Political corruption in Illinois has been an issue from the earliest history of the state. [1] Electoral fraud in Illinois pre-dates the territory's admission to the Union in 1818, [2] Illinois was the third most corrupt state in the country, after New York and California, judging by federal public corruption convictions between 1976-2012. [3]
Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election fraud, election manipulation or vote rigging, is illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates, or both. What exactly constitutes electoral fraud varies from country to country.
Illinois is a state in the Midwestern and Great Lakes region of the United States. It has the fifth largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth largest population, and the 25th largest land area of all U.S. states. Illinois is often noted as a microcosm of the entire United States. With Chicago in northeastern Illinois, small industrial cities and immense agricultural productivity in the north and center of the state, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a diverse economic base, and is a major transportation hub. Chicagoland, Chicago's metropolitan area, encompasses over 65% of the state's population. The Port of Chicago connects the state to international ports via two main routes: from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois Waterway to the Illinois River. The Mississippi River, the Ohio River, and the Wabash River form parts of the boundaries of Illinois. For decades, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has been ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and, through the 1980s, in politics.
New York is a state in the Northeastern United States. New York was one of the original thirteen colonies that formed the United States. With an estimated 19.54 million residents in 2018, it is the fourth most populous state. In order to distinguish the state from the city with the same name, it is sometimes referred to as New York State.
Several members of Illinois's delegation to the United States Congress have been convicted of crimes.
William Lorimer was a U.S. Representative from the State of Illinois. He subsequently served in the United States Senate and was known as the "Blond Boss" in Chicago. In 1912, however, the Senate held Lorimer's election invalid due to the use of corrupt methods and practices including vote-buying.
Daniel Bever Crane is an American dentist and a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1983, he was censured by the House for having sex with a 17 year old page. He served as a Republican congressman from 1979 to 1984.
Censure is a formal, and public, group condemnation of an individual, often a group member, whose actions run counter to the group's acceptable standards for individual behavior. In the United States, governmental censure is done when a body's members wish to publicly reprimand the President of the United States, a member of Congress, a judge or a cabinet member. It is a formal statement of disapproval.
The 1983 Congressional Page sex scandal was a political scandal in the United States involving members of the United States House of Representatives.
Lennington "Len" Small was an American politician. He served as the 26th Governor of Illinois, from 1921 to 1929. He also served as a member of the Illinois state senate from the 16th District from 1901 to 1903 and was Illinois state treasurer, from 1905 to 1907, and from 1917 to 1919.
James Robert Thompson Jr., also known as Big Jim Thompson, was the 37th and longest-serving governor of the US state of Illinois, serving from 1977 to 1991. A Republican, Thompson was elected to four consecutive terms and held the office for 14 years. Many years after leaving public office, he served as a member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
Daniel J. "Dan" Walker was an American lawyer, businessman and Democratic politician from Illinois. He was the 36th Governor of Illinois from 1973 to 1977. He was raised in San Diego and served in the Navy as an enlisted man and officer during World War II and the Korean War. He moved to Illinois between the wars to attend Northwestern University School of Law and entered politics there in the 1960s.
Orville Enoch Hodge was the Auditor of Public Accounts of the state of Illinois from 1952 to 1956. During his term in office, he embezzled $6.15 million of state funds, mainly by altering and forging checks that were paid on the state's account.
The Comptroller of Illinois is an elected official of the U.S. state of Illinois. They are responsible for maintaining the State's fiscal accounts, and for ordering payments into and out of them. The office was created by the Illinois Constitution of 1970, replacing the office of Auditor of Public Accounts.
A cheque, or check, is a document that orders a bank to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The person writing the cheque, known as the drawer, has a transaction banking account where their money is held. The drawer writes the various details including the monetary amount, date, and a payee on the cheque, and signs it, ordering their bank, known as the drawee, to pay that person or company the amount of money stated.
Operation Greylord was an investigation conducted jointly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Chicago Police Department Internal Affairs Division and the Illinois State Police into corruption in the judiciary of Cook County, Illinois. The FBI named the investigation "Operation Greylord" after the curly wigs worn by British judges.
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is the second-most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County, California. As of 2017, the population was 5,211,263. Its county seat is Chicago, the largest city in Illinois and the third-most populous city in the United States. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live in Cook County.
Operation Silver Shovel was a major United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe into political corruption in Chicago during the 1990s. By the end of the probe illegal activities from labor union corruption to drug trafficking, organized crime activity and elected city officials on the take were unearthed, and corruption convictions were handed out to 18 individuals.
