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I'm not debating what he did. I still have mixed feelings.
I'm just questioning his motives.
The article in the Tribune this morning summarizes his term quite well.
**************
SPRINGFIELD -- As George Ryan campaigned for governor in 1998, the chant from the chorus of lobbyists, special interests and his long list of political friends and cronies was low-key but incessant.
"All we need is four years with George," they said as they raised the cash, cut the deals and assembled the machinery to propel him to the pinnacle of his elected career.
And four years was all they got--in part because of them, because of their willingness to take advantage of Ryan's uncompromising loyalty to those who courted him during his slow but steady rise in elected office.
At noon Monday, Ryan's 37-year public career comes to an end, not coincidentally with the first inauguration in three decades of a Democratic governor, Rod Blagojevich.
But Ryan can't go quietly. It's not his nature. He gained international attention--adoration from some, contempt from others--for his decision over the weekend to empty Illinois' Death Row.
He left the state budget in shambles and his Republican Party in disarray. At the same time, Ryan salted the state payroll with dozens of his allies whose appointments will extend long into the new administration.
But the main reason Ryan can't go away quietly is that he will be hounded by publicity for as long as federal prosecutors look to bring to justice every person they believe illegally profited from his time in government. Only they know where that may lead.
Ryan chose to retire after one term, but he had little choice. It isn't how or when he really wanted to leave the governor's office and the lavish perks he reveled in--the posh planes and vans, the drivers and bodyguards at his beck and call, the Executive Mansion where he hosted parties, sipped cocktails and puffed cigars while holding court in the wood-paneled library.
And there's the power, repressed and hindered for so long as he sat in the legislature, then the lieutenant governor's chair and then the secretary of state's office, watching others flex their clout as governor until he finally got the job.
In a backhanded way, Ryan is exiting with a mandate. A recent Tribune/WGN-Ch. 9 poll showed six of every 10 voters had an unfavorable opinion of him--a stunning thumbs down as Ryan's credibility was sapped by a federal corruption probe into a long list of friends and former top aides that edged ever closer to him.
The federal probe proved to be all-consuming, overshadowing significant achievements such as the costly rebuilding of the state's basic infrastructure--its roads, bridges, rails and sewers.
Even now, as Ryan is lauded as a visionary by capital punishment foes around the world for making a dynamic turnaround from decades of support for the death penalty, others greeted his decision with cynicism.
Ryan is leaving office under such a cloud that his motives for commuting the sentences of all Death Row inmates will be debated for years to come. Was it rooted in personal conviction, or merely an attempt to add at least a little varnish to a badly marred legacy?
Such debates are of little concern to Ryan. As his political career disintegrated, Ryan gave up worrying about how he was perceived by the voters who had soured on him. Clearly bitter, he grew increasingly gruff and uncaring about how they would react to what he said and did.
For some reason, nothing evinced that disdain more than the annual Illinois State Fair, where governors by tradition have partaken in folksy stunts to impress the crowds.
"I'm just going to be me," he declared once at the fair. "I don't stand on my head. I don't do flips in the air. I'm not a tightrope walker. I'm not an adagio dancer. So, I don't know what you want me to do."
His predecessor, Jim Edgar, rode a horse to mark the fair's opening. Before him, Jim Thompson careened down the Giant Slide.
But Ryan didn't need the Giant Slide. As governor, that became his political career.
Throwback
George Homer Ryan Sr.'s immersion in hardball, take-no-prisoner politics occurred in Kankakee County, where Republicans for decades dictated who would get city, county and state jobs in area facilities. When Ryan joined the family pharmacy in the early 1960s, he and his brother, Tom, dispensed pills and helped customers out front, while friendly doctors held card games in a backroom.
Back then, Kankakee County's Republican power was held by state Sen. Ed McBroom, the GOP chairman, a master at mixing business and patronage politics. For a small janitorial job on the public payroll, the tradeoff was buying a toaster from one of McBroom's hardware stores. For a good job at the Manteno Mental Health Center, the price was a car bought at McBroom's dealership. Sometimes, McBroom would have a new car driven to Manteno and would tell the state jobholder it was time to trade up.
