* The Associated Press often acts like a giant blogger by repackaging stories into little briefs. Too often, though, those briefs skew the story. For instance, this story is headlined: “Insiders got early notice of college savings deal”…
People with connections to the Illinois treasurer’s office got early notice of a limited offer that added cash to college savings accounts, giving them an edge over thousands of people who were shut out of the deal.
Treasurer Dan Rutherford tells the Chicago Tribune that early word was sent out solely as a promotion because officials weren’t sure the new offer would be popular. Rutherford says it was a mistake that won’t happen again.
The offer was for the Bright Start savings program. People could deposit up to $250 and have that money matched by the firm running the program.
* You already know the back story. Bright Start’s administrator, Oppenheimer Funds, sent out 100,000 letters to the college savings program participants on May 31st offering to match their next $250 contribution. Trouble is, the offer was limited to the first 2,500 people and about 8,500 people took up the offer by going to the plan’s website. But the website wasn’t changed to reflect the fact that the money had dried up until a day after all the cash was spoken for, which left some folks quite angry.
* The Tribune reports that Rutherford’s office sent its workers an e-mail the same day Oppenheimer mailed the letters from New Jersey, giving Rutherford’s employees a clear head start on everyone else. That was obviously a bad move. The e-mail encouraged the employees to forward the offer to their friends and family. Not good, either.
* However, Rutherford’s employees were not eligible for the matching funds, according to the Tribune’s report. That little factoid was buried deep within the Trib’s story, which was headlined “Family, friends got head start in Bright Start match - Treasurer’s office employees were sent email about $250 program before general public received letters.”
The workers’ friends and family were eligible, of course, but the Tribune could only find “about 25 people” who were forwarded the e-mails from state accounts. Not great, but hardly a gigantic scandal.
The Tribune also noted that the Bright Start website announced the program on May 27th - days before anybody was notified by e-mail or snail mail.
And, despite what the AP claims, Rutherford himself was never quoted by the Tribune as saying “early word was sent out solely as a promotion because officials weren’t sure the new offer would be popular.” That comment was attributed by the Trib to an official at his office.
* Whether this was just another stupid bungle or something more nefarious, this whole thing has become a PR disaster for Rutherford, who obviously thought the stunt would be popular…
Doran Phillips, who has a savings account for his 31/2-year-old son, said he still hasn’t received the promotional letter and feels cheated out of $250.
“It was just a screw-up, but still it had a bad consequence,” said Phillips, of Palos Park. “They are giving away this money and couldn’t give it away in a fair and responsible manner. They devised a method of giving it away that was totally unfair unless you happen to be one of the lucky people.”
The $625,000 for the promotion came from Oppenheimer Funds, which manages Bright Start, as part of its contract with the state to pay for scholarships. Oppenheimer was responsible for mailing the letters and updating the website, treasurer’s office officials have said.
The promotion was open to existing account holders who made a one-time special contribution. Account holders who coincidentally made a donation at the beginning of the month, even if it was unrelated to the promotion, received the match.
Unfortunately for Rutherford, the TV ads about this will write themselves.
* With all the negativity sparked by the Blagojevich verdict, I thought we’d try to balance that out with a little positivity. So…
* The Question: In your opinion, who was the best Illinois governor of the modern era? I define “modern era” as the period since the new state Constitution was drafted. Take the poll and then fully explain your answer in comments, please.
Inmates in at least one state prison are being forced to wear the same used underwear for several days in a row because of a clothing shortage.
The situation, says a prison watchdog group, is not only icky, but could potentially lead to illness. And it isn’t limited to just one facility.
In a recent report, the John Howard Association says a visit to the Taylorville Correctional Center found inmates wearing dirty, threadbare clothes that are only being washed twice a week.
Since the minimum-security prison only issues two pairs of boxer shorts to inmates, that means they must wear them for at least half of the week. Or, the group suggests, some inmates could decide to forgo wearing underwear altogether.
With the start of a new budget year just two days away, thousands of Illinois businesses are still waiting for state income tax refunds dating back to 2009.
The Illinois Department of Revenue said Tuesday it would end the fiscal year June 30 still owing about $620 million in business income tax refunds. As of June 21, the department still owed 7,572 business income tax refunds, although spokeswoman Sue Hofer said the number by the end of the month would be lower because some since have been paid.
