Though his mop top and beady eyes recalled the plucky orphan Dondi, evidently the cartoon character former Gov. Rod Blagojevich saw himself as was more like Nelson Muntz, scourge of the schoolyard in “The Simpsons.”
In a recording played for jurors at Blagojevich’s corruption trial Wednesday, Blagojevich is heard talking on the phone on Oct. 22, 2008, to Gerald Krozel, then chairman of the American Concrete Pavement Association.
“The good news for you guys is — which is the bad news for us — is after the first of the year, this level of it will, you know, pretty much be over,” Blagojevich says, referring to a state ethics law taking effect in 2009 that targeted pay-to-play politics by banning those with large state contracts from making campaign contributions to the government offices that award those contracts.
What does “it” refer to when he says “the level of it”?
Blagojevich goes on to clarify:
“We won’t be able to bully you guys.”
Not that the Blagojevich administration had been grabbing road builders by the wrist, forcing their hands to slap their own faces while saying “Stop hitting yourself”— a favorite trick of Bart Simpson’s main tormentor.
But, as the prosecution alleges and Blagojevich himself seems to acknowledge, they were holding off on releasing billions of dollars for Illinois Tollway reconstruction until the road builders came through with significant donations to Friends of Blagojevich.
It wasn’t as blatant as twisting an arm until your victim coughs up his lunch money, but Krozel testified that he got the message and “sure did” feel the pressure.
And Blagojevich’s use of the word “bully” was “the clearest acknowledgment we’ve heard so far of what was going on in the governor’s office,” said former TV political reporter Andy Shaw, who now heads the Better Government Association and is helping cover the trial for WLS-AM 890.
“Bullying was their unspoken MO,” Shaw said.
Of course, Blagojevich would hardly be the first politician in Illinois or elsewhere to use threats — or, their close cousins, promises — to extract donations.
As the Tribune’s Blagojevich on Trial blog reported, Krozel acknowledged on cross-examination that, back in the 1980s, he’d spoken to Gov. James Thompson about a pending Eisenhower Expressway project. Thompson told him, “You’ve got to get politically involved,” Krozel said. And sure enough, donations flowed and the project began.
“Previous administrations have been a lot more subtle,” said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. “They’ve put on the squeeze, sure, but using nods and winks. Blagojevich turned it into a contact sport.”
Industries, interest groups, unions and others hoping to advance their agendas give money to politicians in the hope that the pols, once in office, will return the favor in some way.
And pols, shaking the money tree, imply to their donors that the investment will pay off.
The bribery or bullying, if that’s what you want to call it, can go both ways, as Canary pointed out. “Campaign finance dynamic is a two-way street, and the politico is as likely to do the shaking down as the special interest,” she said.
Big donors or donor groups threatening to withhold critical financial support if particular proposals aren’t implemented or killed are also behaving like thugs.
Blagojevich’s use of the verb “bully” in an unguarded moment “ought to be a teaching moment,” said Shaw. “Once this trial is over, we ought to think about building more firewalls.”
And those whose starry-eyed vision of campaign cash as merely the equivalent of political speech need to spend a little more time on the legislative playground, and listen more attentively for the sound of Nelson Muntz’s triumphant cackle, “Ha Ha!”
Continue the discussion at chicagotribune.com/zorn
