Among America’s governors, one man stands out for delivering on a liberal agenda. In just six years, he brought about ethics reform and continued the state’s moratorium on the death penalty. He expanded eligibility for the state’s earned income tax credit to help the poor, and supported a comprehensive statewide smoking ban. He expanded health programs like KidCare and FamilyCare, and signed legislation banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace, housing, public accommodations and credit. He delivered record increases in funding for public schools without raising income taxes or sales taxes.
He is, in fact, the most progressive governor in the land. His name, believe it or not, is Rod Blagojevich. And he is also, of course, the most corrupt governor in the land. Baby-faced Rod Blagojevich, governor of Illinois, has been nabbed red-handed by the FBI, trying to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder.
Blagojevich’s audacity is stunning, even for Illinois politics. Given the opportunity to make a historic appointment, he saw, instead, an opportunity to line his own pockets and brazenly plotted with his chief of staff on how to trade the Senate seat for cash or a lucrative job for himself.
Putting a price tag on a United States Senate seat is shocking to everyone – except to those who know Blagojevich best. For them, what’s surprising is not that he would stoop so low, but that he lasted so long before getting caught. Even though he first ran for governor in 2002 as a reformer, vowing to “end business as usual” in Springfield, Blagojevich started making questionable financial deals in year one and has been under federal investigation on multiple corruption charges since 2005.
Three of the more notorious charges against Blagojevich were cited in the 76-page criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department at the time of his arrest. According to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the governor demanded $500,000 in contributions from a contractor in exchange for state funds for a new toll road. He demanded that the Chicago Tribune fire members of its editorial board, who had written critical editorials about him, before he would help with a plan for Tribune Co. to sell Wrigley Field to the state. Proving he would pass up no opportunity for personal profit, Blagojevich even threatened to cancel $8 million in state funds for Children’s Memorial Hospital unless he received a $50,000 contribution from one of its executives.
But it was the prospect of a Senate seat that really got Blago’s greedy juices flowing. What others saw as an honor, he immediately seized as his ticket to big bucks. “I’ve got this thing and it’s (expletive) golden,” Blagojevich says on a phone call recorded by the FBI. “I’m just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing.” When a staffer warns him to be careful about making it look like a quid pro quo, the governor cuts him off: “I want to make money.”
Instead, of course, he ruined his political career. Blagojevich is toast. He’s effectively cut off from making any Senate appointment. If he doesn’t resign, he’ll be impeached. And if found guilty, he’ll soon follow three other recent Illinois governors who went straight from the Statehouse to the Big House. Democrat Otto Kerner was convicted for taking bribes from the managers of two horseracing tracks. Democrat Dan Walker served time for making fraudulent loans. And Republican George Ryan is still in prison for accepting gifts in return for political favors. Blagojevich is merely the next in line.
Which does make you wonder: What is it about Illinois politics that attracts so many crooks? “If it isn’t the most corrupt state in the United States, it’s certainly one hell of a competitor,” said Robert Grant, head of the FBI’s Chicago office. Yet, despite its high levels of government corruption, Illinois also produced such great public servants as Abraham Lincoln, Adlai Stevenson, Everett Dirksen, Paul Simon, Harold Washington and Barack Obama.
Such, we must realize, is the nature of the American political system, in every state. It attracts both the best and the worst of humanity. And, in the end, the good far outshines the bad. It would be a big mistake to let our disgust with the actions of Rod Blagojevich diminish in any way our joy over the achievements of Barack Obama.
