[Tue Apr 09 2002]

With the state's finances in chaos and spare change harder to come by than a homegrown tomato in January, our interest was captured recently by three news items connected to Illinois government.

In the first, The Southern's Statehouse bureau reported the layoff of 10 workers in the Department of Public Aid's Williamson County office. Eric Robinson, a spokesman for Public Aid, admitted that the employees had not yet been notified of their separation.

Then the news broke that two former aides to Gov. George Ryan and George Ryan's campaign committee had been indicted for racketeering by the federal government. Among other charges, the feds are alleging that the aides and other state employees were compensated for campaign work by an unnamed person, who in turn received state contracts to publicize a secretary of state program encouraging organ donation.

The third article examined the political implications of the indictments on current Attorney General Jim Ryan's campaign for governor. A Jim Ryan spokesman said he thought the voters would continue to look upon the attorney general as someone they "know and trust, someone who has a track record of ethics, integrity and public service."

Jim Ryan's campaign spokesman was Eric Robinson -- the same individual quoted as speaking for Public Aid about the Williamson County layoffs.

At first glance, one might wonder why George Ryan's campaign is indicted for using state employees for political purposes, yet Eric Robinson openly speaks without penalty for both the state and Jim Ryan's election effort. The answer is simple: Robinson is not a state employee. He's a consultant.

For the record, Public Aid has six full-time employees who do nothing but run its publicity machine, including a chief of communications, a newsletter designer, a graphic artist, a webmaster who handles the department's Internet site, a webmaster who handles its Intranet site and writer.

Yet Eric Robinson has a state contract consulting with the agency on its communications efforts, and 10 employees who are losing their jobs have to read about it in their morning newspaper.

It should be clear Public Aid doesn't need Robinson's services. It should be equally clear to everyone that this pinstripe-patronage contract subsidizes his political activities -- and legal or not, it's an abuse of both taxpayers and the system.

Then there is Speaker of the House Mike Madigan, who moved dozens of House staffers over to work in March's primary election -- most of them for his daughter, Lisa, who wants to be attorney general -- but at least Madigan put them on his political party's payroll.

We wonder, of course, if those staffers' services were really needed by the state in the first place -- especially since they were apparently able to abandon their duties for a month or two. Who did the work while they were gone? What do they do when they're on the job, if anything?

We say that if Jim Ryan wants to maintain his integrity, he'll ask Eric Robinson to forego a state check while Robinson is a mouthpiece for his campaign.

We say if the U.S. attorney who dropped the hammer on George Ryan's former aides and his campaign is sincere in rooting out official corruption, he'll investigate the smelly mess in Mike Madigan's back yard -- as well as the millions of dollars of "kissin' cousin" consulting contracts issued by state officials each year to their political cronies.

And we say let's cut the fat in Illinois government before we lay off 10 Public Aid child support-enforcement workers in Williamson County.