McBroom took a liking to the Ryans, installing George as his campaign manager and helping Tom become Kankakee mayor.
George Ryan always called McBroom "Boss" and dutifully followed his instructions. That helped Ryan get on the County Board in 1966 and later to become its chairman. In 1972, McBroom helped Ryan capture a seat in the Illinois House.
The culture of all-encompassing political control didn't bother Ryan. It was the way things were done. Local players sought to get close to McBroom and Ryan so that they, too, could get a piece of the clout. It was those types of people, whom Ryan considered friends, that followed him throughout his career.
As Ryan ascended the political ladder, dealing with those who had clout and those who wanted it, his mission became an effort to try to fix things.
To U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald, the term "fix" has one connotation. "For the better part of a decade in Illinois, when it came to contracts and leases in the secretary of state's office, the fix was in for a price," Fitzgerald said in May in announcing the indictments of two members of Ryan's inner circle.
But when Ryan used the word, "fix" was not a pejorative. It was a political idiom that simply meant to "take care of."
"Fix" a problem like a flawed death penalty system or the Hillside Strangler expressway bottleneck in the western suburbs. "Fix" things to make sure that a friend was extended every benefit in getting a state contract or a lease. "Fix" the crumbling streets and sewers--and facilitate a parade of pork-barrel projects back to the districts of legislators. "Fix" a job that a lawmaker, Republican or Democrat, wanted to give to a close ally in hopes of being able to call in a future political chit.
To Ryan, that creed is pure politics. For him, there was nothing wrong with wielding power to help friends.
During his time as secretary of state--from 1991 to 1999--Ryan would routinely turn his executive office in the State Capitol into something resembling an old-time supper club to entertain friends, lobbyists and legislators. At times, while lawmakers would toil in the House and Senate chambers, select invitees to Ryan's inner sanctum would share cigars, conversation, cocktails and catered food while a big-screen TV was tuned to the Bulls.
Ever present were Larry Warner, businessman, insurance adjuster and bank director who has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of extorting contracts with the help of a "high-ranking" secretary of state official; Manny Hoffman, the former state representative and ex-Cook County Republican chairman; Arthur "Ron" Swanson, a former state legislator who could pocket a $1.7 million brokerage fee if Ryan's controversial plan to have the state buy a Springfield building complex goes through; and Pete Peters, a former member of Ryan's leadership team in the House who for a time was a top adviser in the governor's office.
Sometimes the group would dine in Chicago at Lino's or Riva's or Tavern on Rush. Occasionally joining them was Donald Udstuen, a longtime GOP strategist and former top official with the state physician's lobby who has pleaded guilty to contract fraud and is cooperating with federal investigators.
It was in settings such as these, gathered around a table with his "kitchen cabinet," that Ryan agreed to Udstuen's suggestion that Corinne Wood, a first-term moderate legislator from Lake Forest, should be his running mate for governor.
But Ryan shared a damaging trait with other political leaders of the past by fancying himself as a big-picture guy who left the details to his staff. He preferred the ceremonial duties of making speeches, passing out oversize checks and backslapping with local officials rather than toiling in the nitty-gritty of policy making.
"George has never been a detail man," said former Republican Senate President James "Pate" Philip of Wood Dale.
Ryan reserved the greatest trust and dependence for Scott Fawell, his former chief of staff in the secretary of state's office and the manager of his campaign for governor, whom he considered almost a son. Fawell has pleaded not guilty to federal racketeering charges stemming from his tenure as a top Ryan aide and opening arguments in his trial are to begin this week.
For those who know Ryan intimately, his inattention to detail had been viewed as a potentially saving grace as the federal investigation into corruption swirled closer to him. At least some had viewed it that way--until prosecutors in the Fawell case last month alleged Ryan knew about the shredding of campaign documents before federal agents could get to them.
Scandal
No one realized it at the time, but the beginning of the end of Ryan's political career began while he was still on his way up. The seminal event took place on Nov. 8, 1994--the same day he won a second term as secretary of state--on a stretch of Interstate Highway 94 outside of Milwaukee.
