Vowing to shake up the status quo in Springfield and reject “the politics of mediocrity and corruption,” Rod R. Blagojevich was sworn in as Illinois’ 40th governor Monday as he warned “tough choices” were ahead to resolve a nearly $5 billion budget deficit inherited from George Ryan.
But one of his first decisions in office was easy. Blagojevich faxed a pink slip to Scott Fawell, a former chief of staff and campaign manager to Ryan. Fawell was on paid leave from his $195,000-a-year job as chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority pending a trial now under way on federal corruption charges.
Quickly shedding himself of one Ryan appointee, Blagojevich on Tuesday also is expected to address the issue of dozens of the former Republican governor’s allies whom Ryan packed into politically protected jobs in the new administration. Blagojevich’s move is aimed at setting a reform theme for his new Democratic administration.
In taking the oath of office just minutes after noon, Blagojevich became the first Democrat to hold the office after 26 years of uninterrupted Republican rule. His inauguration made complete a dramatic reshaping of Illinois’ political landscape in which Democrats now control the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.
But the inauguration of Democrats to five of the six statewide offices also creates a new intra-party dynamic of potentially competing interests. Along with Blagojevich, new Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan, the daughter of powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan, and Comptroller Daniel Hynes, serving his second term, are looking for ways to advance their political careers.
Blagojevich blasted “a system of corruption that has become too commonplace, too accepted and too entrenched.” Labeling the state’s fiscal calamity a “moment of crisis,” he said his administration will “meet our challenges head-on and we will do it by rejecting the politics of mediocrity and corruption.”
“You voted for change,” Blagojevich said. “I intend to deliver it.”
