Long, colourful tradition of low standards in high places

AMERICA LETTER: Illinois is not the only state to have produced its share of political corruption scandals, writes Denis Staunton…

AMERICA LETTER:Illinois is not the only state to have produced its share of political corruption scandals, writes Denis Staunton

THE ARREST of Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich this week has reminded Americans that, as well as sending Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama to Washington, the state has produced some of the most colourful corruption scandals in political history.

The news of Blagojevich's arrest would have reached his predecessor George Ryan in the federal prison at Terre Haute, where he is serving a six-year stretch for racketeering, bribery and extortion.

Robert Grant, head of the FBI's Chicago office, said on Tuesday that he was often asked if Illinois was more corrupt than any other state but until now he had been reluctant to make comparisons.

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"If it isn't the most corrupt state in the United States," he said, "it's certainly one hell of a competitor."

Three recent Illinois governors have been jailed for corruption but the tradition of graft stretches back to the Civil War. It was immortalised in Preston Sturges's 1940 film The Great McGinty, in which a hobo rises through Chicago's machine politics to govern the state.

A USA Today survey of political convictions over the past decade found this week that, on a per capita basis, Illinois ranks just 18th in a list led by sparsely populated North Dakota. North Dakota legislators say the survey's methodology gives an unfair picture because the arrest of a few school board officials and other low-ranking public figures a few years ago distorted the state's generally virtuous record.

Few would dispute Alaska's claim to second place on the list, however, following the conviction of outgoing senator Ted Stevens a few weeks ago on multiple fraud charges. Stevens and other senior figures in Alaska politics had taken favours from oil companies in return for access to lucrative drilling licences.

Louisiana, which takes third place on the USA Today list, has a long tradition of upholding exceptionally low standards in high places. Robert Penn Warren's novel All the King's Men told the story of a populist politician based on Huey Long, who slid into corruption and was shot dead in 1935.

William Jefferson, the Louisiana congressman who was indicted last year on racketeering and bribery charges, was a less significant political figure than Long. Jefferson, who lost his seat this year, will probably be best remembered for the $90,000 the FBI says it found in his freezer.

John Ford's The Last Hurrah stars Spencer Tracy as a machine politician who becomes mayor of a big city in the northeast. The city is not identified but it looks very like Boston. It, like Chicago, has long known the murky side of politics.

Boston's most notorious mayor was Galway-born James Michael Curley, who became governor of Massachusetts and had the distinction of remaining in public office through two prison terms.

There have been a number of notable cases of low standards in high places in Massachusetts.

Few were more colourful than that of state senator Dianne Wilkerson, who was arrested in October on charges of taking more than $23,000 in bribes.

Ms Wilkerson, who denies all charges, was photographed apparently stuffing cash up her sweater and into her bra after prosecutors say she accepted a $1,000 bribe from a constituent who wanted her help getting an alcohol licence for a nightclub.

Another scandal involving a Massachusetts politician prompted the following correction to be published in the New York Times yesterday.

"An article on Thursday about scandals among state legislators in Massachusetts misidentified the home town of James Marzilli, who was charged in June with trying to grope a woman on a park bench. Mr Marzilli, who was a state senator at the time, is from Arlington - not Lowell, which is where he was arrested."