He may go down as Illinois’ slighter variant of the late Louisiana governor Earl Long.

Gov. Blagojevich has vetoed, among other things, a measly 3% cost-of-living raise for the most essential workers in public services…not the nurses and physicians…but the workers who dispense the most menial—yet most essential—services…from sanitation to personally treating the handicapped, the chronically ill, the mentally indigent, those suffering from addiction and other forms of physical abuse. He has saved $3 million out of an estimated $60 billion in services…$3 million to pay these people…$3 million he calls “pork”—all the while rewarding himself and the legislature with hefty pay raises.

The pain meted out to people whom the poor depend on for services comes from a governor who wants to build a monument to himself by setting up a magnificent-conceived universal health care program. To do it he has vowed to force the recalcitrant legislature, run by leaders of his own party, to submission. Thus he has spared “pork cuts” from members of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, the panel that has most to say about whether Blagojevich’s plan to create the Orwellian super-health care program is acceptable or not with expansion to 500,000 state residents.

This bribe attempt comes from one who does not worry about the impact as he jogs and lives his leisurely life aside from governmental responsibilities, surely most be one of the most flagrant examples of mal-governance in modern times …lumping these people’s minimal pay hikes which he describes as “pork”. And all this exercise is done to force the legislature to buy into his Orwellian health care scheme that the state cannot afford but which he hopes will boost his stock to higher political office.

House Republican Leader Tom Cross led the way in trying to convince the governor of the need to continue these social services. No dice.

The cuts are part of $463 million in cuts to the budget the lawmakers submitted August 13. Well over $100 million came from health and human services. The cuts included, in addition to the $3 million for social service workers’ cost of living increases, $11 million to community agencies serving the developmentally disabled, eliminating money for food pantries, homeless shelters, a veterans home, autism programs and help for the disabled and mentally ill.

This governance by whim and vituperation in Illinois comes close to the record of Louisiana’s Governor Earl Long in his last term from 1956 to 1960. Fittingly, his main ally was a legislative leader named Jim Rambo who carried out Long’s wishes by placing a price tag on every agreement he supported…and Rambo salted a lot away for his own pet projects. Morgan D. Peoples and Michael Kurtz in their book Earl Long: The Saga of Uncle Earl and Louisiana Politics said that the only thing certain about Long was “his unpredictability—for no one, and probably not even Long himself, knew whast he would say or do next. Yet whatever he did or said, Long acted from political motives—he was a political animal through and through. `While the rest of `em are sleepin’” he said, “I’m politickin’.”

Earl Long’s erratic behavior was to bludgeon the legislature by alternate bribes and retribution—a legislature dominated by fellow Democrats—to cave in to his spending programs. The legislature initially wanted to cooperate, wanted to compromise but Long would accept no compromise. He raged and stormed, threatened and delivered chaos, hoping the legislature would cave. Until Earl Long became governor, his brother Huey was regarded as most erratic—but Huey knew how to compromise. Huey said, “Earl is my brother but he’s crooked. If you live long enough, he’ll double-cross you. He’d double-cross Jesus Christ if He was down here on earth.” To which Earl responded with these stastesmanlike words: “Huey is the yellowest physical coward that God ever let live.”

The funny thing is that after Gov. Blagojevich spun out his radically bad gross receipts tax, some elements of the Illinois business community actually wanted to compromise and would even accept an income tax hike…which would have allowed Blagojevich to claim he had won an increase in government programs. Not that the caving by some business people was wise or justified. But the point is, even after some of them caved, Blagojevich refused their offer—likening the resemblance to Earl Long.

The bribery resembles certainly the worse Illinois governor. No, not George Ryan who, venal as he was and as principle-less as he acted, had more respect for the legislative process than Blagojevich. Nor does it smack of Dan Walker whose goal was to overthrow Richard J. Daley as the main force in the Democratic party for which he allowed the citizens of Illinois to serve as hostage. Sadly, Blagojevich is starting to resemble the all-time worse governor in Illinois history—Len Small of Kankakee. A look at Small’s record will refresh you. He allowed nothing to stand in his ruthless way. Instead of bribing lawmakers, he allowed himself to be bribed to grant pardons from jail. Just a minor distinction. Both men operate from the same ruthless non-standard.

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Thomas F. Roeser is chairman of the editorial board of The Chicago Daily Observer.

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