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Political Hay
Gone to Sod
It was once known as the Land of Lincoln. Today Illinois is the Land of Corruption, a political cesspool that would put Tammany Hall to shame.
These days, disgraced former Illinois governor Milorad Blagojevich spends more time on trial trying to dodge federal prison time for his laundry list of alleged pay-for-play misdeeds — including attempting to sell President Barack Obama’s old U.S. Senate and — and defending his name on Celebrity Apprentice than watching his successor, Pat Quinn, struggle to keep the governorship in Democratic hands against little-known Republican state senator Bill Brady.
But even if he lands in prison, Blago Helmet Hair may be a lot happier with his predicament than either Quinn or Brady will be with theirs. No matter what happens in November, the winner will be presiding over a state government that now makes notoriously dysfunctional statehouses in California and New York look exemplary by comparison.
The state currently owes $5 billion in back payments to school districts, childcare centers, and other creditors, essentially falling into the kind of default status associated with banana republics. It’s getting worse. After months of squabbling and backbiting, the state legislature passed a budget without balancing a $12 billion deficit — then adjourned the session altogether. Declares Quinn, who is now acting unilaterally to balance the budget: “[Legislators] didn’t want to…put their fingerprints on any reductions or cuts whatsoever.”
The state’s long-term fiscal profile is even worse. Taxpayers are on the hook for the teachers’ pension fund’s deficit of least $35 billion (and as much as $70 billion, according to the Manhattan Institute), the worst in the nation, as well as another $19 billion deficit for other state employee pensions. This doesn’t include the $40 billion in unfunded retiree healthcare benefits owed to civil servants. Illinois’ total public employee indebtedness of $94 billion is second only to California — despite having just a third of the Golden State’s population.
Meanwhile the Land of Lincoln’s political culture — once renowned for spectacular corruption and amazing efficiency — has merely become corrupt and incompetent. Blagojevich’s likely conviction will mark the second consecutive conviction of an Illinois governor in four years (Blago’s Republican predecessor, George Ryan, remains a resident of the Federal penitentiary across the state line in Terre Haute, Ind.). Quinn himself is taking grief for his oversight of the state’s secret MGT (Meritorious Good Time Credit) Push program, which released 1,718 violent convicts as early as six months before their time was served before it was ended earlier this year. The Democratic nominee for Obama’s old Senate seat, State Treasurer Alex Giannoulias, is swamped by his ties to Broadway Bank, which was seized from his family’s control this past April after falling into insolvency. His opponent, Congressman Mark Kirk, has been caught puffing up his military credentials and his work at a nursery school.
All this comes as the Illinois economy remains even more mired in the current recession than the rest of the nation. Unemployment remains in the double-digits with 10.4 percent of residents still out of work. Despite the success of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (the Younger) in improving the city’s school system, Illinois is one of the epicenters of the nation’s dropout crisis; it will account for 3.5 percent of the nation’s 1.3 million dropouts this year. The statehouse isn’t all that interested in doing much on either front: A school voucher program championed by a onetime school choice opponent, controversial state Senator James Meeks, was defeated earlier this year.
Certainly Illinois’ peculiar history — especially the competition and accommodation between Democrat city bosses in Chicago and their Republican counterparts in the state’s central and southern regions — accounts for some of the state’s political, educational, economic and fiscal crises. But the decades of thoughtless spending — fueled by decades of deal making between public employee unions and state officials — is as much a problem in Georgia and Iowa as it is in the Prairie State. For taxpayers and politicians alike, Illinois’ plight serves as a reminder that the best-managed governments eschew overspending, forsake deal-making with civil servant unions, and understand the critical role of government in public safety and education.
GOOD, CLEAN GOVERNMENT HAS never been a slogan by which Illini have lived. Joel Aldrich Matteson, a Prairie State governor from 1853-1857, was caught attempting to cash $224,182 in counterfeit railroad scrip he claimed to have found in a shoebox. Another governor, Lennington Small, was tried (and acquitted) of embezzling $1 million in state funds (four of the jurors in his trial received state government jobs after the acquittal). Then there’s Chicago, whose big-city corruption even made the denizens of New York City’s notorious Tammany Hall blush. Among the Second City’s ne’er-do-wells: The Gray Wolves on the Chicago city council — who once sold a city gas contract to a shell company they created, then forced an existing provider to buy from it — and infamous mayor William “Big Bill” Thompson (a vassal of Al Capone and his Chicago Outfit).
