From the Chicago Sun-Times

Plenty of pats on the back over ethics law

December 10, 2003

BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter

The effort to pass an ethics reform bill for Illinois was so monumental that during a bill signing ceremony Tuesday Democrats and Republicans -- the governor and state legislators -- bent over backwards to congratulate each other on a job well done. The bill, which Gov. Blagojevich's office office dubbed the most comprehensive ethics reform package in the state's history, should help restore faith in state government following the bribes for licenses scandal that exposed a culture of corruption in the state capital, the governor said at a ceremony in a state office building in Chicago. "In Illinois, the wild, wild west of anything goes politics, passing tough ethics policy is indeed revolutionary,'' he said. The bill establishes separate ethics commissions to hear charges of wrongdoing in the legislative and executive branches. It also creates inspectors general positions for the legislature and each constitutional office. Although the governor voiced many congratulatory pats on the back, he reserved perhaps his highest praise for former state comptroller and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dawn Clark Netsch, who pushed ethics reform for years. "We really are beginning in a very real sense a change in the culture of Springfield,'' Netsch said.