The editors of the Chicago Tribune, with an unerring instinct for the futile, call for ethics reform in the Illinois legislature. Following a litany of recent indictments of legislators on corruption charges they declaim:
Voters are sick and tired of public servants in this state using their offices to enrich themselves. So what can be done to hold them more accountable? Mandatory disclosure of outside jobs, clients, income and relationships that pose conflicts of interest, and penalties if they fail to fully disclose those interests.
The state legislature needs to overhaul its Statement of Economic Interest requirements during the fall veto session, no stalling.
The statement is a document required of most candidates who run for office, some government employees and those appointed to boards and commissions. On it they are asked about sources of outside income, business relationships with lobbyists and gifts received from outside groups, among other questions. But the questions are vague by design. Many lawmakers breeze past them without answering completely, and there is little in the way of policing or monitoring their answers.
Do we know, for example, the identities of clients that House Speaker Michael Madigan serves at his law firm? The clients of other lawyers who also serve in the General Assembly? Spouses’ occupations and those potential conflicts? Real estate matters? Investments?
There is no prospect whatever that the present sitting legislators will do what they ask. Blaming the voters is easy but the point of the editorial is that voters don’t have the information to know what their elected representatives are doing behind the scenes. There is only one solution: throw the bums out. If your representative is an incumbent, vote against him or her. An all-novice legislature should have as its first agenda item putting anti-corruption reforms like this into place. Otherwise we’ll just continue in the same downward spiral we’ve been in for twenty years.
“Blaming the voters is easy but the point of the editorial is that voters don’t have the information to know what their elected representatives are doing behind the scenes. There is only one solution: throw the bums out.”
They have enough information to know they are crooks, and bums. The problem is that in each district……..”but they are our bums.”
The Trump phenomena has nothing to do with deplorables, voter stupidity, cults or a sudden interest in crude people. Those are rationalizations from know-nothings. Enough people were tired of bums.
Occasionally, people just get fed up. That happened, for example, with Dan Rostenkowski. After serving 23 consecutive terms (!), after learning of his corruption the voters of his district elected a political novice to replace him. It happened with my own state senator just recently.
I have said before that one of the most important things we should know is how our politicians make their money. Lets see their income taxes and bank accounts, to start. They dont want to share those they dont need to hold office.
Steve
Trump phenomena :
Partly recoil from eight years of the scripted aristocratic polish of the Obama years. Add to that his cool, smooth anti-Americanism and many people called bullshit.
But as to throwing the bums out, most of the bums are professional politicians. They’re crooks, but likable ones. It’s beyond me why anyone interested in public office doesn’t take speech and drama classes to prepare.