by Brad McMillan

Now that former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is heading to federal prison to serve a 14-year sentence for attempting to auction off President Obama's former U.S. Senate seat, the unfortunate reality is that the public and the Illinois General Assembly will likely return to business as usual.

Fourteen other citizens and I served on Gov. Pat Quinn's Illinois Reform Commission. We were charged with addressing the "integrity crisis" in Illinois. The IRC held hearings throughout the state, heard from experts across the country and submitted a 100-day report calling for sweeping ethics and political reform. In the end, the Illinois Legislature passed minimal reform, sidestepping meaningful measures in the areas of campaign finance, redistricting and giving state law enforcement the tools necessary to root out public corruption.

At one IRC hearing, we heard testimony that the annual Illinois "corruption tax" is $500 million. Those are hard dollars spent on lucrative state contracts and leases above market price. One expert testified that Illinois loses billions of dollars of business per year as companies refuse to do business in our state because of its horrible corruption. For those struggling to find a job in Illinois or to make ends meet, this should outrage you.

But this leads to the other sad reality in Illinois politics - the apathy of Illinois citizens. With former Gov. Ryan sitting in federal prison and former Gov. Blagojevich already indicted on various corruption charges in February 2010, only 23.14 percent of registered voters cast ballots in that primary election to select gubernatorial candidates to lead Illinois. Indeed, four of our last eight Illinois governors have ended up in jail. Yet Illinoisans do not seem to get outraged or care enough to even vote.

We need real reform in Illinois. We need men and women of integrity to step up and run for public office. We need Illinois citizens to get engaged and take this state back. Illinois will not return to more responsible government until Illinois citizens start becoming more responsible.

Wake up, Illinois!

Brad McMillan is executive director of the Institute for Principled Leadership in Public Service at Peoria's Bradley University.

First published as op-ed in Peoria Journal-Star

The Daily Journal reports:  Thomas J. Ryan, the 20-year mayor of Kankakee and longtime head of the Kankakee County Republican Central Committee, died late Saturday at Provena St. Mary's Hospital in Kankakee.

Ryan, 83, was the older brother of former Gov. George Ryan who is serving a federal prison sentence for corruption.

via www.chicagotribune.com

"Federal authorities today announced corruption charges against Lake County, Ind., sheriff’s officers accused of illegally selling machine guns and a former county official who paid himself $25,000 in allegedly improper bonuses from a fund used to hire extra staff to pursue unpaid child support."

More HERE

from Warner Todd Huston

Rahm Emanuel is now officially sworn in as Chicago’s 46th mayor so we can now officially swear at him. Of course, we all know that today’s ceremony was merely a formality as he was anointed mayor months ago the second that Mayor Daley announced the end of his long reign of fiscal irresponsibility in the Windy City.

Interestingly, WLS news said that there were many seats left empty at the ceremony, even in the VIP area. One might assume that Mayor Emanuel has yet to endear himself to all the little people. With his no-nonsense, hard-nosed reputation, one wonders if he ever will?

Saying, “Our city’s financial situation is difficult and profound,” Emanuel warned the city that his upcoming term will not be an easy one.

via www.publiusforum.com

An alderman running Chicago? That's what we're supposed to believe when we're watching Fox's new cop show, "Chicago Code." That might sound plausible to Hollywood, but it makes it hard for us to watch. Especially when how Chicago really operates is a lot more entertaining. 

Chicago Code, which I assume is its take on the Chicago Way, should take its cameras inside City Haul (although I doubt Mayor Richard M. Daley would allow it), and portray a mayor who pretends that he doesn't know what's going on while he actually runs things; a mayor who runs amok and rips up a valued Chicago airport in the middle of the night; a mayor who insists on expanding an airport that the airlines don't want.

Wait, maybe Hollywood is right. No one would believe it. 

And this might be the most unbelievable part: The Chicago Police Department busting up official corruption in Chicago. Let's see, I've lived much of my 69 years in Chicago and I cannot remember a single time that the CPD has taken on City Hall corruption. Hell, not even the state's attorney or the Illinois attorney general do that. Everyone here knows that it takes the U.S. Attorney for the northern district of Illinois. If his name is Patrick Fitzgerald 

With all due respect to Chicago police officers--when you say they put their lives on the line for us, it's not a cliche. It's the real thing. But sweeping the crap out of City Hall is not one of their jobs. 

from Chicago News Cooperative

Organized labor is planning to spend millions of dollars and deploy thousands of volunteers across Chicago’s wards in the coming election to expand its influence at City Hall.

Although the largest labor groups appear to be staying neutral in the race for the open mayor’s post (see related story), the union that is the top donor to Illinois political campaigns is positioning itself to play an important role in the City Council races.

Leaders of that group, the Service Employees International Union, say they hope to build on the gains of four years ago with a strong showing in the Feb. 22 election and the April runoff voting. In 2007, the S.E.I.U. spent almost $2.5 million to aid council candidates, helping unseat some of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s most loyal supporters.