Most of the graft and scandal was tolerable because state and local governments — especially Chicago under the legendary Richard Daley — were also well run. The state’s location in the middle of the country, next to the Great Lakes and other important tributaries, also blessed it with the kind of strong economic growth that allows taxpayers to forgive such sins. By the 1970s, Illinois could claim such corporate giants as Motorola, McDonald’s and Sears, Roebuck and Co., as well as the status as the nation’s transportation hub thanks to always-congested O’Hare International Airport.
But in the following decades, corruption has become more prominent in Illinois than Lincoln’s tomb or the Golden Arches. One thousand politicians and businessmen have been convicted of public corruption since 1970, according to a 2008 report by University of Illinois at Chicago scholars Thomas J. Gradel, Dick Simpson and Andris Zimelis. This includes 17 Cook County judges caught in the federal “Operation Greylord” case, and former governor Ryan — who was convicted in 2006 for taking bribes in exchange for awarding trucking licenses while serving as secretary of state.
In the past couple of years, the cesspool of moral and ethical turpitude in Springfield (and the rest of the state) has only gotten worse. The University of Illinois system has been mired in allegations that its officials admitted academically unqualified children of politically connected players into its schools. Then-university chancellor Richard Herman, for example, allegedly forced its law school to admit the child of one of Blagojevich’s cronies. Illinois Democrats found themselves in an especially embarrassing situation this past February when it was revealed that its nominee for lieutenant governor, Scott Lee Cohen, had been accused of allegedly holding a knife to the neck of an ex-girlfriend. (The party hurriedly moved Cohen aside for the daughter of former U.S. Senator Paul Simon.)
For Quinn, who has proclaimed himself a squeaky clean politico (the same way Blago did during his ascent up the political ladder), the early release scandal has been quite painful. He not only found himself admitting that at least 56 ex-cons were re-arrested after their early release — he ended up signing into law a bill ending the practice that was co-authored by Brady, his gubernatorial rival.
Political rivalries among statehouse politicians have been as much a fixture of the political culture as corruption. Blagojevich’s tenure was marked by his sparring matches with legislators such as the state house speaker, Michael Madigan, and fellow executive branch officeholders such as Quinn (then lieutenant governor) and speaker Madigan’s daughter, the attorney general. In 2007, 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. Quinn himself has sparred with the state comptroller, Dan Hynes, over the budget; the brawling spilled over into the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
The worst forms of mismanagement have been happening for decades, as state officials and civil servant unions have struck deals that have enriched both sides. Within the past decade alone, the state’s police, fire and teachers unions have won numerous perks — including giving teachers service credit for two years of unused sick and paid time off upon retirement and allowing state employees to retire at age 55 with annuity payments equal to 80 percent of final annual salary. For the taxpayers, it has been devastating; the total pension deficit has nearly tripled since 2005, as the deals (along with moves by state officials to not fully fund the benefits and pension investment losses) have come to roost.
Until recently, the state’s solution for these problems has been to finance spending with debt. In 2003, Blagojevich successfully floated $10 billion in bonds in hopes of paying down the teachers’ pension deficit; it didn’t work. Earlier this year, his successor, Quinn, proposed to float a $3.5 billion offering to cover pension payments for the fiscal year (it didn’t fly this time around). Since then, Quinn has actually proposed something rare for Illinois: Cutting pension payments for teachers and other public employees. In April, he signed a measure that increased the age at which teachers can gain full benefits from 62 to 67. This hasn’t exactly endeared him to either the state’s National Education Association affiliate (which held its nose and endorsed him) or its American Federation of Teachers’ unit.
The move has given Quinn something of a profile in courage amid a rather weak group of statehouse leaders (even if it hasn’t helped him against Brady in the polls). Whoever wins the election will have to take even bolder action in order to keep the state from going completely bust — and Lincoln from turning over in his grave.
About the Author
RiShawn Biddle the editor of Dropout Nation , is co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era. He can be followed at Twitter.com/dropoutnation.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (49) | Leave a comment
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Deborah D | 7.23.10 @ 7:16AM
Just look at the environment our illustrious president and his Chicago cronies: Emanuel, Axelrod and Jarrett come from. Any wonder why they're spending like corrupt Illinois politicians? Um...they are corrupt Illinois politicians.