The oldest of the overdue refunds goes back to April or May of 2009, she said. The average amount of the refunds owed is $104,000. Hofer said refunds less than $5,000 have been paid.
The average is $104K? Wow. Yet more evidence that state government is one of the biggest drags on Illinois’ economy.
In the agency’s Chicago and Springfield tax-processing offices, full- and part-time employees who handled confidential tax returns were permitted to carry personal cell phones equipped with cameras, Holland found.
Holland also found sensitive tax records on desks, open shelving areas and tables in areas where visitors had access and, in one instance, stored in an open bin in a readily accessible hallway within a tax-processing area.
Holland also disclosed instances where uncashed taxpayer checks turned up in the desk drawers of employees who no longer worked for the Department of Revenue and faulted the agency for not performing background checks on state workers who had access to the department’s taxpayer-information database.
“I don’t think we proved instances of identity theft,” Holland told the Chicago Sun-Times. “But I’d tell you, when you have so many people with so much access to so many records, it’s only a matter of time until something bad happens.”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel vowed Tuesday to defuse a financial time bomb left behind by former Mayor Richard M. Daley — without unpaid furlough days and with or without union help.
“Furloughs have not worked out economically or for morale — and I’ve heard it directly from the workers. I also know that it’s not worked out for the taxpayers — the people I represent … It hasn’t been the panacea” it was purported to be, Emanuel said.
“June 30 … the furloughs will end. … The city work force will get their vacation days and their full work week in. The taxpayers will get that as well. … But, I’m committed to seeing through the $30 million in savings [generated by unpaid days off required of the entire city work force]. Make no mistake about it.” […]
On Tuesday, the mayor said he’s poised to wield his budget ax at midnight Thursday, presumably by sending out layoff notices.
And while he’s still holding out hope that organized labor will help bridge at least part of the gap, he’s prepared to act unilaterally if they don’t.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel today revealed that he’s offered City Hall labor unions a choice: Agree to $20 million in savings through work-rule changes or face 625 layoffs.
“If you don’t, that will be the choice left to me on behalf of the taxpayers,” Emanuel said at a news conference to announce Walgreens will add 600 jobs in Chicago over the next two years.
Labor leaders will take 10 days to two weeks to put together their own package of proposed cuts, the mayor said. He would not say whether he will issue the layoff notices in the meantime. “I’m not just going to sit here and wait. I’ll make certain decisions,” he said
* Related…
* Regional school chiefs await final state budget: According to information from Franklin-Williamson Regional Superintendent Matt Donkin, the state budget includes $2.2 million for program costs in the 2012 fiscal year, down from $4.4 million in 2011. The $4.4 million this year was 43 percent of the 2003 budget allotment.
* Consolidation could be survival option for struggling towns
* Decades after Council Wars, Burke’s bodyguards questioned - Finance Committee chairman kept police protection in racially charged era; now critics doubt need in tight budget times
* Chicago convention officials prepare new moves to tout tourism
* Walgreen to add 600 city jobs: In a news conference at a South Side Walgreen store, Mr. Emanuel and company officials announced the huge drugstore chain will add food products to roughly 40 additional stores in so-called food deserts, up from 11 currently that sell a wider range of groceries.
Jury forewoman Connie Wilson, 56, of Naperville, said she thought she recognized what Blagojevich was up to when he started picking and choosing details from his personal history. The details appeared to mirror personal information that came out when the judge questioned the jury pool before testimony began, she said.
“I said, ‘Do you remember what he talked about . . . [while testifying about his home] library?’ ” Wilson said she told other jurors during their deliberations. “He pointed to something in the library that pertained to almost everybody on the jury.”
She said jurors started piecing it together.
Over his seven days of testimony, Blagojevich mentioned books, targeting a librarian on the jury; pointed out an interest in music, directing the comment toward Wilson, the former choral director at Holy Spirit Catholic Community in Naperville; and discussed the importance of education, to connect with a teacher, Wilson said. “He even brought out at one point something about Boston, and of course our gentleman was a huge Boston fan,” she said with a laugh, remembering the male juror’s many Boston-themed T-shirts.
Know hope.
* Speaking of hope, a commenter pointed out this recent New York Times story about how Bernie Madoff’s judge decided to go with the ultimate max in his sentencing order…
Judge Chin said he quickly rejected the idea of a 12-year sentence for Mr. Madoff, but pondered whether 20 to 25 years might be acceptable. He ultimately concluded that even that “would have been just way too low.”
