State ethics bill sets rules and ways to enforce them

The road to a sweeping ethics reform bill in Illinois, so badly needed after the corruption of the George Ryan years, was not smooth. The House came up with a strict set of rules in August 2002 only to have the Senate gut them. The governor declared an amendatory veto to put the teeth back in the language, and there followed much wrangling over its provisions, including his right to name an ethics chief.

But last week, when push came to sign, both parties and both arms of the Legislature found themselves on the same page. The result is a bill that should make a real difference in holding all state employees accountable to strict ethics rules and setting up an oversight structure to enforce these laws. Whatever differences existed between Democrats and Republicans, this was bipartisan politics in action: House GOP minority leader Tom Cross was a prime mover behind the ethics legislation, getting members of both parties on board. Gov. Blagojevich refused to allow the package to be watered down. As a result, Illinois now has one of the toughest such laws in the country.

One of the key components of the legislation is the establishment of executive inspectors general with broad subpoena powers and the oversight to investigate complaints -- not just within the Legislature but in all state offices. In Blagojevich's rewritten version of last spring, there was one inspector general, appointed by the governor -- an arrangement critics in both parties, perhaps understandably, objected to as a power grab. Now, each constitutional officer gets to appoint his own inspector general, as overseen by an executive ethics commission and legislative ethics commission.

The bill ends "revolving-door" job switches between government and the private sector. It establishes a one-year waiting period before a state employee who has made a regulatory, licensing or contracting decision can become employed by a company affected by that decision. There are plenty more provisions, including a ban on state officials accepting from lobbyists free recreational perks such as golf or tennis or more than $75 a day in food or drink; a ban on members of boards and commissions having a personal financial interest in state contracts, and an end to registered lobbyists from serving on state boards and commissions. State employees are banned from performing political work. Political contributions can't be made on state property.

The bill also takes aim at state officials who appear in public service announcements in broadcast or print media by banning that practice. We can understand such a ban around election time, but otherwise it seems a bit picayunish. That's a small complaint, though. Ultimately, this law is bigger than its details. It is about changing the ethical climate that has existed for so long in and beyond Springfield. Old habits die hard. Let's hope this legislation can make old habits die fast.