For those not clear on the reference - in the US most vehicle license plates are made by convicts in prison.
In theory, Blago and another former Illinois governor, Ryan, could become cellmates.
Covenant has a pretty good grasp on the corruption angle. Something like 1,000 government officials from Illinois since 1970 have gone to jail, the bulk from Chicago though with four convicted governors the taint is certainly not limited to Chicago.
Chicago corruption actually comes in several flavors. For example, Covenant got his job by "knowing someone", that usually falls under
patronage. Patronage is also rewarding your troops after a successful election by getting them jobs.
There is
nepotism, the promotion of relatives. Cook County Board of Commissers President Todd Stroger, son of John Stroger, Jr. is the most recent blatant example of this. He got the job because of who his daddy was, and proceeded to enrich his extended family.
There is
authoritarianism, which is "strong-man" rule. Both mayors Daley have been referred to as "King Daley", and both committed acts which were frankly illegal with no consequences. Mayor in Chicago really can be above the law, at least the local law. The Feds have been cracking down on this, but corruption is so entrenched it's a long battle.
There is
bribery - at one point Chicago
actually published a schedule of bribes in an official manner (back in the 1920's). OK, get this - for many (though not all) locals in the Chicago area there outrage
not because of bribery from Blago's office, but because the perception is
Blago didn't deliver. Hence this t-shit:
And last, but definitely not least, there's the back-and-forth between elected officials and the elected, which Covenant also alluded to. Political donors in Chicago not only donate money, but time, effort, and material goods. For example, political office space at low or no rent. Donation of food, catering, security, space, etc for rallies and fundraisers. For the low-level flunkies, lots of working the neighborhood on foot, putting out signs for their guy, frank stealing of campaign signs of the opposition, and so forth. In return, the elected official is supposed to give pay back - in one Northwest Indiana suburb of Chicago everyone who worked on the winning mayor's campaign got a new sidewalk and driveway, paid for out of city funds that went to the contractor(s) that supported the mayor's campaign. Nothing unusual, but it all went pear-shaped when the contractor got a little carried away, repaved the sidewalks/driveways of people unconnected to the mayor and politics, who got suspicious, and the bill for all the concrete vastly exceed the mayor's estimates and couldn't be buried by shady accounting, so at first the mayor tried to pay the original agreed upon sum, which pissed off the contractor, and then the mayor enlisted some of the city council to try cover the cost... something like 8-10 people went to jail by the time the dust settled.
This sort of shit goes on
all the time in the Chicago area, but doesn't always result in convictions. Other forms of payback included guaranteed jobs for campaign workers - in some cases making them "ghost workers" who are employed by the city on paper but never actually show up, often having another job that is their actual job while collecting a city paycheck. And
that is why corruption is so incredibly widespread and entrenched in the area - the little people benefit, too. The lowest level campaign worker can gain materially and fiscally by his/her participation in this. I had a co-worker once who, as a 20 year old, was paid thousands of dollars in cash to simply steal the competition's campaign signs during an election (it was to "compensate" her for the use of her car). When her alderman won he helped her get a scholarship to the city colleges of Chicago, and her cash paid for the first year of schooling there. That was just one flunky from one election. Even the little people
profit from the corruption, and they've been doing it so long they regard it as business as usual
and no longer see anything wrong with it.
I've been told time and again by native Chicagoans that the tales of corruption are greatly exaggerated, and that it's exactly the same everywhere else.
No, it's not. They just can't see it. The level of corruption in Chicago far exceeds anything I've seen anywhere else, to the point it's become the normal way of doing business. Getting rid of corruption in Chicago means completely reformulating how both government and much private business operates from the ground up, basically reconstructing the entire system, which isn't likely to happen because so many people not only accept it, they
like it because they benefit from it. Not only that, but I've encountered folks who are genuinely puzzled that any city could work
without such blatant and open patronage, nepotism, bribery, pay-to-play, and other corruption. They just don't understand that a city can work without all that. The concept is alien to them - to the extent that back when my spouse ran a marching band there were several occasions were members from the old-school Chicago machine attempted to bribe their way to greater influence within the organization and got mad when he wouldn't accept their bribes and demanded they
actually become better musicians to advance in standing. "The Shanon Rovers don't do it that way! The Emerald Society doesn't do it that way!" No, they don't - the Shanon Rovers came out of the Masons in Chicago and had other priorities than becoming world-class musicians, and the Emerald Society is the police department band, which, well, they're the Chicago Police, and infamous for being willing to show up for beer rather than money. We sent those folks to the Shannon Rovers, where they were much happier as they understood how that system worked. What, I have to
practice and actually
memorize the music rather than give a fifth of whiskey to the band leader to get ahead?
Another example of the back and forth - in the 1980's I was dating someone from Cicero (Chicago suburb, famous for being associated with Al Capone). Apparently, at the time in Cicero there was a hidden camera (which everyone knew about) above the voting booths recording who voted for whom. If you voted for the "right" candidate, then subsequent speeding tickets and other moving violations would be "taken care of" (made to go away). That was your reward for voting "properly". Apparently, it worked - there were people who chronically speeded through Cicero who would be ticketed, then found on a list, and then the ticket torn up. Don't know if this is still going on - one of the main politicians promoting this system is (surprise) now in Federal prison.
Again, the common man not only accepts this, he
profits from it. As much as the politicians are being bribed, they're bribing the little people in return.
The thing is, between the Imperial Mayor and the surprisingly structured corruption, the city actually
does work on a certain level. The garbage gets picked up, the streets are cleared after a snow-storm, the street lights stay on... as long as the basic municipal stuff is taken care of most folks don't seem to mind the corruption so much. Chicago has one of the lowest rat populations in a large city because at once point King Daley said We Will Reduce the Rat Population, which included things like police entering private property without permission or warrant and enforcing new rules on garbage disposal which were illegal in method, but got the job done. Also required the replaced of garbage bins and dumpsters across the city - which immensely profited a couple of Daley-supporting contractors and businesses, but it got the job done. Strong-man rule
can be quite efficient. It can also grind you underfoot - there are any number of tales of people who opposed Daley who either wound up homeless, in jail, or were forced to leave the area because they could no longer secure either employment or housing.