Ricardo Guzman, who prosecutors later said was one of dozens of unqualified truckers who had gotten licenses through bribes paid to Ryan underlings, couldn't understand warnings over his trucker's radio that a metal mudflap-taillight assembly was loose on his rig. The part broke free and sheared into the gas tank of a minivan driven by Rev. Duane "Scott" Willis.
The mini-van burst into flames and killed six of his children in an accident that came to symbolize the tragic consequences of Illinois' licenses-for-bribes scandal. Much of the bribe money was used to buy political fundraising tickets to benefit Ryan.
More than 50 people have been convicted in Operation Safe Road, a probe that federal authorities announced in October 1998, just weeks before Ryan's election as governor.
At the time, then-U.S. Atty. Scott Lassar gave Ryan political cover by declaring that the Republican was not a target of the investigation, and Ryan went on to a narrow win. Lassar's successor, Patrick Fitzgerald, is not willing to say that anymore.
But what began as a probe into high-pressure selling of campaign fundraising tickets has broadened significantly to include allegations that political allies and high-ranking officials in Ryan's secretary of state's office--potentially including Ryan himself--profited from the wide-open nature of the office when he ran it.
Ryan has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
"I apologize to the people of this state because it happened on my watch and the responsibility is mine," Ryan once said. "This case has contradicted everything else I tried to do as secretary of state. I thought I had a pretty good record there as secretary of state."
Ryan made the comment barely a year into his term as governor. It came as Dean Bauer, a longtime friend and former Kankakee police chief, whose job was to root out corruption as inspector general in the secretary of state's office, said he expected to be indicted. Among the charges Bauer faced was blocking a probe into how Guzman got his license.
Steadily, federal prosecutors have climbed a ladder of alleged corruption that included indictments of Fawell and several others in Ryan's "kitchen cabinet."
Prosecutors alleged they were involved in elaborate schemes that included defrauding taxpayers by having state employees do political work on state time, contract extortion, kickbacks and money laundering--all as part of the operations of the secretary of state's office.
I'm just questioning his motives.
The article in the Tribune this morning summarizes his term quite well.
**************
SPRINGFIELD -- As George Ryan campaigned for governor in 1998, the chant from the chorus of lobbyists, special interests and his long list of political friends and cronies was low-key but incessant.
"All we need is four years with George," they said as they raised the cash, cut the deals and assembled the machinery to propel him to the pinnacle of his elected career.
And four years was all they got--in part because of them, because of their willingness to take advantage of Ryan's uncompromising loyalty to those who courted him during his slow but steady rise in elected office.
At noon Monday, Ryan's 37-year public career comes to an end, not coincidentally with the first inauguration in three decades of a Democratic governor, Rod Blagojevich.
But Ryan can't go quietly. It's not his nature. He gained international attention--adoration from some, contempt from others--for his decision over the weekend to empty Illinois' Death Row.
He left the state budget in shambles and his Republican Party in disarray. At the same time, Ryan salted the state payroll with dozens of his allies whose appointments will extend long into the new administration.
But the main reason Ryan can't go away quietly is that he will be hounded by publicity for as long as federal prosecutors look to bring to justice every person they believe illegally profited from his time in government. Only they know where that may lead.
Ryan chose to retire after one term, but he had little choice. It isn't how or when he really wanted to leave the governor's office and the lavish perks he reveled in--the posh planes and vans, the drivers and bodyguards at his beck and call, the Executive Mansion where he hosted parties, sipped cocktails and puffed cigars while holding court in the wood-paneled library.
And there's the power, repressed and hindered for so long as he sat in the legislature, then the lieutenant governor's chair and then the secretary of state's office, watching others flex their clout as governor until he finally got the job.
In a backhanded way, Ryan is exiting with a mandate. A recent Tribune/WGN-Ch. 9 poll showed six of every 10 voters had an unfavorable opinion of him--a stunning thumbs down as Ryan's credibility was sapped by a federal corruption probe into a long list of friends and former top aides that edged ever closer to him.