Quartermaster| 7.23.10 @ 7:25PM
"...and Lincoln from turning over in his grave."
Very funny! Lincoln was a corrupt corporate Lawyer who was in the pockets of the Railroads and land interests. He used the Presidency to reward those fellows for taking good care of him in the years before he finally won the presidency and destroyed the Republic.
The corruption began long ago, as Mr. Biddle has pointed out, and Lincoln was a part of it as well.
Tom| 7.24.10 @ 3:00PM
Well said, Quartermaster. It never ceases to amaze me that some prominent conservatives who ought to know better, persist in idolizing Mr. Lincoln. I reckon you've read The Real Lincoln, by DiLorenzo? Lincoln was a corrupt big-business, big-government "liberal" who would have been right at home with Obama, Blago, et al. And yes, he did destroy the republic, or attempt to, by stripping the gears from states rights. States rights were supposed to be one of the critical checks and balances, lest we forget. And as to secession, if we are not governed by the principle of "consent of the governed," then ... what?
Regards,
Tom
Surfdumb| 7.25.10 @ 5:48PM
"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a New Government....it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"When once a republic is corrupted there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil."
–- Thomas Jefferson on the necessity of the impeachmentprovisions to our Constitution
Even honest Abe knew : "We the People are the rightful masters of both congress and the courts -- not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
-- Abraham Lincoln
Impeach Obama, Pelosi, Reid for treason, or at least high crimes and misdemeanors and repeal all they have done.
vb| 7.24.10 @ 8:46AM
One minor correction: Our illustrious president isn't really from Chicago. He chose it as a launching place. You have to wonder why.
DocSmith| 7.24.10 @ 9:43AM
I thought he was from Kenya.
bruce b| 7.26.10 @ 5:35PM
illionois needs to add a seperate wing to the state prison just to to hold the ex governors who have bee convicted of crimes while in office.
JAWilson| 7.23.10 @ 7:49AM
It's a one party town in Chicago and that is an enduring problem. Even then, there's a pol named Madigan who spawned our AG who is worth some scrutiny for financial shenanigans and political obstructivism.
saleboter| 7.23.10 @ 8:43AM
Illinois is a good state to be from.
Petronius| 7.23.10 @ 9:52AM
Some years back there was a movement of all the Illinois counties south of I 70 to secede from Chicago
and file for territory status. Had they drawn the line south of Route 15 leaving East St. Louis behind, they might have succeeded and seceded. It would then become the only state without any large cities to ulcerate it's polity. I hope they try again.
Robert Huff| 7.23.10 @ 12:39PM
We live south of I-70. What a blessing it would be if we could rid ourselves of " King Richard Daley, the Monarch of Chicago & Crook County."
Tish | 7.23.10 @ 10:02AM
My late father often remarked that Chicago would have long held the title of the nation's most corrupt city in the nation's most corrupt state, except that the French took over New Orleans first.
L. Banks| 7.23.10 @ 10:10AM
Thank you for pointing corruption is not a new thing for Illinois. My family settled in Illinois in the 1800's and my relatives still live in the state. Growing up there I remember as a young child working on a campaign with my parents to defeat a democratic machine. This made a big impression on me.
I want to thank you too for noting the history of corruption in the state of Illinois. This is an art that has been perfected in this state since the turn of the century this state was rich and it was a center for grain, for cattle, for railroads (being the hub between the east and west) and for so many other items. This attracted the crooks and politicians (oh, maybe I repeated myself) who created vast networks to bilk the public out of their hard earned money or to entrap them in this scenario.
I want to also point out that Chicago and Illinois have been the hub of the Socialists and Communists Parties and have spawned many a leader including Eugene V. Debs who ran for President in 1900 and almost every year until 1920 even running from his prison cell since he was imprisoned for espionage. He was a union man too and unions and union activity were prominient in Illinois. You see socialists believe in the collective instead of the individual so unions are their way of molding the collective to work for them. (There's always an angle.) Obama's mentor Frank Marshall Davis was also a Communist and worked in Chicago as a journalist and poet. There were 601 pages on him by the FBI covering 19 years of his activity. In 1944 he became a sponsor in the Communist Party's American Youth for Democracy. Later he moved to Hawaii and was a friend of Obama's family and became his mentor.
