Many Ill. voters resigned to political corruption

[January 19, 2009]  CHICAGO (AP) -- Charlotte Podolner has faithfully voted in every election she could in her 88 years, then watched as one Illinois politician after another headed to jail.

That's just the way it goes here, she says, convinced that nothing -- not even the federal corruption charges against Gov. Rod Blagojevich -- will change the state's legacy of shady politics. About 1,000 elected officials, including three governors, have been convicted of corruption since the early 1970s.

"Chicago has a ... reputation for corrupt politics. It's not flattering, but we're always thought of as manipulators," said Podolner, a retired office worker from Chicago. "It's part of our tradition."

But political experts say voters themselves bear some responsibility since they have continued to elect officials of questionable character. Many appear to accept corruption as part and parcel of politics and often are willing to put up with it if they get something in return.

"In several parts of Illinois, voters have come to tolerate a certain level of corruption if they're getting their streets plowed after a snowstorm and getting their garbage picked up," said Mike Lawrence, a retired director at the University of Southern Illinois' Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. "Voters need to take their citizenship seriously."

Retired machinist Charles Lee, 56, said he wishes corrupt officials wouldn't keep getting elected in Illinois, but says it's not his fault.

"We don't have that good of a choice," he said. "They're all crooks."

That might be an overstatement, and there are other reasons for Illinois' problems, including that so many candidates are entrenched in the state's machine politics and lax campaign-contribution laws, experts said.

"If you say Illinois politics are corrupt and there are no good people, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," said Kent Redfield a political scientist at the University of Illinois at Springfield. "This is a chicken-and-egg kind of thing."

Illinois has few limits on who can contribute money to candidates and how much they can give.

In his 2006 re-election run, Blagojevich -- who'd amassed a huge campaign fund -- wooed voters by outspending his Republican challenger, former state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, by more than 2 to 1, experts say.

Blagojevich, dogged at the time by allegations of corrupt hiring practices, spent over $16 million in the last half of 2006, while Topinka spent just over $6 million. Much of the governor's money, $11 million, was spent on television ads that criticized Topinka's record; Topinka spent just over $4 million on commercials.

"People had questions about him as a leader, his integrity, yet he pretty much overwhelmed her with TV commercials," Redfield said.

Blagojevich -- under federal investigation for several years over claims of hiring fraud and allegedly trading political favors for campaign donations -- was arrested last month on corruption charges and faces an impeachment trial in the Senate.

He has not been convicted of any wrongdoing.

Chicago resident and former public school teacher Twesi Hopkins voted for Blagojevich twice, even though he'd heard of corruption investigations involving the Democratic governor before his 2006 re-election. Hopkins, 59, generally has been happy with the governor's leadership, like approving free rides for seniors on Chicago-area public transportation.

"They haven't proved anything," he said of the investigation.

Blagojevich isn't the first governor to get caught up in scandal. Former Gov. Otto Kerner served time for a 1973 conviction on charges including bribery. Former Gov. Dan Walker pleaded guilty in 1987 to bank fraud and perjury. And in 2006, former Republican Gov. George Ryan was convicted of steering state contracts in exchange for favors. He is serving a 6 1/2-year prison sentence.

"We do have a political history and culture of corruption that's directly tied to political machine politics," said Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman and University of Illinois at Chicago professor. "Voters often become desensitized to the effects of corruption."

Carlo Van Zandt, a 63-year-old Chicago entrepreneur, said it might not be right but shady politics is the Illinois way.

"Pay under the table, subterfuge, diversion -- it's a syndrome that's been going on so long it's established itself in the roots of Chicago," he explained. "Things aren't earned, they're bequeathed."

There are, of course, exceptions, voters and experts say.

Podolner, who lives in President-elect Barack Obama's neighborhood, believes the former Illinois senator wasn't in Illinois long enough to be tainted by the state's politics.

"Obama really lifted us in the eyes of the world," she said.

But she quickly added with a short laugh that the Blagojevich charges "brought us back down to the level of Al Capone."

[Associated Press; By SOPHIA TAREEN]

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