Illinois has developed a reputation for being synonymous with corrupt politics and electoral shenanigans, but is that reputation deserved or is Illinois really not all that different from the other 49 states?
I think it used to be mostly associated with Chicago politics but now also includes the Governors (4 in recent decades):
It’s hard to draw a strict line between the two by looking at elections that are statewide. About half the state’s population resides in the Chicago metro area so it’s going to bleed over quite a bit.
In a study last year, Fortune Magazine ranked it as #4 in corruption: 10 Most Corrupt States in America.
That study lists the 10 most corrupt as:
- Mississippi
- Louisiana
- Tennessee
- Illinois
- Pennsylvania
- Alabama
- Alaska
- South Dakota
- Kentucky
- Florida
Isn’t anyone else surprised that New Jersey isn’t on that list?
Maybe Christie paid a bribe to be left off the list.
The great thing about Illinois corruption is that it’s non-partisan and statewide. Of those four convicted Governors, Dan Walker was an anti-Daley Democrat and George Ryan was a Republican from downstate.
Jack Ryan, whose salacious personal life blew him out of the 2004 Senate race, was a wealthy Republican.
Then there was Paul Powell, a small-town boy who put together a coalition of Republicans and Democrats to get elected Speaker of the state House and later Secretary of State. When he died, investigators found $800,000 in cash in his hotel room.
Dan Rostenkowski, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in the 1980s and early 90’s, took in considerably less, but spent 17 months in a Federal prison when he got caught.
Jim Thompson was another Republican reformer. As Governor, he tried to bring 60,000 state jobs back under the patronage system – an attempt that had to be halted by a Supreme Court ruling.
Last but not least, the entire 1986 election was knocked haywire when supporters of Lyndon LaRouche managed to get their candidates on the Democratic ticket to run for Lt. Governor and Secretary of State. That ended up with the above-mentioned Jim Thompson winning re-election by 400,000 votes.
Illinois politics. You gotta love it!
We hear a lot about corruption in Illinois politics because the prosecutors actually charge & convict one occasionally. In other states (like most of the ex-Confederacy) it’s equally common, even more so – it includes the prosecutors, so they don’t even charge them with a crime.
Don’t forget about Ed Vrdolyak, noteworthy for being both a Democrat AND a Republican (not at once, of course) and who got sent up to Terre Haute on corruption charges.
^No love for Fast Eddie, but the fact-pattern leading to that conviction were a bit strained. It wasn’t something everyone in the room would immediately recognize as wrong, much less a violation of law.
He and an associate took a kickback of 1.5 million dollars from a real estate developer in exchange for the associate, who was on the board of a medical school, to get the school to sell a building, that was supposed to be sold in a closed auction, to the developer, and his associate revealed the competing offers for the building, which were supposed to be sealed bids, to the developer.
What about that counts as “strained” or “not something everyone in the room would recognize as wrong?”
What’s always amused me about corruption and Illinois politics is how deeply it is ingrained into the system and how little most people seem to question it. When the average Joe goes to a government entity to pick up a document, he will usually assume a monetary ‘fee’ will expedite his request. It usually does. In a way it’s like a secondary economy underpinning the official one. Locals all know the unofficial ‘rules’ of the underground economy and as long as you play your part, all goes well and hey, why rock the boat?
A good friend of mine who was born and grew up in one of the Chicago 'burbs has lived in Wyoming for the last 30 years. Recently he needed to get a copy of his birth certificate and since he was in Illlinois visiting his family, he decided to go down and pick it up in person. At first he couldn’t realize why he was getting so many blank faces and facing so many unhelpful people until he remembered where he was and how business got done there. He called his dad and asked the going rate for a birth certificate. Dad filled him in, he went back downtown, anted up the expected ‘expediting fee’ and all was well.
It seems kind of comical when the underground economy works better than the face value one.
I moved to Illinois as an adult (from Wisconsin). I like to say, “I always assume that politics are corrupt, but the corruption in Illinois is a particularly virulent strain.”
It did seem to be an indictment of the entire system when part of George Ryan’s defense was that he hadn’t done anything differently from many others in state government.
Well, y’know, once you open up that sealed mini-bar, your room bill just skyrockets.
:dubious:
[/hijack] Sorry, couldn’t resist. 
The investigators said they only found $800K. 
How is it that nobody has mentioned Blagojevich yet?
Too easy!
My recollection is that there was a colorable claim that the potential “kickback” (no money ever actually changed hands) could just as well be characterized as a finder’s fee or broker’s commission. There was no victim; Vrdolyak and Levine had negotiated an excellent sale price for the Chicago Medical School property, even getting CMS a large increase over the original deal. Press release describing the indictment.
And people say there’s no bipartisanship anymore.
In response to the OP, I don’t know whether it can be objectively determined that Illinois is the most corrupt state. Its current reputation may come more from being the worst-governed state. The state government has massive debts and is careening towards financial disaster. Probably between 2025 and 2030, Illinois will be the first state in history to fie for bankruptcy, unless California gets there sooner.
In Soviet Russia, economy drives you!
Do you have a cite for this being the way business is typically done in illinois?