 |
| Luid Arroyo, former Chicago state representative |
The sordid state of corrupt Illinois politics should not be a surprise to anyone; two of the governors during my decade or so of Illinois state residency (Ryan (R) and Blagojevich) were convicted and have served time in prison. Illinois Policy Institute lists several reform policies based on a 2009 state report on Illinois corruption:
- Strengthened revolving door restrictions on state lawmakers.
- Empowering the Illinois legislative inspector general, which is a muzzled watchdog office that must seek approval from state lawmakers before opening a corruption investigation in the Illinois General Assembly.
- Mandating state lawmakers recuse themselves from votes in which they have a conflict of interest.
- Reforming the Illinois House rules, which grant more concentrated power to the House speaker than any other legislative rules in the country.
- Using objective scoring criteria for capital projects, akin to Virginia’s Smart Scale model. Illinois infrastructure dollars are too often directed by clout rather than need.
- Passing a bipartisan constitutional amendment to end politically drawn legislative maps in Illinois.
Arroyo, who has resigned from the Illinois House (where he served in leadership) since being charged on federal bribery charges, was reportedly recorded by the feds offering an unnamed state senator $2500/month in exchange for supporting video gambling machine legislation benefiting his lobbying client.