Read more HERE

George Ryan. (Chicago Tribune archives)

I've extracted just a small piece of the decision (below) to show its tight reasoning. This selection addresses in part Ryan's arguments that he should be released because the U.S. Supreme Court undercut one of the charges against Ryan, that his corrupt acts denied Illinois citizens of his honest services. This part begins on page 3 of the decision:

DISCUSSION

Ryan advances two grounds in support for his motion to vacate or set aside his mail fraud and RICO convictions. First, he urges that Skilling undermines the jury instructions: "Because the court's jury instructions were erroneous under Skilling and the error was not harmless, Ryan's conviction and Sentence are unlawful." (Mot. to Vacate ¶ 14.) Second, Ryan urges that under the standard established in Skilling, the evidence is "insufficient to support Ryan's mail fraud and RICO convictions . . . ." (Id.) Because his conviction should be vacated, Ryan urges, he should be released immediately and admitted to bail. (Mot. to Set Bail ¶ 2.)

Skilling is unquestionably relevant here and warrants examination of Ryan's conviction. That said, it is important to note that Skilling's appeal to the Supreme Court presented substantially different circumstances from those in Ryan's case. Skilling had been charged with "conspiring to defraud Enron's shareholders by misrepresenting the company's fiscal health, thereby artificially inflating its stock price." Skilling, 130 S. Ct. at 2934. Skilling was prosecuted for these acts, characterized as depriving his private employer and its shareholders of the intangible right to his honest services, and the Supreme Court "acknowledge[d] that Skilling's vagueness challenge hasforce." Id. at 2929.

George Ryan, on the other hand, held statewide elected office, and as more fully described below, the conduct for which he was convicted--steering contracts, leases, and other governmental benefits in exchange for private gain--was well-recognized before his conviction as conduct that falls into the "solid core" of honest services fraud. Such conduct was identified by the Court in Skilling as the proper target of § 1346. Id. at 2930-31.

In response to Skilling's argument that the statute is void for vagueness, the Supreme Court acknowledged that due process requires any "'penal statute [to] define the criminal offense [1] with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and [2] in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.'" Id. at 2927-28 (quoting Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 357 (1983)). Ryan's current challenge does not rest on vagueness grounds, and the court believes that, in the language of Skilling, Ryan clearly understood "what conduct was prohibited" and could not have been surprised that he was subject to prosecution. Ryan's efforts to conceal his conduct from public scrutiny themselves demonstrate he knew it was improper.

Indeed, long before George Ryan and his associates wrote this chapter in Illinois's distressing history of public corruption, one of Ryan's predecessors as Governor, Otto Kerner, was prosecuted under this same theory by an earlier United States Attorney.3 On direct appeal in this case, the Seventh Circuit acknowledged that the statute could be challenged if Defendants Ryan and Warner "could not have known that the conduct underlying their convictions could be considered 'depriv[ing] another of the intangible right of honest services.'" United States v. Warner, 498 F.3d 666, 697 (7th Cir. 2007) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 1346). As applied in this case, the Court of Appeals concluded, the statute is not unconstitutionally vague--a conclusion that drew no comment from the dissenting judge.

Four years ago, in writing about Ryan's prosecution, Professor Alschuler (who was not then  one of Ryan's lawyers) asserted that "the mail fraud and RICO statutes unfairly stack the deck" in  large part because the Government was allowed to present "every allegation of criminal and  non-criminal misconduct by Ryan and Warner that prosecutors have collected," and if "some of  the dirt they have thrown at the wall has stuck, [the jury] is likely to find the defendants guilty of the  principal charges against them.

At oral argument on the motions before this court, Alschuler argued again that "[a]ll of this evidence went into one churning cauldron."  (Oral Arg. at 5.) Skilling, however, did not invalidate the honest services mail fraud statute, nor did  it invalidate RICO. Skilling limited prosecutions under these statutes to bribery and kickback  schemes--the very theory of prosecution under which Ryan was convicted. Skilling emphasized  that when Congress reinstated the honest services mail fraud statute after it was invalidated by  McNally v. United States, 483 U.S. 350 (1987), the focus was on "core" or "paradigmatic" cases  involving kickback or bribery schemes. The Skilling Court made several references to Shushan v.  United States, 117 F.2d 110 (5th Cir. 1941), as an example of the paradigmatic case that would  survive its ruling. Skilling, 130 S. Ct. at 2926, 2931. Notably, our own Court of Appeals4 relied on  Shushan when it upheld Otto Kerner's conviction, quoting this language: 

No trustee has more sacred duties than a public official and any scheme to obtain  an advantage by corrupting such an one must in the federal law be considered a  scheme to defraud. . . . A scheme to get a public contract on more favorable terms than would likely be got otherwise by bribing a public official would not only be a  plan to commit the crime of bribery, but would also be a scheme to defraud the  public.  United States v. Isaacs, 493 F.2d 1124, 1150 (7th Cir. 1974) (quoting Shushan v. United States,  117 F.2d 115 (5th Cir. 1941)). The Seventh Circuit then observed that "this is precisely what  occurred here. The citizens of Illinois were defrauded of Kerner's honest and faithful services as  governor." 493 F.2d at 1151. Ryan's prosecution, like Kerner's before it, targeted conduct that remains at the core of honest services fraud.

