Free A Just Cause by Jim; Bernard; Edgar Sieracki

incompetence and “something else.” The witnesses responded with statements that confirmed the difficulty of dealing with CMS but did not provide any hard evidence of wrongdoing. Bedore said that the PPB checked the backgrounds of those who represented the building owners and any contributions made as a matter of protocol; however, a review was not always made, and ownership and contributions were difficult to assess because of the many legal types of ownership. PPB did not retain the information on ownership and contributions. Several committee members then asked penetrating questions, and the answers continued to discredit CMS’s methods and cast suspicions on the agency. But the witnesses could offer nothing concrete; in judicial parlance, there was no smoking gun.
    The PPB witnesses were followed by Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a nonpartisan public interest group that primarily addresses the role of money in Illinois politics and monitors campaign contributions. Canary had monitored Blagojevich’s campaign fund since 2003 and could provide information and describe questionable patterns related to the pay-to-play allegations. Canary defined “pay to play,” in broad terms, as “asking for an inducement in exchange for an administrative action taken by a public official.” She provided the committee with a list of individuals and corporations that had given large contributions to the Friends of Blagojevich and subsequently obtained contracts or jobs. Unlike the federal law, Illinois’ law placed no restrictions on the amount of money or the transfer of money between campaign committees that could be given to officeholders or candidates. Illinois required only disclosure. She pointed out that convicted felon Chris Kelly was responsible for a $650,000 contribution to Blagojevich’s early efforts to run for governor. Kelly became a key advisor to Blagojevich and was named a special agent representing the governor to the Illinois Gaming Board. At the time of the investigative hearings, Kelly was charged with tax fraud related to gambling debts. Rod Blagojevich had raised more than $58 million in the eight years since he had formed the campaign committees. The Chicago Tribune identified 235 checks written for exactly $25,000 and dubbed the donors the “$25,000 club.” Canary said the Tribune had discovered that three-quarters of the checks came from people who had received something favorable from theBlagojevich administration. An examination of the records kept by the State Board of Elections showed that 440 donations of $25,000 or more accounted for $21 million in receipts. Canary noted “a troubling, apparent correlation between donations and state actions” (664).
    After Canary’s testimony, Currie and Lang clarified for the record that what she had illustrated was not that the governor was a good fund-raiser, but that there appeared to be a correlation between making contributions and receiving contracts and jobs. Several members followed with random questions, but nobody commented on the amounts Canary had mentioned in her testimony. She had detailed what everyone knew: play to play was a reality in Illinois politics, but in the past six years the state had experienced pay to play on steroids. Contributions had gone from politics as a process of reciprocal exchanges to the unabashed selling of official action. Campaign contributions were necessary to run successful campaigns. Officeholders solicited campaign contributions, and those who represented interests in the public policy debate made contributions to support their friends and gain access and deference. But where was the line between mutual support and bribery? The patterns reported by the news media and now articulated by Canary left no doubt: Blagojevich’s conduct had violated a basic tenet of the core American creed—equality—by granting special