December 17, 2003 - Corruption in Illinois has always been bi-partisan. We have a long history of public officials of both parties ending the careers that they started in pinstriped suits wearing black and white convict's stripes. Up to now when Governors, State Auditors and Secretaries if State peddled Illinois government they sold at retail. The 22 count indictment of the State's last Republican Governor, George Ryan, sets out an operation that can only be described as selling the State at wholesale. While George always got his share it was his friends and cronies selling government at retail that garnered the big bucks.

It is ironic that the indictment was announced on Wednesday after we buried Senator Paul Simon, Illinois ' honest man, on Sunday. Paul was an unabashed liberal, a man who could craft a compromise without abandoning principle; a man who could cross ideological lines to appeal to the best that is in us. The irony is doubled in that the indictment was announced by a U.S. Attorney whose appointment was sponsored by retiring one term Senator Peter Fitzgerald.

Republican Senator Fitzgerald is an unapologetic conservative banker who could have financed his reelection campaign from his petty cash. But he managed to be anathema to his own party's Illinois establishment. With the tacit approval of the Speaker Representative Ray LaHood announced that he would organize a primary fight to oust the Senator. His failing is that he is as independently honest as Paul Simon had been. Like Paul a dedication to honest government was the one area in which Senator Fitzgerald refused to compromise. When earlier this year the Senator announced that he would not stand for election to a second term Illinois lost and so did the Republican Party.

The Republican Governor of Connecticut is under fire for what is euphemistically described as "ethical lapses". An investigation in to his acceptance of work on his summer house paid for by his "friends" is promised. Hartford newspapers are editorially calling for his resignation. The news articles read like some of the counts in the Ryan indictment. The "friends" who contributed to the Governor's summer home just happen to be contractors doing business with the State of Connecticut .

It is hard to discern the difference between the help that these two Governors provided to their "friends" and the no-bid contracts handed out at a higher level except for the magnitude of the benefits. Wholesale benefits for the Governors' friends are measured in the Millions. In Washington it becomes Billions. But Paul Simon and Peter Fitzgerald won't be there to blow the whistle when some office holder declares, "I can get it for you - wholesale."