The Tribune’s timely series on Illinois’ “Culture of Corruption” reminded me of my first brush with Illinois’ political culture. In 1968, fresh out of graduate school, I was hired by the Republican speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives to help legislators analyze the hundreds of bills introduced every year. I was literally the new kid on the block.
A member of the speaker’s staff gave me a tour of the Capitol, and we wound up in the cafeteria with its beautiful marble floor. He took me over to a corner of the room and asked me to look down at the shiny floor, clearly shinier than the rest of the cafeteria floor. He sidled up to me with a hand cupped alongside his mouth and whispered, “This is where the money changes hands, where the white envelopes with the cash get handed off to legislators for their votes.”
Here I was, not even a full day on the state government payroll, and I was staring at where the bribes took place. I would learn my tour guide wasn’t exaggerating when it came to lobbyists shaking down legislators with bribes. A few years later, then-U.S. Attorney Jim Thompson, who later became governor, successfully prosecuted legislators for taking bribes from the cement industry to support a bill to increase the load limit for ready-mix trucks on Illinois roads. Five served time in federal prison for those crimes, but just to prove there’s no honor among thieves, one of them took immunity and blew the whistle on the rest. Immunity was also granted to Lester Crown, then chairman of Material Service Corp., who admitted on the stand that he contributed to the bribery fund. Funny thing how the businesses offering the bribes usually got off in those days. No wonder they’d try it again and again.
To complicate this story, I worked for one of the indicted legislators, and before he reported to his new residence at a federal penitentiary, he came back to Springfield. I remember how uncomfortable I was greeting him after his conviction. I didn’t want to ignore his plight, nor did I want it to look as though he got a raw deal. He could see I was struggling with what to say, so he interrupted, “Bob, don’t worry. They could’a got me for lots worse.” Only in Illinois.
What I learned when I left Illinois to pursue a career as a university president is that you can’t leave Illinois’ culture of corruption behind. It traveled with me wherever I stayed long enough to share my Illinois bio. The standard retort was: “So you got out of Illinois without having to report to a federal pen.” I learned how Kermit the Frog felt about how it “ain’t easy being green.” It ain’t easy being from Illinois, especially when as university president, I appeared before lawmakers for approval of the university budget.
There’s no secret to getting elected to office and staying out of the federal pen — as is known and practiced by the preponderance of Illinois’ elected officials over the years. It’s called following the law and the rules that govern relationships between elected officials and donors, lobbyists or anyone trying to influence an elected official. But none of us who followed the law, ran campaigns accordingly and did our level best to represent our constituents deserves a place in the “Profiles in Courage” book. It’s called following the law and the dictates of conscience.
For years, I’ve tried to figure out why anyone would chance breaking the law, especially when the feds get their man or woman in more than 90% of prosecutions. Even those with tiny consciences should fear those odds.
Marj Halperin: Did Ed Burke try to shake me down? Sure felt like it.
What is it that makes these guys gamble with the lives of their families and their careers? Years ago, I asked a federal judge the same question: Why do they risk everything? She told me that if she wrote a book about Chicago politics as she saw it from her bench, there would be a chapter called “The Best Table in the House.” She said when some of Chicago’s colorful pols walk into a restaurant, they slip the maitre d’ some cash and ask for the best table in the house. To be seen and to be recognized as somebody important is paramount.
It’s the arrogance of thinking that their self-inflated importance in politics deserves to be rewarded with whatever comes their way, legal or illegal. It’s their hubris that may best explain the chances they take.
Today, there are far more sophisticated means of corruption in government than cash-stuffed envelopes, but for those who chance it, the motive is the same: Where’s mine?
Bob Kustra served two terms as Republican lieutenant governor of Illinois and 10 years as a state legislator. He is now host of “Readers Corner” on Boise State Public Radio and a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman.
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