Corrupt Illinois

Public funds spent on jets and horses. Shoeboxes stuffed with embezzled cash. Ghost payrolls and incarcerated ex-governors. Illinois' culture of "Where's mine?" and the public apathy it engenders has made our state and local politics a disgrace. In Corrupt Illinois, veteran political observers Thomas J. Gradel and Dick Simpson take aim at business-as-usual. Naming names, the authors lead readers through a gallery of rogues and rotten apples to illustrate how generations of chicanery have undermined faith in, and hope for, honest government. From there, they lay out how to implement institutional reforms that provide accountability and eradicate the favoritism, sweetheart deals, and conflicts of interest corroding our civic life. Corrupt Illinois lays out a blueprint to transform our politics from a pay-to-play–driven marketplace into what it should be: an instrument of public good.

The Politics of Chicago have been dominated by controversy, corruption, turn-of-the-19th century businessmen, Irish Catholics, and Richard J. Daley and the Daley family. Democrats have usually dominated city politics, and they produced presidential nominees in Stephen Douglas (1860), Adlai Stevenson (1952 and 1956), and Barack Obama, who was nominated and elected in 2008. In 1855, Chicago Mayor Levi Boone threw Chicago politics into the national spotlight with some interesting proposals that would lead to the Lager Beer Riot. During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization dominated by ethnic ward-heelers. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago also had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations. Worker exploitation, extremes of wealth and poverty, and the corruption of both businessmen and politicians all existed in Chicago because neither federal nor local governments had the power to confront the worst aspects of economic and social injustices that were multiplying in the nation's cities.

In this important book, Patrick Collins gives a first-hand account of the federal investigation and trial that landed former Governor George Ryan in prison and demonstrated the cost and tragic consequences of Illinois' "culture of corruption." Collins also reflects on his recent service as chair of the Illinois Reform Commission and calls on his fellow citizens of Illinois to launch a long term, concerted effort to change that culture. He outlines four specific reforms that could have a "game-changing" effect on "business as usual": 1.Passing True Campaign Finance Reform 2.Creating a Fair and Competitive Election Process 3.Enhancing Corruption-Fighting Tools 4.Improving Voter Access and Participation

""A chronicle of Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich's arrest, trial, and conviction"--Provided by publisher"--

"With the passing of the Volstead Act in 1920, the U.S. Congress opened the floodgates on a tidal wave of organized crime and corruption unprecedented in the long history of law-breaking. Through intimidation and outright mahyem, the Mob operated with near-total impunity throughout the 1920s and early '30s. Countless murders and other crimes were never prosecuted or were thrown out of court through the corruption and pay-offs endemic in Chicago and its notorious suburb of Cicero. After the repeal of Prohibition, the families who took over crime in Chicago have continued to wield an insidious control over the legal and political machinations of the Windy City up to the present day. John Hughes chronicles the history of this violent and colorful collection of psychopaths, from Al Capone to Sam Giancana and on to the modern, more corporate, but just as powerful bosses of Chicago's Mob."--Page 4 of cover.

"This book will refresh and revive you to the beginning stages of a new revolution!" JEREMY LOPEZ, D.D. Identity Network, Inc., President "I recommend this book to everyone who is concerned about truth and justice being smothered and suppressed within the U.S." MARYAL BOUMANN Pray California, Director DO NOT go to court without FIRST reading this book! Reading it could save you BIG money! Not Reading it will cost you more! Rev. Scott Wallis, a leading pro se litigator, has represented himself in 50+ cases worth $5+ billion dollars before Illinois state and federal courts against top law firms. To date, his largest victory, the reversal of his $500+ million dollars lawsuit against parties that bankrupted USA Baby(R), Inc., America's Leading Specialty Retailer of Infant and Children's Furniture and Accessories(R). Court Street, a Multi-Trillion dollar industry, routinely dispenses injustice in justices' name. The attorney "fraternity" has ordained a black-robed wall of silent perdition, an inseparable barrier preventing what America and Main Street needs most - justice. Why? Money! Court Street is overseeing the greatest redistribution of wealth in mankind's history - from Main Street to Wall Street. Secret Corruption exposes hidden corruption taking place daily behind the walls of Court Street. Court Street's corruption is impacting your life; it is literally bankrupting America. Take a revealing look at our nation's most secretive and corrupt enterprise! Buy this book! "I urge everyone who desires that America returns to its Just Foundation to purchase this book and let your voice be heard!" MARK SILJANDER Member of Congress (ret.), 1977-81 United States Ambassador, 1987-88 Mohandas K. Gandhi Peace Award, 1996 Author, A Deadly Misunderstanding, 2008 "I commend this book to you, if you can keep your blood pressure under control: as you read it, you will share the outrage Scott expresses." GENE REDLIN Business Owner

Chicago’s reputation for corruption is the basis of local and national folklore and humor. Grafters and Goo Goos: Corruption and Reform in Chicago, 1833–2003 unfolds the city’s notorious history of corruption and the countervailing reform struggles that largely failed to clean it up. More than a regional history of crime in politics, this wide-ranging account of governmental malfeasances traces ongoing public corruption and reform to its nineteenth-century democratic roots. Former Chicago journalist James L. Merriner reveals the battles between corrupt politicos and ardent reformers to be expressions of conflicting class, ethnic, and religious values. From Chicago’s earliest years in the 1830s, the city welcomed dollar-chasing businessmen and politicians, swiftly followed by reformers who strived to clean up the attendant corruption. Reformers in Chicago were called “goo goos,” a derisive epithet short for “good-government types.” Grafters and Goo Goos contends a certain synergy defined the relationship between corruption and reform. Politicians and reformers often behaved similarly, their separate ambitions merging into a conjoined politics of interdependency wherein the line between heroes and villains grew increasingly faint. The real story, asserts Merriner, has less to do with right against wrong than it does with the ways the cultural backgrounds of politicians and reformers steered their own agendas, animating and defining each other by their opposition. Drawing on original and archival research, Merriner identifies constants in the struggle between corruption and reform amid a welter of changing social circumstances and customs—decades of alternating war and peace, hardships and prosperity. Three areas of reform and resistance are identified: structural reform of the political system to promote honesty and efficiency, social reform to provide justice to the lower classes, and moral reform to combat vice. “In the matter of corruption and reform, the constants might be stronger than the variables,” writes Merriner in the Preface. “The players, rules, and scorekeepers change, but not the essential game.” Complemented by eighteen illustrations, Grafters and Goo Goos is rife with shocking and amusing anecdotes and peppered with the personalities of famous muckrakers, bootleggers, mayors, and mobsters. While other studies have profiled infamous Chicago corruption cases and figures such as Al Capone and Richard J. Daley, this is the first to provide an overview appropriate for historians and general readers alike. In examining Chicago’s notorious saga of corruption and reform against a backdrop of social history, Merriner calls attention to our constant problems of both civic and national corruption and contributes to larger discussions about the American experiment of democratic self-government.