“In the end, I just thought he didn’t deserve it,” he said. “The benefits of giving him hope were far outweighed by all of the other considerations.”
Judge Chin would impose a term of 150 years on Mr. Madoff, perhaps the most stunning and widely discussed sentencing in the history of American white-collar crime. In doing so, he seemed to find a way to translate society’s rage into a number.
And New York legal analyst Jami Floyd makes a prediction…
You will recall that many of the experts who are now predicting a ten-year sentence for Blagojevich also predicted a ten-year sentence for Bernard Madoff. Madoff was older (71). He was also convicted in federal court and the sentencing guidelines in that case suggested a 13-year term. Instead, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years and will never see the light of day. I predict a slightly kinder, gentler sentence for Blagojevich; something in the order of 20-25 years.
* More legal analysis. This time, about the appeal…
Veteran appeals lawyer Joel Bertocchi said that in his experience, broad-based claims of unfairness don’t usually work.
“He needs to show specifically how (the recordings) would have helped and how the defense was seriously injured by the inability to play them,” he said. […]
Another obstacle to a successful appeal could be Blagojevich’s own testimony, Bertocchi said. Many of the judges on the appeals court were once trial judges themselves, he said, and they know that once a defendant testifies, that’s more or less the ballgame.
The jury either believes you or, as in Blagojevich’s case, it doesn’t.
It’s up to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to place a prisoner, but experts say that the length of Blagojevich’s sentence could be a key factor in deciding whether the former governor is in a place with guards and bars or in a place with khakis and cards.
Defendants who are sentenced to more than 10 years in prison typically don’t get a spot in the more-desired prison camps, said defense attorney Jeffrey Steinback, who is regarded as an expert in federal sentencing and who has testified before the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Rod Blagojevich won’t likely ever set foot in a courtroom again as a practicing attorney thanks to the sweeping corruption convictions a federal jury handed down.
The top lawyer for the Illinois Supreme Court’s Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission, the legal panel that polices lawyer misconduct, said it is a virtual certainty Blagojevich will be disbarred as a result of his convictions.
Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist were both upset by the decision. “It is a miscarriage of justice. They can’t prove it,” said Scarborough. Geist lamented, “I grew up in a country where you only had to stand trial once for a crime. Didn’t they already go through this once? Nothing stuck.”
Scarborough laid his law degree on the table: “Here’s the deal. I don’t want to talk about it a lot, but I am a lawyer. And I can tell you, I didn’t have to go to law school to learn about a little concept called double jeopardy…The entire weight of the government leaning down on him. The jury goes, “no, we see nothing wrong with this man except perhaps his hair cut.” And then he wins and then they throw the entire weight of the federal government on him again twice. I’m sorry. That’s just not the America I grew up in. ”
What Scarborough forgets (or never learned) is that the Blagojevich case is not subject to double jeopardy. The Fifth Amendment protection against double jeopardy is designed to protect the acquitted from multiple and repeated prosecutions, and only applies to cases in which a verdict has been reached. Because 23 of the counts against Blagojevich were declared mistrials, no judgment had been reached. According to Chicago defense attorney Ava George Stewart, “if the jury had decided that Blagojevich was not guilty, then the government could not retry him, as they have already indicated they intend to do. In this case, Double Jeopardy is inapplicable.”
* National pundits were wrong again. No surprise, since most don’t bother to do even basic fact-checking and just repeat pre-approved talking points…
Last fall, when Rahm Emanuel left his post as White House chief of staff, some political analysts warned that his dealings with Blagojevich could doom his chances to be elected mayor of Chicago.
But Emanuel easily won. And while he testified briefly at Blagojevich’s second trial, he was never accused of any wrongdoing. In fact, on the charge directly involving Emanuel — that Blagojevich tried to shake down Emanuel for a fundraiser — jurors were unable to reach a verdict.
What the clueless pundits deliberately failed to realize was that Blagojevich had predicted that Emanuel could clear him. He was actually right on one point. The juror failed to convict the former governor on charges that he had attempted to extort a campaign fundraiser from Emanuel’s brother in exchange for releasing grant money to a school in Emanuel’s congressional district back in 2006. Emanuel testified that he was never told of any proposed deal.
