Former senator reminisces:
Man describes decision that changed Illinois politics
By Eric Krol, Daily Herald Political Writer
Posted Friday, November 10, 2006
Back in 2001, then-U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald was trying to fend off
pressure from Republican heavyweights opposed to his plan to recommend
a political outsider to serve as U.S. Attorney for Chicago when the
phone rang.
“(Bush political guru) Karl Rove called back and said we will
not appoint anyone from out of state. We’ll let you pick anyone
you want, as long as that person is from Chicago,’” Fitzgerald
recalled Thursday at a luncheon in his honor.
The one-time lawmaker from Inverness declined to heed Rove’s
suggestion and pulled an end-run to nominate Patrick Fitzgerald, then
a highly regarded assistant federal prosecutor in New York City, for
the job. Fitzgerald held a news conference on Mother’s Day 2001
to announce Patrick Fitzgerald, no relation, as his choice, a move
designed to pre-empt the White House.
The rest, as they say, is political history: former Republican Gov.
George Ryan is headed to prison Jan. 4, current Democratic Gov. Rod
Blagojevich’s administration is the subject of an intense corruption
probe, and Democrat-controlled Chicago city hall and Cook County government
each face investigations into hiring practices.
“If they were going to kill his nomination, I was going to be
in a position where I could say, go ahead and say make my day,”
said Fitzgerald, who credited the Chicago Tribune and Daily Herald
editorial boards with backing his pick.
A White House spokesman declined to comment Thursday on Fitzgerald’s
recollection of his talks with Rove.
The former senator’s comments came before about 120 people at
a downtown event sponsored by the Illinois Coalition for Political
Reform.
Fitzgerald is now living in McLean, Va., and starting up a bank, marking
a return to his roots as an attorney for his family’s bank,
which it sold two decades ago.
The appointment of Patrick Fitzgerald stands as his crowning achievement
in the Senate, partly because he had to break from Ryan and House
Speaker Dennis Hastert to make it happen. The former lawmaker said
he thinks that Patrick Fitzgerald remains safe in his job at least
through the trial of Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney’s
former top aide. Fitzgerald is a special prosecutor in that case.
Former Republican Sen. Fitzgerald said he’s glad he wasn’t
on the ballot Tuesday given the Democratic “tsunami.”
He reiterated that he’s retired from politics, joking that he’d
only come back if Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley allowed dead people
of both parties to vote.
Fitzgerald also warned that it has become nearly impossible for a
Republican to win statewide office in Illinois, saying that federal
motor-voter laws passed in the 1990s have resulted in more Democrats
registering to vote. As a result, he said, Republicans will need a
national tide like in 1994 to win major offices in Illinois.
dailyherald.com
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