The federal probe proved to be all-consuming, overshadowing significant achievements such as the costly rebuilding of the state's basic infrastructure--its roads, bridges, rails and sewers.
Even now, as Ryan is lauded as a visionary by capital punishment foes around the world for making a dynamic turnaround from decades of support for the death penalty, others greeted his decision with cynicism.
Ryan is leaving office under such a cloud that his motives for commuting the sentences of all Death Row inmates will be debated for years to come. Was it rooted in personal conviction, or merely an attempt to add at least a little varnish to a badly marred legacy?
Such debates are of little concern to Ryan. As his political career disintegrated, Ryan gave up worrying about how he was perceived by the voters who had soured on him. Clearly bitter, he grew increasingly gruff and uncaring about how they would react to what he said and did.
For some reason, nothing evinced that disdain more than the annual Illinois State Fair, where governors by tradition have partaken in folksy stunts to impress the crowds.
"I'm just going to be me," he declared once at the fair. "I don't stand on my head. I don't do flips in the air. I'm not a tightrope walker. I'm not an adagio dancer. So, I don't know what you want me to do."
His predecessor, Jim Edgar, rode a horse to mark the fair's opening. Before him, Jim Thompson careened down the Giant Slide.
But Ryan didn't need the Giant Slide. As governor, that became his political career.
Throwback
George Homer Ryan Sr.'s immersion in hardball, take-no-prisoner politics occurred in Kankakee County, where Republicans for decades dictated who would get city, county and state jobs in area facilities. When Ryan joined the family pharmacy in the early 1960s, he and his brother, Tom, dispensed pills and helped customers out front, while friendly doctors held card games in a backroom.
Back then, Kankakee County's Republican power was held by state Sen. Ed McBroom, the GOP chairman, a master at mixing business and patronage politics. For a small janitorial job on the public payroll, the tradeoff was buying a toaster from one of McBroom's hardware stores. For a good job at the Manteno Mental Health Center, the price was a car bought at McBroom's dealership. Sometimes, McBroom would have a new car driven to Manteno and would tell the state jobholder it was time to trade up.
McBroom took a liking to the Ryans, installing George as his campaign manager and helping Tom become Kankakee mayor.
George Ryan always called McBroom "Boss" and dutifully followed his instructions. That helped Ryan get on the County Board in 1966 and later to become its chairman. In 1972, McBroom helped Ryan capture a seat in the Illinois House.
The culture of all-encompassing political control didn't bother Ryan. It was the way things were done. Local players sought to get close to McBroom and Ryan so that they, too, could get a piece of the clout. It was those types of people, whom Ryan considered friends, that followed him throughout his career.
As Ryan ascended the political ladder, dealing with those who had clout and those who wanted it, his mission became an effort to try to fix things.
To U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald, the term "fix" has one connotation. "For the better part of a decade in Illinois, when it came to contracts and leases in the secretary of state's office, the fix was in for a price," Fitzgerald said in May in announcing the indictments of two members of Ryan's inner circle.
But when Ryan used the word, "fix" was not a pejorative. It was a political idiom that simply meant to "take care of."
"Fix" a problem like a flawed death penalty system or the Hillside Strangler expressway bottleneck in the western suburbs. "Fix" things to make sure that a friend was extended every benefit in getting a state contract or a lease. "Fix" the crumbling streets and sewers--and facilitate a parade of pork-barrel projects back to the districts of legislators. "Fix" a job that a lawmaker, Republican or Democrat, wanted to give to a close ally in hopes of being able to call in a future political chit.
To Ryan, that creed is pure politics. For him, there was nothing wrong with wielding power to help friends.
During his time as secretary of state--from 1991 to 1999--Ryan would routinely turn his executive office in the State Capitol into something resembling an old-time supper club to entertain friends, lobbyists and legislators. At times, while lawmakers would toil in the House and Senate chambers, select invitees to Ryan's inner sanctum would share cigars, conversation, cocktails and catered food while a big-screen TV was tuned to the Bulls.
