For the last couple of years there have been considerable charges around the current governor if Illinois, George Ryan. When he was Secretary of State, there was apparently a pretty widespread program of selling driver’s licenses. Now there is a prosecution underway concerning the use of government workers for campaign activities.
I wonder how this plays in other parts of the country/world? Here in Chicago, it is not really anything new. Under Mayor Daley I, people were only kinda joking when they would say “vote early and vote often.” Daley pere’s machine was unsurpassed at getting out the vote – dead or alive – and loading the public payrolls with ghosts.
One of our most powerful recent pols on the national scene, Dan Rostenkowski, former chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, went to prison after admitting he used government money to buy gifts for allies and to pay workers for personal and political work.
Two of our relatively recent former governors – Kerner and Walker – were jailbirds. Will Ryan make it a trifecta?
And don’t forget former Illinois Secretary of State Paul Powell who died suddenly in 1970, leaving $800,000 stuffed in shoe boxes in his Springfield hotel room.
I was wondering if any other US state, or political unit outside the US, has a similarly impressive track record of crooked politicians?
Until I hear to the contrary, I will continue to take great pride in proclaiming “We’re number one!”
Well, of course, it’s always possible that Illinois is just more effective at uncovering these matters.
We’ve been having great fun in Ireland, investigating payments made to various politicians. Here http://www.rte.ie/news/2000/0524/moriarty.html is a link from two years ago listing about €11.5 million worth of payments made to just one politician and needing investigation. So I think Illinois has some competition.
Least we forget the lovely town of Cicero, a Chicago suburb, where the mayor makes it a POINT to look like a gangster’s moll! That whole town stinks of corruption!
Dinsdale slams his fingers in desk drawer to restrain self from typing details about the 10 or so “Cicero Republicans Golf Outings” he has attended in recent years.
So, the only other contender for the crown is Ireland? Yup, it would be quite a stretch to imagine any connection between Ireland and a city where they dye the damn river green each year!
Come on, folk, use this forum to express your civic/state/national pride in the corruption of your homegrown political leaders. Don’t let the Land of Lincoln have all the fun. Or do you think it might be something in the water?
Frankly, I would imagine Louisiana is as corrupt as Illinois. I know of several Indiana towns, including Vincennes, that rival Chicago for corruption on a per-capita basis.
On the upside for Illinoisians, errr… Illinoisers(?), ummmm…people who live in Illinois, it appears the new U.S. Attorney for the Northern District, a man by the name of Patrick Fitzgerald, has been doing a fantastic job of going after the crooks in politics. His office has just indicted three more corrupt officials, and may be soon getting our governor. It may be baby steps, but it’s baby steps in the right direction.
While it’s no Illinois, Connecticut isn’t exactly a haven of good government. Our governor, John Rowland, is using tourism ads to help his reelection and lost $220 million through Enron in the state resource recovery agency (which allegedly has had mob ties in the past). The guy he appointed treasurer in 1996, Paul Silvester, lost reelection in 1998 and had raised money from a company he later put state money into. He and a bunch of his cronies (including the 1998 GOP Secretary of State nominee and the father to a girl in my grade) are under indictment and should be sent to prison soon. The Gov’s friend and Waterbury Mayor Phil Giordano was found raping the 8-year-old daughter of a prostitute he had smoked crack with. Unrelated to the Gov is Bridgeport mayor Joe Ganim, who’s under indictment as well for giving out contracts to buddies.
New Jersey should give you a run for your money as well as Louisiana. Huey Long once said, “I hope to be buried in New Orleans so I can stay active in local politics.”
Illinois is fairly impressive but I would give a slight edge to Louisiana. The Daley’s were pretty corrupt but I don’t think that they were any match for the Long’s. Brother Huey and Earl were two of the most powerful governors that have ever existed in the U.S. The fact that Earl dated a stripper (Blaze, of the movie) and got sent to a mental institution but still had the power to successfully replace the people that sent him there tips the hat.