The Socialist and Communist parties have continued to be strong in Illinois and Obama became closely aligned with them. There was Alice Parker, the Illinois Senator, who took Obama under her wing and whom he replaced in the Illinois Senate. She opened his political career at the home of Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn and was an Executive Board Member of the Communist Party USA. His other Chicago cohorts Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod are also connected to these organizations. Valerie's father-in-law was the head of the Communist Party in Illinois and Axelrod worked on a Communist newpaper in Illinois. So you see Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, has been the spawning ground for leaders linked to corruption, politics, socialism and communism for years. The adage "As ye sow so shall ye reap" seems to be coming true for Illinois.
Ed| 7.23.10 @ 10:54AM
Ohio and Indiana have their share of problems, but they have avoided this massive scale of corruption (so far). Both states are decentralized, so their big cities do not dominate everything. Also, both states are "purple" so if one party screws things up, the other is ready to jump in.
It may be time to split Illinois up into a northern half and a southern half. Where that border would be is anyone's guess.
EMB| 7.23.10 @ 12:22PM
Ed: I-80! Or I-74. Those are my picks. :-)
Personally, I don't know if anyone can fix Illinois' problem. There's just so much and if Quinn stays in office, the unions will get back whatever they lost after the election. That's probably why they seemed to hold their noses to endorse Quinn. I know something's coming down the pike.
We need someone who is not afraid of the Unions or Madigan. I'm for Bill Brady because I don't think Governor Quinn will have it in him to make the right decisions for Illinois and give the unions all they want - after the election.
EMB| 7.23.10 @ 12:24PM
Correction in last sentence. I don't think Governor Quinn will have it in him to make the right decisions for Illinois. He will eventually give the unions back all they want and more - after the election!
Chicagoray | 7.23.10 @ 8:40PM
I'm 20 miles safe and armed to the North and A nuke dropped on City hall perhaps with about a 9 mile explosion radius angling south and west would do the job nicely. That should get the worst ghettos and ALL the illegals who've invaded the west side.
Daley's sanctuary. This man should be held responsible for every crime and homicide caused by an illegal since it's inception by whomever takes the reigns when his reign ends God let it be next year.
John II| 7.24.10 @ 3:03PM
You may get your scenario in about a decade or so, given Professor Obama's feckless foreign policy, loosey-goosey border security, and incompetent intelligence oversight.
Strange how the lefty pols from the blue states (that is, from the portions of the blue states that paint those states blue) are the most insouciant about the Islamic terror threat.
When Iran finally has nuclear weapons, thanks in great part to the fatuous American Left, and starts passing out the goodies to her terror clients--what American cities are most likely to be hit: liberal New York City or conservative Buffalo? Chicago or Springfield? San Francisco or Bakersfield? Seattle or Tacoma?
That ol' liberal death wish is very insistent.
R Huff| 7.23.10 @ 1:00PM
You say " divide up Illinois?" Yes indeed, anything south of Chicago & Crook County!! What a great state Illinois could be if we could rid ourselves of the Chicago corruption.
P.Smith| 7.23.10 @ 11:55AM
During the 2008 election one of my main arguments against Obama was this:
Just the fact that Obama was/is involved in the Chicago/Illinois political machine is reason enough not to elect him. Even if there was nothing criminally tied to him, just the fact that he is part of a system that is so completely corrupt by its very nature makes him corrupt. An example would be an bookkeeper or gardener that works for an organized crime syndicate. It would be different if there was some evidence that he attempted to reform the system, but there is no evidence that he did anything like that, but that in fact he was a beneficiary of criminal behavior.
Rebecca Silver | 7.23.10 @ 11:56AM
Do you know how Brady plans to close the budget deficit??? BY LOWERING MINIMUM WAGE!! Brady is an uber-conservative whose plans for Illinois are to revert the state to different times. Not only before women had the rights they have today, but to when minimum wage was lower than it is now. He is all wrong for us.
