From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Concern over ethics blooms in Springfield

March 23, 2003

BY DAVE MCKINNEY SUN-TIMES SPRINGFIELD BUREAU

SPRINGFIELD--Not long after Scott Fawell and former Gov. George Ryan's campaign committee were convicted on corruption charges, a juror told reporters it was his hope the verdicts would clean up Illinois' politics.

If that juror had come to the state Capitol last week, he would have noticed no obvious differences in the way business has been done here for decades. Bills flew between the House and Senate. Lobbyists plied the Capitol's noted brass rail, looking for political favors and trying to shape legislation. Staffers worked 14-hour days.

But amid all that activity, behind the scenes, the state's powerful were displaying newfound sensitivities forced on them by the allegations that led to last week's landmark verdicts at the Dirksen Federal Building.

No longer do most legislators deem chats about political fund-raising appropriate in their state offices. A robust attempt to tighten state ethics laws is under way. And among some, there even is a newfound paranoia that they're being watched or listened to by government investigators--a possibility that emerged in the Fawell trial when a key witness secretly recorded conversations.

"I've had guys say to me, 'Every conversation I have, I treat it like the person across from me is wearing a wire.' There is a mood, I'll tell you," said a top lobbyist, who admitted he is wary of associating with new lobbyists for fear they are government informants.

"There's not a soul in the Capitol who doesn't think the feds aren't going after George Ryan now, so people are very cautious," said the lobbyist, who asked not to be identified. "What was accepted 20 years ago isn't accepted anymore."

Another lobbyist, Dan Burkhalter, also has noticed a mood shift among lawmakers when he meets to discuss the agenda of his employer, the powerful Illinois Education Association. It is the state's largest teachers union and one of the most prolific campaign donors.

"Legislators are more careful in their conversations about direct solicitations," he said. "If I'm in their office or in the building, they will say to me now, 'I'd like to talk about my campaign. Can we get together somewhere for breakfast?' "

When state government is tarnished by scandal, the Legislature reacts by passing some kind of ethics package. Gov. Blagojevich, Attorney General Lisa Madigan and representatives are negotiating a plan.

"There is an unprecedented commitment by the powers that be to get something to the governor's desk," said Rep. John Fritchey (D-Chicago), who is among those pushing for reform.

Some of the ideas inspired by the Fawell trial include: subjecting politicians to impeachment if they seek campaign contributions from their employees; barring politicians from asking lobbyists or donors for contributions on state property or within 50 miles of the Statehouse, and requiring state workers assigned part time to campaigns to document state work on time sheets in 15-minute increments.

Other ideas include banning tax-funded bonuses for state employees who are shifted onto campaign payrolls; prohibiting taxpayer-paid legislative mailings before an election; restricting state-subsidized public service announcements by politicians before elections, and forcing the disclosure of contributors to legal defense funds such as the one Ryan has set up to defray his mounting legal bills.

House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego) has incorporated many of those proposals into a legislative package pending in the House. "People are going to be a lot more sensitive to this issue in the future. They need to be. The sense you get out of the U.S. attorney's office is you better be," Cross said.

Cross, the new leader of the House Republicans, is an interesting study when it comes to ethics. He owes his ascension, in part, to the work of federal prosecutors. He replaced former House Minority Leader Lee Daniels (R-Elmhurst), who is mired in a federal investigation into alleged misuse of House Republican staffers on political campaigns. Daniels resigned his leadership post and the chairmanship of the state Republican Party, though he has not been charged.

To distance himself from Daniels' problems, Cross has tried to make a clear distinction between state work and politics. He has decided to pay his chief of staff, William O'Connor, and press secretary David Dring partly out of a campaign account. And rather than making his spacious Statehouse office a hub for everything, Cross and senior House Republicans frequently use the house he rents with two other legislators as their Springfield residence for daily meetings on any issues remotely associated with fund-raising or political strategizing.

"We are finding ourselves going over there, if not once a day, sometimes more than that," Cross said. "Are we going too far? Maybe."

If signs of ethical change are not immediately obvious in Springfield, they should soon be, particularly if the feds prosecute Ryan and a blockbuster trial full of new revelations ensues. Bracing for that possibility, even those long-entrenched legislators who once bad-mouthed ethics reforms in private have begun to see the light, thanks to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and crew.

"In leadership meetings," said one high-level Democratic staffer in the Legislature, "you have the old bulls who've been here forever and have been opposed to any kind of ethics legislation. Now, each and every one of them is saying, 'It's going to hurt, but we've got to do it.'"

Indeed, a new kind of spring has swept into Springfield.