* Naperville woman was reluctant to be Blagojevich jury foreman: “Some of the women actually said, ‘I’m sure we’re going to be characterized as the typical woman who talks ad nauseam,’ and you know, it really wasn’t that way,” she said. “Everybody was very much trying to find ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ and that’s what everything’s based on, and we would go back to that premise very often.”
* Tinley Park juror: Blago ‘really cheated the people of Illinois’: “He really cheated the people of Illinois, or tried to. He took an oath to do what was best for the people of Illinois and he didn’t do it. So we’ll have another governor in jail,” she said.
* Jurors at Blagojevich retrial say they used communication techniques, tried to stay in harmony: Wilson put her choir-directing skills, perfected at Naperville’s Holy Spirit church, to use in trying to track how the group was interacting and whether some jurors were out of sync. “With a choir, you’re looking for trouble spots in the music and going back,” she said. “I was listening to all the jurors, understanding where they were, then adjusting, go back.”
* Aurora juror finds relief as Blagojevich trial ends: Bennett said she was warned that Monday’s press conference after the verdict was handed down would not be the end of the media’s interest in her and other members of the jury. While some jurors were hesitant to talk to the press, Bennett said she felt it was part of her duty. She gladly sat down with a host of reporters on Tuesday to answer questions and give insight into what went on behind closed doors over the last couple months.
* Gov. Pat Quinn did a fly-around yesterday to sign the workers’ compensation bill into law and appeared at Kraft Foods in Champaign. As part of the festivities, he was presented with a box of Kraft’s Macaroni & Cheese with his photo on it. It was a fun little presentation…
There’s no word yet on whether the governor also received a personalized truck during yesterday’s visit to Navistar.
* You probably saw this go by in the live feed yesterday…
Ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich turned to defense attorney Sheldon Sorosky and asked “What happened?” after he was found guilty of 17 of 20 charges in his corruption retrial.
* And then there was this quote as Blagojevich talked to reporters…
She died late Monday evening at Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee after a long bout with cancer, said Kankakee County Coroner Robert Gessner. She was 76.
Ryan had been released from his prison cell in Terre Haute, Ind., to spend several hours with her on Monday, one of four times since January the prison’s warden has allowed the former governor to see his ailing wife, despite repeatedly denied requests from the courts.
“It was enormously important to him and to her,” said Ryan attorney former Gov. Jim Thompson. “They’ve been together all their lives really.”
According to the Associated Press, the convictions carry a combined maximum prison sentence of around 300 years, but legal experts say a federal judge is likely to send him away for around a decade, give or take a few years.
But Blagojevich, when sentenced later this year, could be awarded 10 to 15 years in jail, according to other legal experts.
“Somewhere between six and 11 years. The sentencing guidelines by the United States Sentencing Commission have a mathematical formula. You punch in who he is, what he did, whether drugs were involved-which they weren’t - weapons, etc. and it gives you a range the judge will be able to sentence him. I think it will be a range somewhere between six and seven on the bottom and 11 on the top,” said Prof. Richard Kling, Kent College of Law.
George Ryan got 6 and a half years.
A status hearing is set for August 11th. A sentencing hearing schedule could be set then.
Before Blagojevich is sentenced, a probation officer using federal sentencing guidelines will calculate the range of punishment faced by Blagojevich. Then prosecutors and Blagojevich’s lawyers will argue about why more time should be added or shaved off.
Since the sentencing guidelines were made advisory and not mandatory about six years ago, Zagel has wide discretion to impose the sentence he thinks is just and fair.
“It’s the essential judgment call,” said former federal prosecutor Dean Polales, who is now a criminal-defense attorney. “The burden is entirely on him.”
Among the factors to be weighed are criminal history, the nature and circumstance of the offense, and the need for deterrence. Judges often also consider family circumstances.
The government will be certain to raise Blagojevich’s breach of the public trust as well as the pervasive culture of corruption that swirled around his administration, Loeb said.
And if he continues to insist he’s innocent? Bad things will happen come sentencing time. Remorseless convicts are rarely given a judicial break.
Also, just think of the deterrence factor if he did get 300 years. That’d make folks think twice, I’d wager.
Convicted of 18 felonies, including the lying charge from a year ago, Blagojevich will be required to post additional bond to remain free. He is likely to put up the remaining equity he has in his Ravenswood home and a half-million dollar condo in Washington. Details will be worked out within the next week at a meeting between his attorneys and prosecutors.
