While Your'e at It, Senator, Bring Back the Willis Family
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ Sen. Dick Durbin will go down as one of Illinois' greatest statesmen, but unless he can bring back the lives of the Scott Willis family--killed by an illegally licensed trucker when George Ryan served as Sec. of State--the appeal to shorten Ryan's sentence clearly sends a wrong message.
The appeal is predicated on the heartbreaking plight of Ryan's wonderful wife, Lura Lynn, whom I met on several occasions. But, at the end of the day--at the end of the indictment and jury verdict--it was Ryan who did this to his beloved wife, not Sen. Durbin, Ryan's attorney Jim Thompson nor President Bush.
He has to live with it and the people of Illinois and, in fact, the nation are in the mood to embrace tough love instead of political favoritism.
Ryan was convicted of taking part in a cover up of bribes paid in return for truck drivers licenses when he was Illinois secretary of state in the 1990s, using state employees to run his campaigns and steering contracts to lobbyist and cronies.
The investigation began in large part because of a November 1994 expressway tragedy outside Milwaukee in which a heavy metal mudguard-taillight assembly fell off of a truck and ended up under a van driven by the Rev. Scott Willis of Chicago. It ignited the van's gas tank, which exploded and killed six Willis children.
The truck driver took the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination when asked how he got his license. But his boss testified that he bought licenses wholesale from a woman who admitted donating bribe money to the Citizens for Ryan campaign fund.
The investigation found that such bribery was widespread and applicants were able to get licenses without passing the road safety test.
Ryan disbanded the secretary of state's unit that was investigating drivers license bribery in the wake of the Willis tragedy after his top aide, Scott Fawell, urged him to get rid of agents who asked questions about political fundraising.
The chairman of Ryan's own Illinois Republican Central Committee is against the early release. So are hundreds of thousands of Illinois taxpayers.
I met and knew the late Sec. of State Paul Powell and liked him. But, the roses he carried to Vienna, Ill. nursing homes on mother's day only white-washed his theft and personal corruption. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were found in shoeboxes in his home.
He went the way of Otto Kerner and Dan Walker and now George Ryan. What is it going to take to convince elected officials that Illinois politics shouldn't be a deep pockets playground--that the idea the kings can do no wrong is old hat.
Maybe Ryan's continued imprisonment until he finishes his sentence--and it's not that long--will finally send a message.
Sen. Durbin's sentiment for Ryan's wife is well-placed, but instead of President Bush cutting short this sentence, the public would be better served if Durbin would offer Ryan's wife rides to the federal prison to visit her husband.
I know this sounds flippant, even cruel, but everyone in public office needs a wakeup call.
Gov. Ryan did a great deal for the City of Du Quoin during his tenure as governor, but while he embarrassed his wife and the entire state, he embarrassed us as well, putting us in a position of feeling we needed to name him "Citizen of the Year' while he broke the law the whole time.
My voice is the probably the smallest of the taxpayers who are sick and tired of Illinois' pay to play system. When does the bus park outside the Illinois General Assembly or the New York banks or the offices of the Big Three automakers and load up all of the political and corporate executives who have decided it is okay to ruin our state and our country to line their own pockets.
God, we need a change or we risk losing everything.
John H. Croessman