It’s true, Illinois a political cesspool

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Updated: March 19, 2012 10:00PM

Conventional wisdom has long held that Illinois has one of the nation’s most corrupt political climates, it just had never been documented.

Given that our last two governors before Pat Quinn — George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich ­— were convicted on federal corruption charges, it was almost a “no duh.”

The thing about conventional wisdom is that it doesn’t always hold true when scrutinized analytically. That’s why it was good to see a new report, based on actual data, that found Illinois really is up there among the most corrupt states in the nation.

Please don’t misunderstand. We’re not proud of the distinction nor that we’re so close to California, New York and Louisiana in the States’ Political Hall of Shame.

But maybe, just maybe, the report provides ammo in the push for stronger government ethics reforms in Chicago and Illinois. Shame and embarrassment hasn’t worked so far. Every little bit helps.

The report, compiled by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Illinois’ Institute of Government and Public Affairs, found that between 1976 and 2010 there have been 1,531 public-corruption convictions in the federal Northern District of Illinois.

Granted, that number can be skewed because some cases may have involved crimes by postal workers or they may have originated in other parts of northern Illinois and been tried in Chicago.

Let’s not quibble. The point is made.

We’d like to think that in most states, having one governor convicted of public corruption would be enough to spur radical reform. Two? For sure. But not so here in the Land of Lincoln. Let’s hope that changes.

Quinn this week called for a constitutional amendment that would allow voters to bypass the General Assembly in getting ethics laws on the ballot. That would be a start, but it’s not likely to get any new ethics laws on the books soon.

We need change now. If not, there are elections in March and November.