“There’ll be some paperwork that needs to be filled out in terms of his ability to post those things in a forfeiture agreement that he’ll sign and they’ll secure his bond,” said Reid Schar, assistant U.S. Attorney.
There are the post trial motions due four weeks from Monday on July 25. Among them: whether a Blagojevich request to remain free on bond as his appeal is considered. He would have to show a compelling reason that his appeal is likely to succeed, a standard difficult to meet. It didn’t succeed for ex-governor George Ryan.
Blagojevich lawyers will argue the conviction should be reversed because the ex-governor wasn’t allowed to play certain tapes.
His first attorney, Sam Adam Jr., is likely to help prepare the appeal that could take months.
“He was not able to corroborate his own innocence with the tapes that we know and that they wanted to put in that show he was not committing a crime. I think we’ll see that in the Seventh Circuit, I think we’ll see that on the appeal, and I think he’ll end up vindicated,” said Adams Jr.
* Scott Fawell, speaking from experience, offers some sound advice…
Rod will face a different world once he starts prison life. The clothes he wears, his living quarters, his roommates and the food he eats will be decided not by him, but by the Bureau of Prisons . He won’t be Gov. Blagojevich to the prison guards. He’ll be a prisoner with a prison registration number that ends with 424, the “Chicago” designation. His every movement will be limited and watched at all times by the guards and security cameras. He will be given a job earning 12 cents an hour working in the kitchen, as an orderly or on the prison landscaping crew. His communications with loved ones will be limited. He will be allowed 300 phone minutes a month to call home. Three hundred minutes, which averages out to 10 minutes a day. Barely time to say hello, and certainly not enough time to hear about the kids’ school play or deal with even the smallest family crisis. Those matters must wait for visiting day, which may be only one or two weekends a month. Not a lot of time to stay connected.
Daily prison life can be made easier or more difficult depending on your attitude and demeanor. Follow the rules, don’t rock the boat, be respectful of the staff and your life can be bearable. Be arrogant, obnoxious and disrespectful, and the guards and staff can and will make your life a living hell. This is not an environment where independent thought, discussion or actions are encouraged. It’s the BOP’s game, on its court, playing by its rules. You learn quickly to play ball or you pay a price. I was given this piece of advice by an old friend who had been in federal prison: “Check your ego and personality at the door when you check in, and pick them back up on the way out.” It was sound advice. […]
It’s essential that you stay mentally strong. You can make the time bearable or you can let it eat away at you. It’s really only up to you. While I can’t say prison wasn’t difficult and certainly challenging at times, I can say prison is not the end. Rod, here’s some unsolicited advice. Go serve your time quietly, get out and then just move on with your life.
When Betty Loren-Maltese caught glimpses of Rod Blagojevich preening for the cameras during his corruption trial last year, one thought kept coming back to her: This guy is not ready for prison.
Loren-Maltese, the former town president of Cicero, is an expert on the subject. After being convicted in 2002 of helping bilk her town out of $12 million, she spent seven years in federal custody before gaining her freedom last year.
Though she thinks Blagojevich toned down his celebrity act during the second trial, Loren-Maltese still wonders how he’ll adjust to the stark, often humiliating existence behind bars.
“Most people have a fixed opinion of politicians,” she said. “A lot of prisoners feel (politicians) might even be responsible for them being in prison. I don’t think it’ll be easy for him, but it’ll definitely change his attitude and make him realize he’s not the king.”
* Related…
* Prison wouldn’t mean end of locks for Blagojevich
* Blagojevich likely to lose state pension, keep federal perk: Ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich stands to lose a $65,000-a-year state pension as a felon, but he’s likely to be eligible for $15,000 a year in federal retirement pay for his time as a congressman. The defrocked Democrat also would be eligible for a refund of about $128,000 in personal contributions he made to the state’s retirement fund.
* Yesterday, Gov. Pat Quinn reacted to the Rod Blagojevich verdict by reviving his proposal from last year to give Illinoisans a right to petition the General Assembly to act on ethics bills. Listen…
Quinn used his amendatory veto pen last year to add this referenda language. It would require 100,000 signatures be gathered and then the proposal would be submitted to the House, which would be required to vote up or down. If it pased, it would move on to the Senate, which would also have to give it a recorded vote. If it failed to become law, the proposal would be put on the ballot as an advisory referendum.
Since last year’s AV, the governor appeared to drop the whole idea and didn’t press for its passage during session this year.
