Once again, corruption was on the docket in a wood-paneled courtroom in downtown Chicago’s historic federal building. 

It was October, and newly convicted Chicago businessman James T. Weiss was about to learn how much time he would have to serve for bribing two state legislators and lying to the FBI.

While not a household name, Weiss came with real machine clout. His father-in-law, who wasn’t charged with any crime, is Joe Berrios, the former Cook County assessor, ex-chair of the Cook County Democratic Party and friend of now-indicted former House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Before sentencing Weiss to more than five years in prison, U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger scolded him for having helped “solidify the city of Chicago as the capital of corruption.”

The judge also embodied the frustrations of the entire state by asking in court: “Why does public corruption keep happening? … Why Chicago?”

To Seeger’s point, repeating the same mistake over and over again is, as the saying goes, the definition of insanity.

And corruption-exhausted Illinoisans could be excused if they thought it was insane how the same kind of criminal graft keeps feasting on their government institutions over and over again.

Plenty of forces enable corruption to thrive in Illinois — loophole-ridden ethics laws, policymakers unwilling to confront the problem head-on and a drastically shrunken nonpartisan press corps that once kept a close eye on political chicanery.

Perhaps the more consequential question, though, centers on the effect Illinois’ corruption carousel is having on the health and well-being of the state’s democracy.

WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times and the University of Chicago are examining the challenges to democracy as part of the Democracy Solutions Project. Corruption ranks high for many as an impediment. 

But measuring the precise cost of corruption isn’t easy. Sometimes, the problem is wrapped in contradiction.

One example of that can be found in research that equates rampant wrongdoing by public officials with voters no longer participating in elections. In Illinois, that doesn’t appear to have been the case.

But other studies track with Illinois’ experience — that corruption shakes voters’ faith in public institutions and might impose a costly financial premium on people.

The inertia-hazed manner in which the state’s policymakers contemplate — or choose not to contemplate — laws to police corruption leaves the onus on federal prosecutors in Chicago. And they have pursued that responsibility with zeal. 

Last year, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Illinois secured convictions in more than 91% of the cases in which it filed charges. If that weren’t sobering enough for defendants, acquittals by a judge or jury amounted to fewer than 1% of cases in the district, according to Justice Department data.

Looking specifically at corruption cases, the 32 convictions obtained by federal prosecutors in Chicago stood at an eight-year high in 2021, the most recent year for which the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section has published data about that brand of crime, records show.

Those numbers don’t include what’s left from the noisy, prosecutorial buzzsaw that has clear-cut its way through the Illinois Capitol, City Hall and Chicago’s most influential corporate boardrooms in the past year. 

So far in 2023, federal prosecutors in Chicago have gotten convictions against four former Commonwealth Edison executives and lobbyists, including Anne Pramaggiore, the company’s former chief executive officer. A jury found them guilty of all charges for conspiring to bribe Madigan. 

In another case, former Madigan chief of staff Timothy Mapes was convicted of lying to a grand jury in an effort to stymie the bribery investigation into the former speaker.

In yet another case, a federal jury is now hearing evidence in the extortion, racketeering and bribery trial of former Ald. Edward Burke, a member of the Chicago City Council for a record 54 years. His trial is considered one of the most impactful cases that federal authorities in Chicago have pursued since successfully prosecuting two governors, Republican George Ryan and Democrat Rod Blagojevich.

Next April, Madigan is scheduled to go on trial in a racketeering and bribery case. While tied to ComEd’s wrongdoing, the case against Madigan also focuses on accusations of illegal efforts to drum up business for his law firm and strong-arming of AT&T Illinois in exchange for political favors.

Combined, it’s a dizzying amount of convictions and accusations of wrongdoing that has made for a highly cynical electorate.

“All of those [cases] have informed the public that they shouldn’t trust their public officials,” said Dick Simpson, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois Chicago. “And that’s been a negative effect throughout our politics at every level — the level at which people want to contact their public officials, the level in which they have faith in the government decisions that are made.” 

