Even in Illinois, where the twin specters of political corruption
and federal bribery convictions are as common as Lake Effect
snow, Milorad Blagojevich now stands out for his rather inelegant
— and seemingly inept — approach to chicanery. The governor,
arrested yesterday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on
fraud conspiracy and bribery charges, spent the past three years
beating back probes into allegations of patronage deal-making,
accepting checks from contractors and ties to an ally of
President-elect Barack Obama, convicted real estate developer
Tony Rezko. Yet he was apparently so indiscreet that he was
allegedly caught on tape asking for upfront campaign donations,
lucrative corporate board seats for his wife, even an
ambassadorship, from political aspirants in exchange for an
appointment to Obama’s soon-to-be vacated Senate seat.
“I can drive a hard bargain,” Blagojevich allegedly told one of
his advisers, according to an FBI transcript. “You don’t just
give [a Senate seat] away for nothing.”
Yet this is just the latest stumble in Blajo’s slow, spectacular
descent from grace since 2002, when he won the Illinois
governorship and ended a 28-year string of Republican control.
Once a rising star in national politics, Blagojevich has been
reduced to playing third fiddle to Obama and Chicago Mayor
Richard Daley, as his bickering, sparring and feuding with fellow
Democrats — including the speaker of the lower house and even
his own father-in-law — has neutralized his effectiveness in
office. Meanwhile, his spend-thriftiness and unwillingness to
tackle $50 billion in public pension deficits have aggravated the
long-term fiscal burden borne by taxpayers. So his political
ineptitude has been rewarded in kind: Just four percent gave him
a rating of “good” or better this past October, ranking him the
least-popular governor in America, according to polling outfit
Rasmussen Reports.
As Democrats such as Missouri Governor-elect Jay Nixon and Obama
celebrate their victories and champion their grandiloquent
promises, they should look at Blagojevich as a reminder that
electoral success is meaningless if not matched by effective
management of government, holding tight on spending and
addressing long-term problems facing state and federal budgets.
THE SON OF A CHICAGO STEELWORKER, Blagojevich worked his way
through college as a dishwasher for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline
System before becoming a Cook County prosecutor. After marrying
the daughter of a longtime Chicago alderman, Richard Mell,
Blagojevich parlayed his father-in-law’s political ties and a
squeaky-clean image as a populist reformer into stints in the
Illinois House of Representatives and the congressional seat once
held by the infamously corrupt Dan Rostenkowski, before placing
the governorship into Democratic control for the first time in
three decades.
But early on, Blagojevich spent more time ruffling feathers than
governing. A feud between Blagojevich and Mell emerged soon after
the governor took office, when he proclaimed his critical role in
Blagojevich’s success. It escalated in 2005 when state
environmental officials shut down a landfill run by one of Mell’s
relatives, then unsuccessfully proposed a law banning a
governor’s relatives from owning landfills altogether. Mell then
became one of the first of many who accused Blagojevich of
handing out jobs in exchange for campaign contributions.
Blajo’s relationships with his fellow statehouse Democrats were
even less cordial. Legislators were particularly annoyed with his
penchant for going behind their backs and attempting to use
executive orders to enact proposals they rejected. A rivalry with
longtime state House Speaker Michael Madigan escalated into legal
sparring by 2007, when the Blagojevich sued Madigan over his
refusal to caucus legislators for one of the numerous special
sessions he called that year in order to pass an $8 billion tax
increase. Longstanding battles with other statewide officeholders
— including Madigan’s daughter, Lisa, who is the attorney
general — became even more acrimonious as Blagojevich, under the
guise of fiscal responsibility, cut their budgets.
This past February, a state senate panel rejected Blagojevich’s
efforts to use emergency orders to expand one of his healthcare
initiatives. Meanwhile Blagojevich even found himself sparring
with Daley — himself tarnished by a string of corruption probes
and public failures — over funding for the city transit system.
Daley went so far as to call Blagojevich “cuckoo” after one
particular skirmish.
AS PROVEN RECENTLY BY Indiana Gov. Mitch
Daniels, a willingness to challenge fellow pols can be
effective if used to challenge an insular, spendthrift political
culture. Blagojevich also joins a list of Illinois governors,
including the legendary Otto Kerner (of Kerner Commission infamy)
and Blagojevich’s predecessor, George Ryan (now a resident of the
Federal Correctional Institute in Terre Haute, Ind.), caught
violating the public trust.
But Blagojevich has little to show for his graft and acrimonious
relations. A penchant for big spending proposals such as the
now-scuttled expansion of the state’s FamilyCare medical
insurance plan has led to a 16 percent increase in spending
between the 2003-04 and 2006-07 fiscal years. In order to keep
budgets in balance, Blagojevich has resorted to accounting tricks
and heavy borrowing — including $874 million in 2004 for
Medicaid spending — in order to keep budgets in balance. As a
result, the state’s general obligation and special obligation
debts barely budged during that period even as it saw steady
increases in tax revenue.
Blagojevich has been even less effective in addressing the
state’s gargantuan public pension deficits — the largest in the
nation — which now stand at $43 billion; declines in the stock
market could lead that deficit to increase by another $7 billion,
according to Lawrence Msall of the Civic Federation, a
Chicago-based government reform group. Save for a $10 billion
pension obligation borrowing in 2003, Blagojevich has attempted
to use pension payments for balancing his budgets. At the same
time, the state carried some $1.5 billion in unpaid Medicaid
bills between the 2005 and 2007 fiscal years, according to a
report released this past July by the state comptroller.
These problems loom large as the state faces a $2 billion budget
deficit — and the uncertainty of Blagojevich’s political future.
For his potential successor, Lt. Pat Quinn, and his fellow
Democrats soon to take office, a little less Blajo would go a
long way.