According to the Economist's profile of Edward Burke, "Criminality among the city’s 50 aldermen is also astonishingly common." [56] Dozens of Chicago aldermen (city council members) have been convicted of corruption-related crimes. [2] [57] [58]
John Dennis Hastert is a former American politician who served as the 51st Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2007, representing Illinois's 14th congressional district from 1987 to 2007. He was the longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House in history, and is currently the highest-ranking holder of a political office in U.S. history to have served a prison sentence.
The Governor of Illinois is the chief executive of the State of Illinois, and the various agencies and departments over which the officer has jurisdiction, as prescribed in the state constitution. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state. The governor is responsible for enacting laws passed by the Illinois General Assembly. Illinois is one of 14 states that does not have a gubernatorial term-limit. The governor is commander-in-chief of the state's land, air and sea forces, when they are in state service.
George Homer Ryan Sr. is an American former politician who was the 39th Governor of the U.S. state of Illinois from 1999 until 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party. Ryan received national attention for his 1999 moratorium on executions in Illinois and for commuting more than 160 death sentences to life sentences in 2003. He was later convicted of federal corruption charges and spent more than five years in federal prison and seven months of home confinement. He was released from federal prison on July 3, 2013.
Melvin "Mel" Reynolds is an American politician from Illinois. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the United States House of Representatives from 1993 to 1995. He resigned in October 1995 after a jury convicted him of sexual assault charges related to sex with an underage campaign worker.
The Minneapolis City Council is the governing body of the City of Minneapolis. It consists of 13 members, elected from separate wards to four-year terms. The Council is dominated by members of the DFL, with a total of 12 members. The Green Party of Minnesota has one member, Cam Gordon.
Isaac "Ike" Sims Carothers is a former alderman of the 29th Ward on the far west side of the City of Chicago. He was first elected in 1999. He resigned in 2010 after pleading guilty to federal corruption charges.
Fred Bruno Roti was an American Democratic politician from Chicago, Illinois. He was a state senator for six years, and an alderman for 24 years. He was a loyal member of the "Machine" established by Mayor Richard J. Daley, and widely believed to be an associate of the Mafia. In 1993, he was convicted in Federal court of 11 criminal counts, and was sent to prison.
The Federal Correctional Complex, Butner is a United States federal prison complex for men in Butner, North Carolina. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. FCC Butner is about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Raleigh, the state capital. It includes the Bureau's largest medical complex, which operates a drug treatment program and specializes in oncology and behavioral science. Among its inmates is Bernie Madoff, who was convicted for perpetrating the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
The Federal Correctional Institution, Loretto is a low-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Pennsylvania. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice.
Keith Farnham was a Democratic former member of the Illinois House of Representatives who resigned from office and pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography in 2014.
Operation Big Coon Dog was an investigation by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) into alleged corruption surrounding the use of federal and state disaster recovery funds by public officials in Buchanan County, Virginia, United States following severe flooding in the town of Hurley in May 2002. The investigation resulted in the criminal conviction of sixteen people, including several public officials and other government employees, on charges of bribery and fraud. It has been called the largest public corruption case in western Virginia in decades and a step towards uncovering a "dark culture of corruption in Buchanan County".
Louis Marino was a crime boss for the Chicago Outfit criminal organization.
Operation Bid Rig is an ongoing, long-term investigation into political corruption in New Jersey conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, and the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey since 2002.
Federal Correctional Institution, El Reno is a medium-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Oklahoma. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility also has an adjacent satellite camp for minimum-security male offenders.
The Federal Correctional Institution, Morgantown Kennedy Center is a minimum-security United States federal prison for male inmates in West Virginia. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility has been nicknamed 'Club Fed' because of its amenities which include a large college-like campus, a movie theater, a bocce ball court and a basketball court as well as housing many white collar, nonviolent offenders.
Barbara Byrd–Bennett is a convicted felon and the former chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the Cleveland Municipal School District. She served as CEO of the Cleveland schools from 1998 to 2006. From 2009 to 2011, she was the academic and accountability officer for the Detroit Public Schools system. She was hired as the chief education advisor for CPS in April 2012 and then named CEO by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel six months later. She resigned from CPS in 2015 amid a bribery investigation, which led to her pleading guilty to multiple charges. She was sentenced to 4 1/2 years at Federal Prison Camp, Alderson in West Virginia.
Willie Cochran is a member of the Chicago City Council representing the 20th ward of the City of Chicago. First elected in 2007 defeating long-time alderman Arenda Troutman with 63% of the vote. Troutman was defeated after being indicted on federal charge and was later sentenced to four years in prison. Cochran served in the Chicago Police Department from 1977-2003 rising from patrol-man to sergeant. He graduated from Eastern Illinois University in 1975 and received his MPA from Illinois Institute of Technology. The 20th ward includes Woodlawn, Washington Park, and Englewood, Grand Crossing, and Back of the Yards.