The Blagojevich Corrupt Sausage Factory
Now we may know why. As the federal complaint against Blagojevich alleges, in December 2008, the governor wanted a $100,000 campaign contribution from horse track owner John Johnston before he would sign the legislation into law. According to the complaint, the governor’s ex-fundraiser Alonzo Monk was apparently doing double duty at the time, lobbying for Johnston’s horse tracks in Springfield and playing the governor’s heavy to muscle Johnston to pay up. And apparently, this alleged “pay-to-play” scenario might not have been the first. When similar legislation was passed in 2006, Johnston and affiliated interests made more than $135,000 in contributions to Blagojevich on one day from several different accounts. The contributions were received almost exactly one month after the governor signed the bill into law.
Perhaps it was an additional symbolic debt of gratitude that caused Johnston to name one of his prime race horses (a two-year-old pacing colt) after the now disgraced governor. (A crowning touch of irony: the race horse was sired by Political Promise.) Indeed!
Illinois Representative William Black (R-Danville) may have been the first to smell something rotten in all of this. In an illuminating floor debate on the legislation in 2006, Black observed the governor and his staff putting the full court press on recalcitrant legislators to vote for the bill. “Why are some of you called down to the governor’s office, then you come back up and change your vote? … I like horses, but I don’t like what I smell here. I don’t like it all.” Remarkably, Black even predicted that this would all end up with the Feds on the governor’s doorstep. “Well Mr. U.S. Attorney in Chicago, get your subpoenas out, because I guess we’re never going to learn anything in the state of Illinois.”
Springfield does have an opportunity to learn from this and to set the whole tawdry episode right. Already the legislature is moving to repeal the 3% giveaway from casinos to Blagojevich’s horse racing cronies. That’s a good start. But horse racing interests and many other businesses Blagojevich “befriended” are still politically powerful and flush with campaign cash. It will take a strong will and a sincere desire by Illinois politicians to overcome the rotten legacy of the Blagojevich years. Here’s hoping Illinois has the backbone.
Blago is a stain on Illinois politics. There is little to debate there. I’m afraid that once you put him behind you, your still going to be pretty stained up though. Kind of like the working girls on the corner complaining about the new rude hooker ruining their reputations.
Blago’s biggest crime was being a stupid politician/thief. He should have sought advice from dem experts on the subject like Murtha, Dodd or Rangel.
There’s plenty of slime all over both parties. If you are a rank and file republican, you have no vote in who makes up the State Central Committee.
There’s a republican civil war brewing here in Illinois, between those who are fed at the pork trough, and those who are fed up.
That “Blago Cabbage Patch Doll” is freakin’ HILARIOUS!
I don’t have time to opine much… I have a major dentist appointment coming up in an hour. *cries*
Ken, I call BS! Chicago and Illinois are dirty and always have been dirty and they will be after Blago. We used to say that New Jersey, Detroit and New Orleans sent their politicians to Chicago and Springfield for advanced corruption training.
That is why it is just too funny for anyone to believe in the purity of South Chicago’s Mugabe Obama.
clean up? Why?
Just re-brand.
We are good at that, e.g. bribes => campaign contributions, earmark => pay back bribers with money confiscated from the little people, war on terror => (…?) contingency, Iraq withdrawal: “They will be called advisory and assistance brigades,” said Gates. “They won’t be called combat brigades.”…
Chicago politics has been dirty since Prohibition. Blago is not even the worst practitioner.
What every happened to the indictment?
“Thanks to the ex-governor’s dirty schemes, cleaning up Illinois’ political reputation could take years.”
Why just blame Blago for Illinois corruption.
Blago is the tip of the iceberg. How about Mayor Daley, Senators John Cullerton and Jimmy Deleo? Alderman Ed Burke, Cook County Board Chairman Stroger? Former guv George Ryan? Judges, small time politicos. Tim Degnan?
The list is endless when you think about the corruption. Chicago and Illinois. the City that works when you bribe it enough.
When I read Spider79′s statement
“Blago is a stain on Illinois politics.” I almost fell out of my chair laughing. First, haven’t four of Blago’s last five predecessors in the Governor’s chair gone to prison?
Question: “Governor Blagojevich! Why do you think you are going to prison?”
Blago: “Tradition!”
Second, I am originally from Evansville, Indiana and my Grandfather was on the taskforce that investigated the stealing of the 1960 election for Kennedy, now fifty years ago. The chief feature of Illinois politics according to my Grandfather was the complete absence of a single honest politician in Chicago politics.
Forgive my cynicism, but Blagojavich is just the latest in a long line of slimy Boss Tweed politicians going back to Big Bill Thompson. It’s a rare month that doesn’t include an indictment of one Chicago politician or another, and the corruption is so rife that Chicagoans don’t even notice it any more. It’s just an accepted way of living. Oh, there’s outrage each time the Cook County Board or the state legislature finds yet another scheme to raise revenue (Chicago’s 10.25% sales tax, its parking meter outrage or Quinn’s 50% income tax increase are just three of the most recent), but “it’s the Chicago Way”. One or two crusading journalists pop stories about the clumsiest and most visible scams once or twice a year, but the trials drag on for years and when it’s all over, nobody cares.
Year after year, Chicago’s public schools slip further into the bureaucratic abyss, with a 58% dropout rate, a 50% illegitimacy rate, an out of control gang quagmire, urban blight, failing public works, public employee featherbedding and obnoxious public services.
The worst part of it all is that these same diseased politicians get reelected every single time the polls are open, like drug-resistant venereal disease. Some of the worst are so imbedded and so arrogant that they simply appoint their own children (Stroger, Jones) to continue the dynasty for another 30 years after they’ve had their fill.
Who’s going to stop them? Nobody. It just keeps getting better.
And don’t get me started on Illinois’ Best and Brightest who get sent to Worshington…