Cpm| 7.23.10 @ 6:52PM
See, Quinn is already running ads using the old , tired scare tactics that democrats always use. You know, Brady will make all women subserviant to their male slave masters, and he will solve the the budget deficit by rolling back the minimum wage, putting poverty-stricken families at risk. This is all Rebecca's got.
tamara| 7.27.10 @ 7:31PM
I assure you that any woman who values legal abortions, emergency contraception, equal pay for equal work, and other related rights/privileges will view Brady's track record and viewpoints unacceptable. The Dem ads lay it all out, it has nothing to do with "male masters" as you claim and everything to do with Brady's own statements and voting record. You can shrug off the ads as inconsequential, but I assure you women do pay attention and the ads will have an effect.
kykooky| 7.24.10 @ 8:34PM
I don't quite see how lowering the minimum wage is going to close the budget deficit, but by lowering it by half or more will make young people more employable so they can learn some basic work skills like showing up on time every day, attitude, that kind of stuff. Then, they have some job experience. At high school age that's what the boss is looking for; he'll teach you the specifics.
BREDNG10| 7.23.10 @ 2:53PM
The one thing I didn`t see mentioned is VOTER FRAUD. Cook county is the undisputed center of the voter fraud universe. Didn`t Daley`s dad put JFK over the top in the 60`s. Didn`t one of the Daley`s and Jesse Jackson with a team of dem lawyers fly to Florida to count the votes for Al Gore and start the 2000 hanging chad fiasco in what is now standard practice ala Al Franken.
This is where our great leader honed his skills.I think he got something like 3 of his opponents thrown off of the ballot when 1st running for office. What was once just the sewer of Cook county voter fraud is now expanded to the whole country on a much larger scale. Anything goes now. We have the Sec. of States proj. where key positions thru out the country are controlled by crooked politicians who count,recount,interpret the laws, and change the rules as they see fit to get their canidates (dem) elected. We have acorn,motor voter,and numerous other scams to allow whole sale voter fraud on a nation wide scale.While Obama`s degrees, papers, parents,name (Soreto)and even birth place may be disputed,he is the undisputed master of voter fraud and manipulation. This he learned via Cook County and Illinois the undisputed center of the voter fraud universe.
DocSmith| 7.24.10 @ 9:52AM
I worked with a fellow who grew up and lived in Illinois for many years. He told me that during his college days, at election tiem he and his friends would pile on to buses and head to a polling station. As they got off a party flunky would hand them their ID and they would go in and vote for a candidate, then back on the bus to the next polling station. They got $5 for each vote, and that kept them in beer for a while. Might be all BS, but it was his story and he stuck to it.
We're infected in every state with political chicanery, and I wonder what it will take before the masses have had their fill. I saw it in Detroit when I lived there. It's in Florida where I now live. Recently, two Public Service Commission members were removed from their posts after voting against electric rate increases. The politicians who removed them made no bones of the fact that the politicos were in the pocket of the utilities and had been paid to push those increases through. Yet very little uproar was made in the media. And I'm sure those crooks will get re-elected.
Neo| 7.23.10 @ 3:28PM
I once saw a comment from a progressive to a conservative that read .. "don't you agree that it's all about dividing up the spoils ?"
Illinois is all about dividing up the spoils .. and nothing more.
dac| 7.23.10 @ 4:18PM
I lived in Illinois for 5 long years, after having spent more than a decade in the DC area. I can say with absolute certainty that Illinois was a more corrupt place--rotten to the core, and not just in Chicago, but in the central IL city in which I lived--than any jurisdiction in DC, including DC itself. And that is saying something. Why? Because in IL there is no opposition, there is only, as Neo mentioned, dividing the spoils. Chicago rules the state by and for the benefit of its public employee unions, and the neo-communist thugs who control them (and all Chicago politicians, Dear Leader Maobama included). They are parasitic scum, and even if all the rest of "downstate" IL banded together against Chicago and E. St Louis (simply, a slum that reliably votes in the same thieves every election), they probably still couldn't turn the state around.
But there isn't enough integrity, organization or guts in the entire downstate to even try to take on Chicago. Just consider, the supposedly Republican, salt-of-the-earth, solid guy Ray LaHood has become, as DOT Secretary, nothing more than Maobama's slave, parrotting the worst of his lies and facilitating his thuggery. He's simply doing what comes naturally to IL politicians.
With some exceptions, because I do have friends there, IL voters are slaves and cowards. They worship dictatorial authority, they conform, they shy away from anything that might be construed as independent thought or upsetting their "betters" in government.
The only upside to Illinois is some pretty damn good deer and duck/goose hunting. That wasn't nearly enough to keep me there. And so I watch and laugh as the state circles the toilet drain.