* As I told you yesterday, Quinn also wants a conflict of interest law for the General Assembly. That’s easier said than done, of course. For instance, should a farmer be prohibited from voting on farm bills? Or do you go the way of Congress and forbid all outside income unless assets are put into a blind trust?
* Quinn also talked about open primaries. This is a longstanding cause for the governor, but he’s always been rebuffed. And he spoke about expanding recall to more state and local officials.
Ronan said that despite appearances of business as usual, in some cases the reform movement has gone too far. The climate post-Blagojevich is so sensitive to appearances of conflicts of interest, he said, that it slows innovation and drives businesses away.
“They broke the system for procurement,” Ronan said of the contract-awarding process. “Right now, it’s difficult for legitimate businesses to go through the machinations.”
Changes in the procurement process restrict the contact companies seeking business with the state of Illinois can have with state agency personnel. An engineering firm with new technology to build bridges, for example, can’t meet with Illinois Department of Transportation officials to talk about it, and then bid on a project to install the technology, Ronan said.
The paperwork — and fear that any behind-the-scenes meetings might spur speculation of an inside deal – have resulted in undue, unreasonable constraints and caused some businesses to simply look elsewhere, he said.
* Meanwhile, two Tribune reporters offer up this bit of analysis…
Republicans had hoped to capitalize last year on Blagojevich’s tainted past, yet found themselves losing a third straight election for governor. This time the loss was at the hands of Pat Quinn, the lieutenant governor who ascended to the top spot after Blagojevich was impeached and removed.
Blagojevich himself may be partly responsible for the lack of change. As governor, he courted Republican insiders and others who could strengthen his political hand, regardless of whether it built his standing with fellow Democrats.
Even out of office, the focus was on Blagojevich’s behavior. Instead of keeping his mouth shut as so many politicians facing criminal charges have done in the past, he took two national media tours to tout his innocence, wrote a book, hosted a radio talk show and appeared in a “reality” TV show.
The glib Blagojevich was routinely portrayed as a fool, the jester who turned Illinois politics into the punch line of a national joke. But that also allowed the state’s political class to portray him as an oddity instead of a symptom of a troubled system.
Voters seemed to see it the same way.
He was most certainly an outlier. If the system was full of Rod Blagojevich types, we’d have crashed and burned long ago. The man was a menace.
On Monday, [Fitzgerald] said the key question for the jury was whether to accept the defense suggestion that Blagojevich’s activities amounted to “the kind of political wheeling and dealing that is common in Illinois and around the country.”
“That,” said Fitzgerald, his voice rising, “couldn’t be any further from the truth. … Selling a Senate seat, shaking down a children’s hospital and squeezing a person to give money before you sign a bill that benefits them is not a gray area. It’s a crime.”
* The Tribune editorial board, however, is not impressed…
In the background, the cadence from Springfield never varies: Trust us — We fixed it! Blagojevich was an outlier. You can relax.
Relaxing, though, got the people of Illinois where we are. Too many of us do not treat elections as choices of how respectfully we’ll be governed. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald alluded to that abdication of civic duty when he announced Blagojevich’s arrest in December 2008. Fitzgerald talked about the pervasive corruption in Illinois and how the feds alone couldn’t end it: “You look to the FBI to do a lot. You look to law enforcement to do a lot. But the real effort to clean up corruption is going to start with the citizenry.”
Blagojevich was an outlier, and, yes, the problem isn’t fixed, and, yes, we need better candidates. Maybe if the Tribune hadn’t wasted its endorsement on Andy McKenna last year, an electable Republican might’ve been nominated. Newspapers don’t have all that much power these days, but even the Trib could’ve swung a couple hundred votes to Kirk Dillard. Also, with the awesome corporate political power unleashed nationally by the US Supreme Court, you’re not going to find many Democratic politicians amenable to putting even stricter campaign caps into law.
Look closely, though, and you’ll see that Illinois already has begun putting the Blago era behind it.
The state Legislature passed important ethics reforms in the dark months following Blagojevich’s arrest. Illinois enacted its first-ever limit on campaign donations, improved the way it lets contracts and strengthened its freedom of information law. And this spring, for the first time in years, we witnessed the workings of functioning state Legislature.
During the Blagojevich years, the governor was deemed so untrustworthy that few in the Legislature would work with him, bringing the process to a halt.
