Copley News
Peoria Journal Star and State Journal-Register
November 21, 2003
By MARY MASSINGALE

Legislature OKs ethics law

SPRINGFIELD - In an effort to atone for sins of the past and head off any future misdoings, Illinois lawmakers Thursday night approved strong ethics legislation for a state struggling to shed its image of political corruption.

Hammered out over the summer after Gov. Rod Blagojevich made sweeping changes to watered-down measures that lawmakers approved last spring, the bipartisan ethics legislation backed by House Speaker Michael Madigan mandates rules of behavior stronger than what the governor called for.

"This is a historic night for Illinois," said Blagojevich. "We've now passed landmark legislation with tough, independent ethics laws unlike anything Illinois has seen before."

Cindi Canary of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform called the measure revolutionary but said it does not completely exorcise the state of its political reputation.

"They always say the devil is in the details. The next devil is in the implementation details," said Canary.

The measure calls for oversight of the executive and legislative branches with ethics commissions and inspectors general armed with subpoena powers. It requires unpaid advisers to constitutional officers who lobby state regulatory agencies on pending issues - a situation lawmakers have called "shadow government" - to be recorded as making contact as well as to post a statement of economic interest on the secretary of state's Web site.

Senate Minority Leader Frank Watson had pushed for publicizing those who whisper in the ears of policy-makers.
"To me, that was an important part," Watson said after the vote. "Our interests prevailed."

In a year when federal investigations touched the current Legislature and a former governor's administration, the legislation shows lawmakers' effort to clean up government, according to an early sponsor.

"We as politicians always have a question of, you know, talk about how bad we are ...," said House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego. "This is more than talk and show about ethics. We really did something."

Federal prosecutors are investigating allegations in both the Illinois House and Senate that Democratic and Republican staff members have conducted political work on state time. State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka's office also is under investigation for similar allegations.

In March, a federal jury convicted Scott Fawell, an aide to former Republican Gov. George Ryan when he served as secretary of state, of political corruption charges.

The complex legislation passed Thursday night calls for annual ethics training for all state employees and requires strict documentation of work time.

"I was committed to an ethics bill," said Madigan, a Chicago Democrat, "but my commitment was to do the bill correctly, to do it right, which meant that we wouldn't build traps into the bill so that innocent people get hurt."
However, state employees already are banned from doing political work on state time, and political favors, job offers and salary increases for campaign contributions already are illegal.

The proposal strengthens the state's Gift Ban Act by eliminating an exemption for golf and tennis outings provided to lawmakers by lobbyists and limits lobbyists' gifts of food and drink to $75 a day.

Adriana Colindres contributed to this report.