Douglas Cohen| 7.23.10 @ 4:50PM
The massive wild card in Illinois' financial troubles is that with Obama president the corrupt Illinois pols have every reason to expect him to come riding to their rescue. (Remember how quick Obama was to lobby the Olympic committee on their behalf.) If he hesitates to bail them out, they can just start leaking information about some of his past corrupt practices. The Illinois political establishment has the Chicago Tribune in their back pocket, which means the national pro-Obama media would not be able to ignore potential scandal with their customary "see no Obama evil" attitude. Since this is the bottom line of the Illinois state budget, why should Illinois politicians approve any cuts at all?
Cris Worth| 7.23.10 @ 4:53PM
You forgot to mention the biggest theft of all...Illinois from Nixon's victory column in the 1960 Presidential election. But the GOP as usual rolled over played dead. If Nixon contests the election the recount would have showed massive vote fraud and the trail would have led right to city hall. Just think what could have been...Nixon sworn in as our 35th President on 1/20/1961 and Richard Daley the elder behind bars for the rest of his life.
Pat| 7.23.10 @ 4:57PM
Where does this author get off claiming the state government of Illinois is more corrupt and dysfunctional than California or New York? I can’t speak for New Yorkers, but as a Californian, I can honestly say California easily surpasses Illinois in dysfunctional legislators and political corruption. We’re far deeper in unfunded debt than the “Land of Lincoln” state could hope to wish for. And as for corruption, there is simply no contest, California leads this nation and at least a dozen 3rd world countries in government corruption - but California does with subtlety and style what the Chicago political bosses do with a crowbar upside your head. Our politicians can easily pick our pockets wearing a smile on their lips and a hearty “How’s it going, dude?” – you realize you’re being swindled but somehow it feels good just the same.
We have a governor who can’t pronounce English which is just fine by us – we don’t have an “official” state language anyway, unless you consider “going El Luncho” to be proper English. Even our official state motto is: “Wealth corrupts, so give Sacramento your wealth and have a nice day”. Yeah, it ain’t in Latin and it’s kinda lame, but it gets the point across. In loving memory of the late Walt Disney, our state government is the only one which can truly claim to be “Mickey Mouse” and we have a large supply of out of work actors with political ambitions so we won’t run short of politicians with the IQ of Goofy and the emotional stability of Donald Duck anytime soon.
Maybe the state of New York has the “Big Apple”, but we have the “Big Burrito” in the great city of Los Angeles and, in San Francisco, we boast the only police force where a pink scarf doesn’t violate the uniform code. So, all you tourists from Chicago, come out to the coast, leave your money here and witness a real corrupt, dysfunctional government in action – oh yeah, and have a nice day!
JmsA| 7.23.10 @ 5:20PM
Pat,
Hear, hear! And don't forget the crooks from the City of Bell, including the city's Chief Administrative Officer, and his salary of $800,000.00 a year.
WRJonas | 7.23.10 @ 5:06PM
This article states a very clear description of a failing ,corrupt State and its citizenry, but skips the most obvious question. Aside from the similarity to California,Michigan ,New York and New Jersey the fact is that these States have been ruined by Liberal Democrat policies and governments. So the question becomes ; what happens next? Do they turn to a Governor and legislature which can restore some financial sanity or restraint or sink deeper into deficit spending ?
Why not dissolve the authority of the State and replace it with some form of council to act directly on behalf of the people?
Cpm| 7.23.10 @ 6:59PM
Because said council will be stocked with cronies of the powers that be.
And don't be so sure Blago won't get off with a just a handslap.
MJ| 7.26.10 @ 11:55AM
Right, WRJonas. Let's replace our existing local governments with the "communitarian councils" advocated by the UN and the Chicago Black Panthers. On second thought - why don't we move to abolish the income tax and quit feeding the beast.
Chicago Ray | 7.23.10 @ 8:33PM
Oh, but the left would have you all believe Obama's community organizing turned his south side district into paradise like he promised those ignorant enough to believe it and that he's the ONLY IL POLITICO who's not as slimy as the bottom of a cesspool like 98% of them here and 80% elsewhere.
Take a vacation on the south side and see how that organizing went ......bring an uzi.