But this spring, the Democratic-led Legislature started its budget work by responsibly projecting state revenues — a novel concept! — and passing a budget. The
Legislature passed a major education-reform package and fixed a broken workers-compensation system.
That was progress, although nobody would call it a whole new day. As Jim Bray of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, puts it: “The bar was extremely low.”
None other than House Speaker Michael Madigan — Blagojevich’s political nemesis, we learned in his two trials — co-chaired Blagojevich’s re-election campaign. Apparently in Illinois, having a Democrat as governor was more important than having a governor unencumbered by a federal investigation.
Party leaders can make all the excuses they want for their support of Blagojevich in 2006 — he had too much money to challenge in a primary, we only nominally supported him — but it changes nothing. Given what the general public knew about the federal investigation of the administration, and given the poor record Blagojevich had in his first term, the leaders of his party should have had the courage to challenge him.
* We just barely missed setting a new page-view record yesterday, coming up just barely short of Rod Blagojevich’s arrest day. One reason is our new ScribbleLive software, which doesn’t require reloading the page to see updates. Without that, I’m confident we would’ve easily surpassed that crazy December day in 2008 when we were knocked offline for what seemed like an eternity.
Some folks had difficulty accessing the blog yesterday, particularly just as the jury verdict was read. Site speed did slow down quite a bit, but at least we weren’t knocked completely offline like the Sun-Times, WBEZ and others were. And if you were already on the page and watching the ScribbleLive feed, you didn’t notice a thing.
Instead of private ballot, they did a “fist to five” vote, a consensus-building technique Karin Wilson [a teacher from Palatine] suggested. If a juror raised a hand with all five fingers, that meant they were leaning strongly toward guilty. A fist was innocent. If the juror was somewhere in between, the number of fingers held up gave an indication of which way she or he was leaning.
Connie Wilson said they had about four or five separate votes on each count.
* They seemed to be intelligent, calm, rational and respectful…
“Everybody was very respectful,” Hubinek said. “When I think of how a jury should go, this is what I thought about.”
Maribel DeLeon, a juror who often smiled at the ex-governor during his testimony, said she wanted to side with Blagojevich.
The evidence, though, did not side with him.
“I’d come in thinking, ‘OK, he’s not guilty,’ and then all of a sudden I’m like, Gosh darn you, Rod! You did it again!” said DeLeon, the mother of three. “He proved himself guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. He kept saying ‘Do it.’ ‘Push it.’ ‘Get it done.’ That’s where he crossed the line.” [..]
Another described the former politician as coming across as “personable” during parts of seven days on the stand.
“It made it hard to separate that from what we actually had to do as jurors,” said Juror 103, a bartender and self-described “weekend warrior” who pursues photography on the side.
The jury was “12 strangers” who evolved into “an amazing group of people” that should make taxpayers “proud,” the forewoman said. “They were so wanting to keep ‘innocent until proven guilty.’”
Jurors nodded in agreement as one female juror said the easiest decision was finding Blagojevich guilty of trying to peddle President Obama’s former Senate seat for his personal gain. Blagojevich’s defense lawyers contended Blagojevich’s tape-recorded comments about trading the Senate appointment for a high-powered job were just talk from a politician who liked to talk.
“Our verdict shows we did not believe it,” one juror said. She noted that Blagojevich went beyond talk because “there were several times he said, ‘Do it.’”
“There were just so many times he brought it up to people,” noted another juror.
* This is a far cry from the image of juries conjured up by John Kass earlier this week…
All it takes to sway a jury is one relentless personality, first going one way, then going the other, wearing down the more agreeable and placid folks.
How do I know this?
Because I was that personality (aka “that jerk”) when I performed a rather unscientific experiment in jury dynamics many years ago. […]
And I knew that [the jury forewoman] would soon come to hate me.
On the first day of deliberations, I argued against the boy and his grasping lawyers, saying we should all know this for what it was — an insurance scam. […]
But the next day, our brief meeting wasn’t brief. I dragged it out, saying I had a change of heart, because I wondered what would happen if that little boy wanted to attend the U.S. Naval Academy and fly jets? His eye injury might prevent it. […]
In one sense I was merely airing both sides of the argument, which is what jurors are supposed to do. But I was also testing how easily a jury can be manipulated. What I did was wrong, but I was always for the kid anyway, and justice was served.
Thankfully, the Blagojevich jury wasn’t interested in conducting silly experiments.