How corruption breeds cynicism

Simpson, a former alderman who served with Burke, has become such an authority on corruption that prosecutors in the ComEd case wanted to call him as a witness to explain how Chicago’s political machine worked. Defense objections succeeded in keeping him from the stand.

Simpson says that machine is still humming. 

“Since 1976, there have been more than 2,100 people convicted of public corruption in Illinois; 1,800 of those were in the Chicago metropolitan region,” he said. “So the cynicism is somewhat justified.”

Polling has borne out what Simpson says regarding how Illinoisans have been soured by corruption.

In 2012, a survey by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale found that more than three in four respondents believed corruption was widespread, and roughly three in five thought Illinois was more corrupt than other states.

When WBEZ and the Sun-Times surveyed likely Republican voters ahead of the June 2022 gubernatorial primary, they ranked corruption as the second-most important issue confronting Illinois, along with crime. 

In September, a national poll conducted by Pew Research found widespread disillusionment with the nation’s elected officials, with nearly one in three believing their elected officials are self-centered, dishonest and unethical.

Widespread voter cynicism might lead voters to no longer participate in elections or believe their votes matter. A 2010 study in Louisiana, where corruption has flourished, documented how those who believed their state government was becoming more corrupt were less prone to vote because they doubted their votes would matter.

“Citizens not only lose confidence in government officials when corruption increases, they also lose confidence in the institutions of government and in the political process — which means policymakers may find less support for their proposed and adopted policies,” that study concluded.

A 2015 study of elections in Mexico by researchers at Yale University, Princeton University and Ottawa University found that corruption led to a nearly 3% drop in voter turnout and a nearly 3% drop in votes for the incumbent party and votes for the challenger’s parties.

Illinois appears to have defied that trend.

How corruption affects voting

A WBEZ analysis of statewide ballots cast and voter registration during the past dozen general elections, dating to 2000, found that participation in Illinois elections actually increased at percentages greater than the state’s population gain during the same period.

Looking at just gubernatorial elections between 2002 and 2022, election records show the number of total ballots cast statewide grew by more than 13%. Statewide, voter registration grew by more than 15% during that time.

In contrast, population gains in Illinois between 2000 and 2020 stood at slightly more than 3%, according to U.S. Census data.

Becky Simon, president of the League of Women Voters of Illinois, suggests that, when corruption is uncovered, it might actually spur more voters to go to the polls, wanting to root the crooks out.

“Corruption happens,” Simon said. “But, in spite of corruption on the part of individual elected officials, voters still have confidence in American democracy. That is what the league sees. That is why voters are going to the polls. They were voting that they had faith in our democracy.

“When corruption is exposed, voters are ready and eager to make their voice heard through the democratic process — through voting.”

How corruption becomes a tax

Research has shown corruption also can affect state spending.

In 2014, researchers from Indiana University and City University of Hong Kong analyzed federal corruption conviction data between 1997 and 2008, focusing on what they regarded as the 10 most corrupt states in the country, Illinois among them.

They hypothesized that collectively the 10 most corrupt states had annual government expenditures of $1,308 more per capita than states with average levels of corruption — effectively a corruption levy.

The study found that spending is prone to be elevated in more corrupt states as a result of bigger, potentially “bribe-generating” government expenditures on construction projects, borrowing and salaries, among other things.

State financial records show expenditures drawn from Illinois state government’s main operational account, the general revenue fund, grew from $22.9 billion in the 2000 budget year to $48.2 billion in 2022. That’s 110% growth, far outpacing the cumulative inflation of 67%. State healthcare and pension costs were responsible for much of those greater-than-inflation spending increases.

During that same period, federal prosecutors in the Blagojevich case successfully tied corrupt activities to plans for increased state spending.

Blagojevich’s 2011 conviction was built largely around his efforts to personally monetize his appointment of the U.S. Senate seat vacated by then-President-elect Barack Obama. But part of the case against Blagojevich focused on his planned solicitation of hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. Those were linked to his commitment for more than $1.8 billion in increased state spending — on health care and road construction.