Did I mention that my grandfather was one of Earl Long’s best friends? He was a colonel on his staff during the entire length of his governorship. Most of my father’s nicest furniture to this day came as a present compliments of the state of Louisiana from Earl Long.
I was a very good student but my mother was poor at the time that I graduated from high school and college was going to be a big problem. One 10 minute phone call later, I had a full-ride scholarship to Tulane University in New Orleans. It was a private school but they had a deal with the state dating back to the late 1800’s that said that they had to give full scholarships to the well connected and they had since that time. That deal has since been revealed by the media but I did well so they couldn’t complain.
Step aside you Johnny-come-lately heartlanders, make way for the so-called public servants of the Biggest Little, where political malfeasance has been a tradition for the past three hundred years! We were known as “Rogues Island” back in colonial times and we live up, er, down to that name today.
One ex-governor in jail on corruption charges. Two state supreme court justices resigning for the same reason. The mayor of the capital city (himself an ex-con) up to his eyebrows in thirty indictments in a far-reaching influence-peddling scandal nicknamed “Plunder Dome”. A massive credit union scandal in the 1980’s that defrauded thousands… Louisiana? What’s Louisiana got that we ain’t got? Illinois? Amateurs.
You do have a pretty good case with Rhode Island. I live less than 15 miles from the Rhode Island border right now and I am very impressed with the corruption and mafia influence that continues to this day. I am not “connected” there although I think that the results might be pretty impressive if I were. However, the Long’s are not the only card that Louisiana holds. The govenor while I was in high school was Edwin Edwards who has gone to prison on rackaterring charges and been indicted more fingers than you can count unless you are seriously inbred.
I do give you the edge for current corruption however.
Thanks Shag! I’d also like to point out that given our much smaller size, we’re probably a shoo-in for most corruption per capita. To be fair, though, we have nothing like your remarkable sports-facility corruption scandals. Plus, your cooking’s better.
(Kudos, btw, to Dinsdale for phrasing the OP as a self-indictment contest. If he had decided to pick on somebody else’s state instead, we would all be criticizing one another instead of bragging about ourselves, and the tone would be much less pleasant. :))
Hmmm… lesseee, let no one think that this is not an equal-opportunity plague. I give you, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico:
(All charges regarding malfeasance of public money or influence-peddling)
9 Senators and 3 mayors from the 1984-92 period convicted, one on federal charges, some after they were out of office; additional mayors impeached but not convicted in regular courts
3 Representatives from the 1992-96 period removed from office after convictions, 2 did time
1 Senator 1992-96 expelled for IRS irregularities; another turned State’s Evidence in Fed Court.
2 Senators 1996-2000 removed from office, one jailed
1 Representative (and candidate for mayor) 1996-2000, in jail
Speaker of the House, 1996-2000, on Trial by Feds
3 mayors 1992-2000 removed from office and convicted; one in Fed Prison still for requesting $2 million kickback from wired contractor; another one reelected, removed in 2001, on trial.
1st-term mayor, and his wife, 1st-term senator, elected 2000, embezzling contractor payments as soon as March 2001, removed from office Sept. 2001; on trial. She was also falsely collecting disability payments. These just left everyone shaking their heads at how anyone could be that crass.
Chief consultant on Health Policy to the city of San Juan and to the Governor, 1986-1994, in jail; embezzling Ryan White funds
Secretary of Education 1994-2000 + 8 top staffers, on trial for pocketing or misdirecting $4million in Fed Funds. Mr. Secretary found with $500K in small notes in his $750K home with a vintage Corvette in the garage.
And one of the 92-96 convict/jailbirds died last week and was given a formal (if abbreviated) lying in state at the State Capitol. Gotta earn style points for that!
Let no one say we don’t seek to be just like the states
jrd
proud consultant to the PR Legislature and several campaign committees since 1992
