From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Campaign investigations may signal shift

By KEVIN MCDERMOTT Post-Dispatch

updated: 06/14/2003 03:49 PM

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The unprecedented spate of federal investigations into top Illinois political campaigns doesn't necessarily mean that more politicians are improperly using their offices as campaign tools, legal experts say.

More likely, it means that the public - and, consequently, federal prosecutors - no longer have the tolerance they once had for Illinois' tradition of blending public service and political patronage.

It was disclosed this month that Illinois Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka's campaign practices are under federal investigation. Topinka, a Republican, is the fifth major Illinois politician to come under federal scrutiny for alleged use of state employees for political campaign work.

Views differ as to why this age-old reality of Illinois politics is suddenly the basis for federal subpoenas. But one thing is clear: What began four years ago as a bribery case against a handful of low-level government workers has ballooned into a sweeping examination of Illinois' long patronage tradition.

"Historically, that was just sort of the way things worked," said Jim Burns, a former U.S. attorney in Chicago who now is inspector general for the Illinois secretary of state's office. "(The difference) may be today's climate. A lot more people are willing to talk. I think times have changed."

In attracting federal attention, Topinka joins former Republican Gov. George Ryan, former House Republican Leader Lee Daniels, Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan and Democratic Senate President Emil Jones. In the past two years, all their offices have been queried on allegations that their tax-paid employees were working for political campaigns on state time.

Technically, such a practice constitutes theft, because those employees are being paid to work for the taxpayers, not for a candidate. In reality, though, most political office-holders in Illinois have always mixed government and politics to some degree, if only to offer fund-raising tickets to their employees or ask that they stuff a few envelopes.

What has changed, some say, isn't the practice, but a new public intolerance for it - and a resulting interest in prosecuting it.

"I think the willingness of the U.S. attorneys to poke about in this stuff is new. The practice itself isn't new at all," said David Morrison of the Chicago-based Campaign for Political Reform. "There has been a shift (in public opinion). People in Chicago, especially, have always had this perverse pride in 'the machine,' but I do think this is changing."

But some say the government's new zeal to attack an old tradition is taking on the look of a witch hunt.

"You would think every single person who supported George Ryan ... was committing a crime," defense attorney Thomas Breen of Chicago complained in February, as he defended the former governor's campaign fund against allegations of being a "criminal enterprise" because of its use of government employees.

"Politics in Illinois and in every state blends with government," Breen said at the time. "You cannot draw a line between politics and government as clearly as the (prosecution) is trying to do."

Fawell's conviction

Ryan's campaign fund was ultimately found guilty, as was Ryan's former top campaign aide, Scott Fawell. Fawell, 45, was convicted in March of racketeering and other charges. Among the allegations was that he oversaw the systematic use of government workers for campaign purposes.

Fawell's conviction is the most important yet in a four-year federal investigation into Ryan's underlings while he was secretary of state in the 1990s. The investigation, dubbed "Operation Safe Road," has yielded 57 convictions of state employees and others.

The investigation broke publicly on Sept. 3, 1998, when federal agents raided an Illinois drivers license facility near Chicago and arrested three Ryan employees. They were charged with taking two $600 bribes from undercover investigators seeking commercial drivers licenses, the kind required for truck drivers.

In the avalanche of subsequent indictments and convictions that followed, it became clear that bribery was rampant among Ryan's underlings - and that some of that money was being used to make political donations to Ryan.

For years, Ryan, like most other Illinois office-holders, had openly accepted donations and campaign work from his own state employees. The arrangement was legal as long as the work was strictly voluntary and strictly on the workers' personal time.

But the Fawell trial would later show some of Ryan's top aides were treating his public office as a branch of the campaign, with political fund raising by state employees during work hours and pressure being put on those same employees to contribute money. The convictions have established that some of those workers came up with those campaign donations by taking bribes to license unqualified truckers.

Among the drivers who paid brides in the 1990s to get licensed was Ricardo Guzman. Guzman later caused a 1994 accident that killed the six children of Duane and Janet Willis as the family drove near Milwaukee.

The link to the Willis tragedy elevated the issue beyond standard political scandal. As public outcry rose, federal prosecutors expanded their focus from bribery to misuse of public employees - and expanded their questions to other elected officials in both parties.

Daniels, the former House minority leader, stepped down from that position and from his post as Republican Party chairman last year after it was reported that federal prosecutors were investigating whether he'd misused state workers for political work.

It was subsequently revealed that the offices of Madigan and Jones, the top Democrats in the House and Senate, both have been subpoenaed in connection with similar allegations. This month, Topinka's office confirmed she, too, was subpoenaed, in February.

"I think there may have been some sense (in the past) that this was sort of 'benign corruption,' that nobody was getting hurt," said Morrison, of the Campaign for Political Reform. "I think what changed that, frankly, is the Willis kids. It showed that real people do get hurt, and even killed."

"There's less tolerance"

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office declined to comment last week on any pending investigations.

Former U.S. Attorney Scott Lassar of Chicago noted that, while ghost-payrolling and other governmental corruption has always been the subject of federal prosecutions, it's unusual to have cases based solely on allegations of mixing government and politics.

"I'm not sure why it's happening now ... (but) there does seem to be a trend toward prosecuting these," said Lassar, who was U.S. attorney when the investigation began into Ryan's office, and is now in private practice in Chicago. "It could be there's less (public) tolerance for it."

Burns, the other former U.S. attorney, said that it's likely that the new investigations were spawned by tips arising from the Ryan investigation and, especially, the Fawell case.

"The Fawell case has been going on for so long. People in other agencies and other areas ... come forward and make complaints. People think, 'Hey, the government's taking this seriously,'" said Burns. "(U.S. attorneys) are not nearly as heavily resourced as people think. They can't just go fishing (for cases)."

Neither Ryan nor any other elected officials have been charged, and all have denied any wrongdoing.

In response to a request for an interview last week, Topinka's office released a short statement noting that she has cooperated with investigators. "In this environment, every public official needs to be able to withstand public scrutiny," said the statement.

Reporter Kevin McDermott:
E-mail: kmcdermott@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 217-782-4912