The governor of Illinois has tried desperately to hang on to his job. If he is guilty, his torment underlines a problem that seems to afflict politicians in many places, including New York.
Gov. Rod Blagoyevich even invited a group of ministers to his home to pray with him. One said afterwards: “Everybody that's hurting needs hope and the family needs hope and that's what our jobs are as pastors. Nobody should be left hopeless.”
But, although the law says everyone is deemed innocent until proved guilty, there is a sense of hopelessness about this man and his political future.
Meanwhile, the atorney general of Illinois has taken an unprecedented action.
She has asked the state's highest court to strip Governor Blagojevich of his powers.
His right-hand man, his chief of staff, has already resigned. The attorney general, Lisa Madigan, asked the Supreme Court for a temporary restraining order, or injunction, to prevent the governor from exercising his powers. It's the first time in the history of Illinois that such an action has been taken.
“The pervasive nature and severity of these pending charges,” Madigan said in court papers, “disable Mr. Blagojevich from making effective decisions on critical, time-sensitive issues.”
The governor is accused in a federal indictment of, in effect, trying to auction off the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Barack Obama.
He is charged with conspiracy and soliciting bribes. The governor denies the charges.
In one tape recording provided by prosecutors, he said: “I've got this thing and it's [expletive] golden. And I'm just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing. I'm not going to do it. And I can always use it. I can parachute me there.”
In New York, too, the virus of possible corruption has just appeared again.
Nora S. Anderson, elected last month to Surrogate Court, is accused of concealing the source of $250,000 in campaign contributions.
The head of the law firm where she works is charged with putting that money into her campaign account.
Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau says “They took fairly elaborate steps to evade the law. Miss Anderson should have run in Illinois.”
he New York Court of Appeals can suspend her pending trial on the criminal charges before she serves a day as Manhattan Surrogate.
The remarkable thing about campaign finance reform is how many people have tried to outwit the reformers. But there is another characteristic that often applies to the corrupt -- stupidity.
Indeed, Father Joseph O'Hare, the founding chairman of New York City's Campaign Finance Board, told me: “I am amazed at how inept many people accused of evading campaign finance laws are. They are sometimes ingenious in trying to get around the law but, in many cases they are just plain stupid and they're caught, sooner or later.”