Rich McNally| 7.24.10 @ 11:28AM
It's no coincidence that the country's worst sports scandal happened in Illinois. When the Chicago White Sox (Black Sox) lost the 1919 World Series on purpose to the Cincinnati Reds.
TheGulagObamaca| 7.24.10 @ 1:33PM
If one would bother to look at an electoral map, you could see that if you removed the very small geographical blue splotch of Chicago (and it's very own Gaza Strip called East St. Louis), Illinois is a very conservative state. The problem is Chicagoland (as we locals call the metro area) is 60% 0f the states population but is where 99.999999999% of it democrats are concentrated-I exaggerate only slightly- leaving the remaining 40% without ANY representative government. It is no coincidence that every current statewide office is held by a Chicago Democrat. No pretense is even hidden anymore on where ALL Illinoisans must show obsequiousness. It is time for secession, for a North and South Illinois. A second Illinois for the 5,000,000 of us who love the State of our birth but refuse to be good Socialists.
t| 7.27.10 @ 7:55PM
Why don't you just move to an all-red state? There are plenty available.
The GulagObamaca| 7.24.10 @ 1:44PM
................Or we could just move to Indiana, LOL!
Bob| 7.25.10 @ 12:58PM
Move to Indiana? The Hoosier State voted fpr Obama. If East St. Louis is the Gaza Strip then Gary is the West Bank.
Syd Chaden| 7.24.10 @ 4:49PM
I grew up in Chicago, at a time when the "Kelly-Nash Machine" ruled. The so-called Democrats and Republicans didn't fight, in those days. They shared. The Democrats ran Cook County, and the Republicans ran the rest of Illinois. There came a time when a great outcry against the rampant corruption arose, and, incredibly, Martin Kennelly, a boyscout and churchman, and Adlai Stevenson, an "intellectually superior" person, ran for mayor of Chicago and governor of Illinois, respectively, and incredibly, they both won. Immediately, "Change that you can believe in" occurred. In Chicago, where previously there had been one bookie and one cathouse per roughly eight block square neighborhood, the barbershops, newsstands, ice-cream parlors all became bookies, and cathouses sprang up everywhere. Garbage piled up, and streets weren't cleaned or snowplowed. Downstate, grocery chain trucks parked at roadhouses, where the drivers were entertained while their cigarette cargos were "hijacked" under the watchful eye of the state police. Kennelly had no idea as to how to cope with the problem. Stevenson probably did not even believe that the problem existed. Others, who shared his non-belief, nominated Stevenson to be the Democrat candidate for the Presidency. Having tried reform, Chicago reverted to the "controlled corruption" approach to governance, but the State staggered onward with one corrupt governor after another, a number of whom have relocated to prisons. Illinois is a sorry financial mess, but check to see how the past and present Illinois Congressmen and Senators have done while the State has been deteriorating. Like Obama, most have become millionaires. Pretty good for "public servants".
Marc Jeric| 7.24.10 @ 5:17PM
I spent two years working for a big international company in New Orleans. I was amazed at the level of corruption there - almost all connected to government. Then I lived and worked in Mexico where the "mordida" is so widespread that it became the norm. I see now that America is geeting there; it seems that any kind of powerful government ends up mired in corruption.
Down State in a Blue State| 7.27.10 @ 12:27PM
Home sweet home.
50 plus years as an adult in downstate Illinois. Yes - I am embarrassed by what the people of Chicago force upon us by their shear numbers. It is the population of Chicago Vs the rest of the state. My local newspaper supported McCain.
t| 7.27.10 @ 7:18PM
If it weren't for Chicago there would be nearly zero tourism and few companies putting up their headquarters in Illinois. Chicago isn't your enemy, Chicago is your rich cousin.
tamara| 7.27.10 @ 7:16PM
The IDOC MGT Push program was NEVER secret! There are various news reports still visible on the 'net which announced the program MONTHS in advance! The fact that the legislators weren't paying attention doesn't mean it was "secret". This is purely a talking point term of the Republicans and the media sheep.
The Republicans would like to do away with MGT altogether. Great, by keeping inmates in a mere 3 or 6 months longer, this will cost taxpayers TENS OF MILLIONS of dollars every year! Quinn's 2011 budget forces IDOC to make do with $41.9 million less than what it had in 2010. $41.9 million less to spend but tens of millions more in costs ... it CANNOT happen.