The paranoia level is
pretty much at an all-time high at the Illinois Statehouse.
Walk past House Speaker
Michael Madigan's office and there's a good chance you'll see him standing in
the hallway talking on his cell phone. Madigan won't take any calls that are
even remotely political in his own office these days. A few years ago he didn't
even have a cell phone.
House Republican Leader
Tom Cross requires his leadership team and other political advisers to leave
the Statehouse and walk across a parking lot to a private office to talk about
even minor campaign issues.
Both the Senate Democratic
and the Senate Republican spokespersons won't take campaign-related press calls
unless they are out of their respective offices. The Senate GOP spokesperson
won't even respond to campaign-related instant messages on her AOL account
unless she's at home.
It's all a far cry from
just a few short years ago when a House Republican staffer could pull up the
latest campaign ad on his state computer. Or when the Senate Republican
election-night headquarters was the Senate President's Statehouse office suite.
Or when the House Democrats opened a constituent services office in the south
suburbs that served politically targeted legislators. Or when calls could be
placed to high-level staff members of every caucus during state working hours
in order to chat about the latest campaign developments.
The old days, which
weren't all that long ago, are over - at least in the General Assembly. I have
my doubts about the governor's office, but we'll have to wait and see whether
federal prosecutors turn up anything good.
Mike Tristano played a big
role in ending the practice of using taxpayer resources to subsidize
legislative campaigns. The former House Republican chief of staff didn't do
this by organizing a cleanup, but by being so corrupt that he practically begged
for a federal investigation and now faces at least a year in prison. Tristano's
lawbreaking forced the General Assembly to finally clean up its act - except
now some of the precautionary measures border almost on the absurd.
US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's
tireless investigations of the George Ryan and Rich Daley administrations have
had major impact in Springfield because of the sweeping nature of the probes
and the harsh punishments meted out, but yesterday's guilty plea by Tristano
hits very close to home. Anyone who has been around the capitol for more than a
few years knows that the difference between their own experiences and
Tristano's behavior was a matter of blatancy. Make no mistake, Tristano and the
House Republicans were by far the worst offenders, but nobody was squeaky clean
in that place.
Tristano pled guilty last
week to several federal counts. He has been under investigation since 2002.
Tristano admitted to
assigning Republican staff members to do campaign work on state time, to using
state resources to help House Republican candidates, to coming up with a scheme
to dole out state-paid compensatory time to state staffers in order to
subsidize their salaries during campaigns and to participating in a scheme to
snare over a million dollars in state money to help the infamous George Ryan
pal and convicted felon Roger Stanley finance a suburban development project,
after which Stanley put one of Tristano's southern Illinois House candidates on
the payroll. And that's just what he admitted to.
The feeling seems to be
that Tristano will roll on state Rep. Lee Daniels, his former boss. Daniels was
the House Republican Leader for 18 years and served one term as House speaker.
Statehouse types have been predicting Daniels' demise at the hands of Tristano
for a long time, without result, but there was an indication in the plea that
Tristano might be rolling over. Tristano admitted that he "reported to and
took direction from" Daniels while on staff, but he never came out and
said whether Daniels ordered him to do anything illegal.
Again, Springfield people
have been predicting Lee Daniels' downfall since 2002, when much of the details
from Tristano's guilty plea first surfaced in a Crain's Chicago Business
article that was initially researched by attorney Rich Means. Not long after
that, Daniels was forced to resign from the state party chairmanship and the
federal investigation began in earnest. Every few months since then rumors have
circulated that Daniels would be indicted. It hasn't happened yet, and I won't
believe it until I see it.
-30-
Rich Miller also publishes
Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter. He can be reached at
thecapitolfaxblog.com