Ever present were Larry Warner, businessman, insurance adjuster and bank director who has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of extorting contracts with the help of a "high-ranking" secretary of state official; Manny Hoffman, the former state representative and ex-Cook County Republican chairman; Arthur "Ron" Swanson, a former state legislator who could pocket a $1.7 million brokerage fee if Ryan's controversial plan to have the state buy a Springfield building complex goes through; and Pete Peters, a former member of Ryan's leadership team in the House who for a time was a top adviser in the governor's office.
Sometimes the group would dine in Chicago at Lino's or Riva's or Tavern on Rush. Occasionally joining them was Donald Udstuen, a longtime GOP strategist and former top official with the state physician's lobby who has pleaded guilty to contract fraud and is cooperating with federal investigators.
It was in settings such as these, gathered around a table with his "kitchen cabinet," that Ryan agreed to Udstuen's suggestion that Corinne Wood, a first-term moderate legislator from Lake Forest, should be his running mate for governor.
But Ryan shared a damaging trait with other political leaders of the past by fancying himself as a big-picture guy who left the details to his staff. He preferred the ceremonial duties of making speeches, passing out oversize checks and backslapping with local officials rather than toiling in the nitty-gritty of policy making.
"George has never been a detail man," said former Republican Senate President James "Pate" Philip of Wood Dale.
Ryan reserved the greatest trust and dependence for Scott Fawell, his former chief of staff in the secretary of state's office and the manager of his campaign for governor, whom he considered almost a son. Fawell has pleaded not guilty to federal racketeering charges stemming from his tenure as a top Ryan aide and opening arguments in his trial are to begin this week.
For those who know Ryan intimately, his inattention to detail had been viewed as a potentially saving grace as the federal investigation into corruption swirled closer to him. At least some had viewed it that way--until prosecutors in the Fawell case last month alleged Ryan knew about the shredding of campaign documents before federal agents could get to them.
Scandal
No one realized it at the time, but the beginning of the end of Ryan's political career began while he was still on his way up. The seminal event took place on Nov. 8, 1994--the same day he won a second term as secretary of state--on a stretch of Interstate Highway 94 outside of Milwaukee.
Ricardo Guzman, who prosecutors later said was one of dozens of unqualified truckers who had gotten licenses through bribes paid to Ryan underlings, couldn't understand warnings over his trucker's radio that a metal mudflap-taillight assembly was loose on his rig. The part broke free and sheared into the gas tank of a minivan driven by Rev. Duane "Scott" Willis.
The mini-van burst into flames and killed six of his children in an accident that came to symbolize the tragic consequences of Illinois' licenses-for-bribes scandal. Much of the bribe money was used to buy political fundraising tickets to benefit Ryan.
More than 50 people have been convicted in Operation Safe Road, a probe that federal authorities announced in October 1998, just weeks before Ryan's election as governor.
At the time, then-U.S. Atty. Scott Lassar gave Ryan political cover by declaring that the Republican was not a target of the investigation, and Ryan went on to a narrow win. Lassar's successor, Patrick Fitzgerald, is not willing to say that anymore.
But what began as a probe into high-pressure selling of campaign fundraising tickets has broadened significantly to include allegations that political allies and high-ranking officials in Ryan's secretary of state's office--potentially including Ryan himself--profited from the wide-open nature of the office when he ran it.
Ryan has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
"I apologize to the people of this state because it happened on my watch and the responsibility is mine," Ryan once said. "This case has contradicted everything else I tried to do as secretary of state. I thought I had a pretty good record there as secretary of state."
Ryan made the comment barely a year into his term as governor. It came as Dean Bauer, a longtime friend and former Kankakee police chief, whose job was to root out corruption as inspector general in the secretary of state's office, said he expected to be indicted. Among the charges Bauer faced was blocking a probe into how Guzman got his license.
Steadily, federal prosecutors have climbed a ladder of alleged corruption that included indictments of Fawell and several others in Ryan's "kitchen cabinet."
Prosecutors alleged they were involved in elaborate schemes that included defrauding taxpayers by having state employees do political work on state time, contract extortion, kickbacks and money laundering--all as part of the operations of the secretary of state's office.
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