While Skilling did not comment directly on Ryan's case, it came close. In a particularly relevant section, the Court noted that "the honest-services doctrine had its genesis in prosecutions involving bribery allegations." 130 S. Ct. at 2931 (citations omitted).

That section cites United States v. Sorich, 523 F.3d 702, 707 (7th Cir. 2008), for its language that these prosecutions constitute "most [of the] honest services cases. . . ." Sorich itself, in the section cited in Skilling states: Broadly speaking, honest services fraud cases come in two types. In the first, an employer is defrauded of its employee's honest services by the employee or another. . . . In the second and more common type of case, the citizenry is defrauded of its right to the honest services of a public servant, again, by that servant or by someone else. For instance, in United States v. Warner, 498 F.3d 666 (7th Cir. 2007), the Illinois Secretary of State [Ryan] channeled state contracts and leases to a friend in return for paid vacations. In both examples above, and in most honest services cases, the defendant violates a fiduciary duty in return for cash-kickbacks, bribes, or other payments. 523 F.3d at 707. The Seventh Circuit and the Supreme Court have, thus, acknowledged that this case presents the paradigmatic type of case undisturbed by Skilling. This does not end our inquiry, of course, because neither court grappled with the details presented here. It does, however, suggest that in many cases, and in Ryan's 5 case, Skilling was not the sea change that Ryan urges. 

---

*Professor Alschuler, now one of Ryan's attorneys, characterized the prosecution of Otto Kerner in 1973 as one of the trailblazing honest services prosecutions. Albert W. Alschuler, The Mail Fraud & RICO Racket: Thoughts on the Trial of George Ryan.

Congratulations! You made it this far. 

From Big Government

I walked to the door camera rolling, gave it a knock, and Emanuel’s staffer opened the door. Rahm was right behind the door so I asked him the question I came to ask: “When did you know about the accounting irregularities at Freddie Mac?” Rahm heard the question but turned his back without answering it. I am sure his lawyer is probably happy to read that. All the while, Rahm’s Deputy Press Secretary was talking over my questions, pushing me, and blocking my camera – all things she wouldn’t have been doing had I been asking “nice” questions. Afterwards, a senior Rahm staffer led her away saying from me, “You don’t need to talk with him, trust me.”

Kelly/Rahm from Breitbart on Vimeo.

Several local politicians attended the rally, led by U.S. Rep.Danny Davis, at the New Tabernacle of Faith Baptist Church, which was filled with union workers when Hendon launched into his attack on Republican governor nominee Bill Brady, a state senator from Bloomington.

“Let me tell you a couple things. I’ve served with Bill Brady. I’ve never served with such an idiotic, racist, sexist, homophobic person in my life,” Hendon told the crowd. “If you think that the minimum wage needs to be $3 an hour, vote for Bill Brady. If you think that women have no rights whatsoever except to have his children, vote for Bill Brady. If you think gay and lesbian people need to be locked up and shot in the head, vote for Bill Brady.”

The crowd clapped loudly as Hendon wound up his sermon-style introduction, some shouting “No sir!” as Hendon ticked off his criticism of Brady.

Is there a connection?

Some of the Chicago media tried to sanitize Hendon’s remarks. How much more does the Chicago/Illinois media know about these subpoenas, given they were issued back in August. Hmm?

The subpoenas went to DCEO and the Departments of Children and Family Services, Human Services, Public Health, and the State Board of Education.

I understand from an anonymous credible source that Quinn may receive a subpoena too, if he hasn’t already. Isn’t this something the voters should know before the election?

Some may say they don’t want to politicize the legal process, but this seems way too convenient for the Dems, considering we had the same kind of thing going on with Blago when he was reelected–he was under NINE separate federal investigations.Now he has been impeached. And convicted in the courts on one count. So far.

Kelly, a Chicagoan, was there when Rahm Emmanuel was pressing the flesh, kissing babies, and greeting reporters. Emmanuel didn’t account for unassuming Kelly to fire off serious journalistic questions more pressing than the requisite “how’s it feel to be back?”

Kelly didn’t account for was the manner in which Chicago reporters behaved. Are these reporters or palace guards? In the video you see them physically move to shield Emmanuel from Kelly’s questioning, as though their backs alone would deflect the questions. Kelly is berated and shoved by mainstream media journalists, but the scene stealer is when CBS2’s Jay Levine (who has not responded to my requests for comment) screams at Kelly, “Let him finish or I’m gonna deck you!”

Read more at Big Journalism