Ah, Illinois.
We had just jogged past the two year anniversary of the last time a sitting Illinois politician entered a guilty plea on a Federal crime. Former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. copped to a Federal wire and mail fraud charge on February 20, 2013. He was sentenced in August of 2013. And for two blissful years, we were free of the immediate taint of Federal corruption. At least, the current taint.
And then, there’s Rep. Aaron Schock, who, today, became the bazillionth Illinois politician to fall prey to the trappings of elected office. He will resign effective March 31, 2015.
Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock resigned Tuesday, less than 12 hours after POLITICO raised questions about tens of thousands of dollars in mileage reimbursements he received for his personal vehicle.
Schock billed the federal government and his campaign for logging roughly 170,000 miles on his personal car from January 2010 through July 2014. But when he sold that Chevrolet Tahoe in July 2014, it had roughly 80,000 miles on the odometer, according to public records obtained by POLITICO under Illinois open records laws. The documents, in other words, indicate he was reimbursed for 90,000 miles more than his car was driven.
The discrepancy added to a growing wave of ethical and legal problems for the 33-year-old politician.
No, you’re reading that right. Somehow, Rep. Schock thought he could bill the federal government for 90,000 more miles than were even on his car, and no one would notice. To add, he billed his own PAC, the GOP Generation Y Fund, for additional milage on top of that.
The allegations surfacing now, of course, are only the icing on a cake that’s been being assembled for weeks, starting when Schock submitted to a style-section interview about his brand new Downton Abbey-themed office remodel, which taxpayers footed the bill for. At first, the issues coming to light seemed problematic, but weren’t necessary cause for legal alarm. Sure, he stayed in a couple of high end hotels and charged private flights to his campaign, but while the spending was lavish, the expenditures weren’t illegal. Then there were the mileage reimbursements. And the claim that the only available hotel in London for his visit was a four-star resort with rooms starting at $500. Then, it turned out he spent a lot of time on private planes going to Bears games and Katy Perry concerts. And then, it turned out, he “mistakenly” reported the use of a software mogul’s jet as a “software purchase,” which is only true if you don’t really think about it too hard.
On or around February 25, Schock lawyered up. Had Hillary not been hiding her emails and Barack not been penning love letters to Iran, things might have progressed faster. But here, now, we can see that it was all just prolonging the inevitable.
The worst part of all of this is that Aaron Schock has driven home nearly every stereotype about Millennials. He cared little about his job, more about his image, and most about being part of a celebrity culture which sometimes embraced him, as long as there was a photographer present. The license plate of the aforementioned car, which ultimately caused his undoing? “18.” His Congressional district.
This is, of course, all for the best. Illinois 18th is a solidly red district that, even if it elects a Democrat as a reaction to Schock’s trip through the looking glass, will return to red rather quickly. And now, Aaron Schock, unburdened by the expectations of elected office, is free to follow his bliss. Next time you see him, I’m sure, it’ll be on Dancing With the Stars.
