

The State Integrity Investigation reviewed 330 "Corruption Risk Indicators" across 14 categories of state government including campaign finance, ethics enforcement, as well as how the executive, legislative and judicial branches measure up when it comes to public accountability and transparency.

Read more from WNYC - New York.