Tuesday, August 26, 2008 9:04 PM CDT
Blagojevich vetoes ethics reform bill
Instead, governor signs executive order to put nearly same plan in place
By KEVIN McDERMOTT and MIKE RIOPELL Lee News Service
SPRINGFIELD — Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been dogged for much of his time as governor by controversy over taking campaign contributions from state contractors, but Monday he rejected a proposal that would have banned the practice.
Instead, he put into effect a similar plan in a different way, using an executive order and likely touching off another dispute between Blagojevich and lawmakers.
The ethics bill, passed this year, would address so-called “pay to play” politics in Illinois. It would make it illegal for any entity that holds $50,000 or more in state contracts to give political donations to the elected official who controls those contracts.
In his executive order Monday, Blagojevich added lawmakers to the list of officials who can’t get contributions from contractors who do business with the state.
“In order to achieve real change, ethic reforms must be applied across the board to include all state elected officials,” Blagojevich said in a statement.
Blagojevich has said the ethics bill doesn’t go far enough toward reform and has been hinting for months he wants to use his amendatory veto powers to add new provisions to the bill before he signs it.
Critics say that’s a ploy to stall implementation of the bill because the second-term Democrat has raised millions of campaign dollars through the legal but controversial practice.
The latest move by Blagojevich has some clear political ramifications in his ongoing battle with the fellow Democrats who control the Legislature. By putting the original reform language in an executive order, he can claim credit for it and avoid appearing to have had his power curtailed by the Legislature.
And by then sending different legislative language back to the General Assembly, he puts them in the position of either having to publicly vote down reform measures or approve things they don’t like — such as a provision to require them to take affirmative votes if they want pay raises, instead of the current system that allows them to passively accept raises approved by an independent board.
Illinois Campaign for Political Reform Director Cindi Canary said some of Blagojevich’s new ideas could make sense. But they’re legally complicated, so the governor’s act of putting them together hastily might cause another court battle.
Democratic Illinois legislators who traveled to Denver for the presidential nomination of former Springfield colleague Barack Obama reiterated earlier threats that they will override any veto Blagojevich might attempt, which would put the original bill into law over his objections.
“We’ve already talked about it: We will override him,” warned state Sen. Debbie Halvorson, D-Chicago Heights. “This has to be signed, as is... We have worked way too long with this.”
Executive orders are essentially internal directives from governors or other elected officials about how business is to be done through their offices. All other statewide elected officials in Illinois had previously issued executive orders to bar contracts through their offices to their own political contributors, but Blagojevich had refrained.
Blagojevich maintained that by putting the ethics reform language into such an executive order now accomplishes the same thing that the legislation would have accomplished.
Critics like Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes and others, however, noted that there is no way to legally enforce an executive order if a governor decides to ignore it, and it doesn’t apply to future governors if they decide not to implement their own executive orders.
A spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Frank Watson, R-Greenville, said Blagojevich should have stuck to the legislation.
“The governor should have just signed the tough ethics bill the General Assembly put on his desk,” said Watson spokeswoman Patty Schuh.
And lawmakers, too, immediately began raising questions about the governor’s methods, saying it’s against the constitution for Blagojevich to single-handedly change policy for the General Assembly.
“I don’t think he can,” said state Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro. “We are a separate branch of government.”
The issue of political contributions from state contractors has long been a controversial one in Illinois, but there are no rules against it, as long as the donations aren’t made specifically as payback for the contracts.
Former Gov. George Ryan is serving a federal prison term for crossing that line. His crimes included steering state contracts to major campaign contributors.
For many lawmakers, the issue might not ever come up. For example, state Rep. Mike Boland, D-East Moline, said he doesn’t remember ever getting money from someone who won business with the state.
“And I don’t expect any, really,” Boland said.
The ethics bill is HB824. The executive order would take effect Jan. 1, 2009.
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Mike P wrote on Aug 26, 2008 11:29 AM:
Blago and others want to go back and forth to chicago, on the state dole, they can take the bus, or pay for it themself.
Stop playing games, or pretending to enact limited ethics reform. Raises should be accountably voted on, not that even a cost of living, or lunch money has been deserved by any of this lot, for a very long time.
Not every day we see Blago and ethics in the same story, won't be long until it is a court report with different versions of the same words I am sure. "