Keeping Up with the Scandals: Politics Illinois Style

Following the latest twists and turns in the ongoing saga of Roland Burris and Rod Blagojevich, whose recent appearance on Letterman is must see TV for every Illinoisan, one is constantly reminded of Illinois's long history of political corruption. As an old joke goes: A Chicago school teacher as a student how to spell "politics" and the child replied: P-A-Y-O-F-F.

Several recent articles have tracked some of the state's more infamous corruption scandals. This New York Times graphic timeline does a nice job of plotting out the state's more recent scandals, while this earlier playlist of corruption provided by the Chicago Tribune focuses on the Ryan era. This MSNBC article offers perhaps the best piece, skimming off several of the more glaring of the many public officials that have been convicted of wrongdoing. This article would be worth checking out if only for the photos the editors have selected to represent various pols. The shifty-eyed shot of former governor Dan Walker, for example can be seen in interesting contrast to the former governor's own self-assessment in his book The Maverick and the Machine, profiled in this review article.

Gubanatorial Wrongdoing

Another governor who has made a noteworthy contributions to the state's record of wrongdoing is Otto Kerner, a man who demonstrates that no matter how significant an individual's achievements, a felony conviction will be better remembered. Kerner served honorably in WWII, achieving the rank of Major General and earning several commendations. He reformed state adoption laws while a judge in Cook County. And as governor improved access to housing, mental health care, jobs and housing for all state residents. Ultimately he led the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Commission). In the final report, he eloquently defined a key problem facing the United States: ""our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal." (Recent commentary has brought this commission report back up for reconsideration and noted how far-seeing it was and how short-sighted the government was in failing to follow its recommendations.) All of these achievements would be wiped out shortly thereafter by his conviction on bribery, perjury, mail fraud, and tax evasion charges. Interestingly, as pointed out in this article, had Kerner survived, he might have been granted a new trial and his conviction been overturned because the argument used to convict him was found unconstitutional.

Some might argue that George Ryan's moratorium on the death penalty, which he discussed in this interview with The Nation, made prior to his own conviction on corruption charges, should overshadow the crimes that led to his downfall. Others would make quite the opposite case. As this Chicago Tribune article points out, that's a historical determination, and probably one that is yet to be made.

Not Just Governors

Governors have hardly had a lock on corruption in the state. In recent years, Dan Rostenkowski, the Democratic congressman from Chicago became infamous for laundering money through the Capitol Post Office and then receiving an 11th hour pardon from Bill Clinton. His experiences were described in the book Rostenkowski: The Pursuit of Power and the End of the Old Politics, reviewed by Robin Toner.

Rostenkowski, of course, was a product of the Chicago Democratic Machine, the last of the big city political machines. Machine politics grew out of the era of heavy immigration and internal migration that ballooned urban populations. By providing services to the otherwise unserved and keeping cities working, political machines filled an important niche, despite being rife with corruption, and Chicago's was among the most efficient. Machine politics worked in part because the people it served came from backgrounds that inclined them to accept, at least temporarily, a degree of corruption and arbitrary brutality as the norm. It began to break down as individuals within the system identified its inherent unfairness, a situation that came to a head in 1968.

Probably the most colorful crook in downstate history is Paul Powell, former Secretary of State. The long-time, license-plate king made a big splash when he died, leaving behind a hotel room full of shoe boxes, briefcases, and strongboxes stuffed with cash. A consummate shakedown artist and patronage specialist, Powell was quoted as saying: "There's only one thing worse than a defeated politician, and that's a broke one." (Nest Egg)

Trickle Down Corruption

The Chicago Sun-Times demonstrated just how far corruption trickled down during its Mirage Bar sting operation in 1978. Working with the Chicago police and posing as new bar owners and employees, journalists left a barful of code violations for city inspectors to notably not enforce as they took money and offered advice on how to better avoid meeting the city's building and accounting codes and regulations.