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Editor's Note: The Arrest of Gov. Blagojevich Calls for Immediate, Drastic, Ruthless Reform

Dana Heupel
NPR Illinois

OK, this isn’t funny anymore. 

No more jokes about dead people voting in Chicago. No more bumper stickers that proclaim, “Our governor’s more corrupt than your governor.” No more resigned acceptance — even twisted pride — when it comes to Illinois’ crooked politicians.

No, we’re not in competition with New Jersey. (No more New Jersey jokes, either.)

The arrest of Gov. Rod Blagojevich calls for immediate, drastic, ruthless reform. It’s not just time for a tune-up, or even a major overhaul. It’s time to tow the malfunctioning old jalopy to the junkyard and crush it until it’s unrecognizable and no part can be salvaged for use later on.

Overreacting a bit, you say? You heard the words that Robert Grant, head of the FBI’s Chicago office, used during the press conference announcing Blagojevich’s arrest:

“If it isn’t the most corrupt state in the United States, it’s certainly one hell of a competitor. Even the most cynical agents in our office were shocked.”

He wasn’t trying to be funny. He was deadly serious. And he was dead on.

Rod Blagojevich, you remember, was the Democratic reformer we elected — and later re-elected — in the wake of Republican Gov. George Ryan’s corrupt regime. Illinois has officially now become a laughingstock. And it still isn’t funny.

“Shocked” was the word Grant used, and he meant it in its intended sense. But I’ve also heard that word used numerous times — when discussion turns to the misdeeds of some Illinois politician — in the sense uttered by the corrupt Louis Renault in Casablanca.

“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here,” the police captain played by Claude Raines tells Humphrey Bogart, the proprietor of Rick’s Café Américain, when the Nazis order Renault to shutter the nightclub. Renault then turns away to collect his gambling winnings from a café employee.

We might have been shocked by Blagojevich’s brazen words, captured by secret recording devices. But were we really shocked that he was trading away his public trust for campaign contributions or personal gain? Or were we simply “shocked, shocked” like Renault?

It has been widely reported for years that Blagojevich began muscling 
contractors and political appointees for campaign contributions soon after he took office. Still, he was re-elected in 2006. You can’t argue that voters were uninformed; you can only figure that they’ve developed an immunity to shock when it comes to Illinois’ culture of political corruption.

And it’s not just Blagojevich and Ryan. The history is long. There’s no point in repeating it here. We all already know it, anyway. Yet we toss it off with some variation of the quotation by former German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck: “The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they will sleep at night.”

No more jokes about sausage. Those aren’t funny anymore, either.

“It’s always about money,” another well-known cynical retort goes. But that’s certainly true in this case. Although court documents filed in Blagojevich’s arrest delve some into his allegedly trying to leverage Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat to weasel a job for himself or his wife, the bulk of the charges involve his unquenchable thirst for campaign contributions.

In the last election, Blagojevich dipped into his ill-gotten campaign piggy bank for nearly $20 million to fuel his advertising firestorm that ultimately persuaded voters to re-elect him despite the well-known federal investigation into his fundraising tactics. 

The leaders of the four legislative caucuses also control vast political funds, a main reason why their opinions are really the only ones that count in the General Assembly. 

And the investigation that landed former Gov. George Ryan in prison began because his staff strong-armed workers at driver service centers to raise large sums of campaign money — which many accomplished through accepting bribes.

We have to guarantee that those transgressions never, ever happen again. The first step toward mending the state’s shabby reputation is to enact the toughest campaign finance and governmental ethics laws in the country.

Those could include such reforms as:

• Strict limits on campaign contributions from individuals, corporations or political action committees. Federal limits on individuals are $2,300 per candidate per election and up to $5,000 for PACs. Corporations and labor organizations are forbidden from contributing but can establish PACs.

• An absolute ban on campaign contributions from state contractors or employees. Federal contractors cannot donate directly to federal campaigns.

• Term limits for statewide elected officials. If two terms is enough for the president of the United States, it is enough for a governor.

• No more waivers of the state’s revolving door law, which prevents state government workers from lobbying their former agencies for a year after they leave their jobs.

• Independent ethics investigators. The state ethics committees now in place cannot initiate investigations without a formal complaint, and most of their work and findings are conducted in complete secrecy.

Of course, the only way to enact strong laws is through the politicians who will be bound by them. They will argue that corrupt individuals will find ways to skirt any law, no matter how tough. But in the end, that’s simply an argument to do nothing.

More important than strict laws, however — and probably the best way to polish away the tarnish on Illinois state government — is for Illinoisans to no longer tolerate corrupt politicians. We have to get it into our heads that it’s no longer fashionable — or funny — to be crooked.

Maybe Illinois voters will finally become so embarrassed by the worldwide condemnation of Blagojevich’s alleged actions that we’ll place character and integrity atop of our list of qualifications to serve in public office.

Maybe we in the world-weary news media will refrain from writing and broadcasting stories and columns about “da pols” and their adorable penchant for mischief and thievery.

And maybe even more of “da pols” themselves will finally recognize for certain that when they place their self-interests above the concerns of those who elected them, they will go to prison for a while and become pariahs for life. Perhaps we’ll even attract more candidates with ethical values and principles.

Now wouldn’t that be funny.

 

It’s not just time for a tune-up, or even a major overhaul. It’s time to tow the malfunctioning old jalopy to the junkyard and crush it until it’s unrecognizable and no part can be salvaged for use later on.

Dana Heupel can be reached at heupel.dana@uis.edu.

Illinois Issues, January 2009

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