How corruption affects legislation

Corruption has had other financial consequences for Illinois and its residents.

Three years ago, the state’s long association with corruption was a partial factor in the defeat of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s prized graduated income tax amendment to the Illinois constitution. Opponents, including billionaire Pritzker nemesis Ken Griffin, cited Springfield’s record of corruption in urging against a new, income-based tax structure that could yield billions of dollars.

The ballot initiative’s defeat came months after prosecutors laid out the first details of ComEd’s bribery scheme involving Madigan. The ComEd bribery also produced a direct cost to millions of ratepayers across northern Illinois, as the utility’s balance sheets took on a gold-plated hue.

In last spring’s ComEd trial, a senior company executive testified that one piece of legislation that was part of the Madigan bribery scheme generated a $1.8 billion windfall for ComEd.

That same 2016 law included another $2.3 billion over 10 years for ComEd corporate parent Exelon to bail out two of its cash-draining nuclear power plants. That money largely came from ratepayers, though ComEd has said that energy efficiencies allowed under the 2016 law also helped customers save money.

Northwestern University law professor Juliet Sorensen teaches courses on corruption and is a former federal prosecutor.

“Corruption … it’s a killer of economic growth and development,” Sorensen said. “The ComEd case is a stark example. It looks like the jury understood it to be as well.

“Some cases are more subtle. A hand-to-hand bribe transaction may not directly impact me in my daily life. But it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t negatively impact the place I live and the economy that I live in.”

What steps to stem corruption have been taken

Illinois lawmakers have taken only partial steps to mitigate the negative impact of corruption — even after Pritzker identified the issue as a priority.

“We must root out the purveyors of greed and corruption — in both parties — whose presence infects the bloodstream of government,” the governor said in his 2020 “State of the State” speech. “It’s no longer enough to sit idle while under-the-table deals, extortion, or bribery persist. Protecting that culture or tolerating it is no longer acceptable. We must take urgent action to restore the public’s trust in our government.”

He made that speech one day after former state Sen. Martin Sandoval, D-Chicago, pleaded guilty to federal bribery and tax evasion charges. Sandoval admitted taking bribes from the red-light camera industry. His illegal gains exceeded $250,000.

Sandoval died after his guilty plea from complications of COVID-19 in late 2020.

In 2021, lawmakers acted on Pritzker’s call. They passed a reform package the governor signed that included greater disclosure requirements for consultants lobbyists hire. That was a central piece of the ComEd bribery scheme, with the utility’s secret hiring of several Madigan political associates for no-work consulting gigs.

Another provision in that legislative package barred lawmakers from simultaneously lobbying other governmental entities. That was an outgrowth of the federal case involving Weiss and former state Rep. Luis Arroyo, D-Chicago, whose work as a registered lobbyist at City Hall was tied to the bribes he took from Weiss.

Last year, Arroyo was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for federal wire fraud after he was caught on tape offering to bribe a colleague in the state Senate. Seeger was the judge in that case and used Arroyo’s sentencing hearing to deride him as a “corruption super-spreader.” 

Last May, with backing from Pritzker, lawmakers moved to ban political contributions from red-light camera companies or their representatives, a response to the Sandoval case.

It also came after federal charges were lodged against state Sen. Emil Jones III, D-Chicago, who is awaiting trial on charges that accuse him of accepting a $5,000 bribe from a red light-camera industry executive.

Proposed reforms that could be made

For every baby step lawmakers have taken toward fixing corruption, though, there’s been plenty of legislative marching in place — or, in some instances, making matters worse.

Legislators continue to allow themselves to use their campaign funds to pay for their criminal defense, as Madigan and Burke have done.

And they’ve resisted clarifying state pension law pertaining to corrupt former public officials by taking away their legislative retirement checks if they engage in statehouse-related wrongdoing after leaving office — as now-convicted ComEd lobbyist Michael McClain did.

Action on these things might have some deterrence effect.

Earlier this year, WBEZ documented nearly $2 million in state retirement checks that have been paid to a mix of federally charged, convicted and self-admitted felons who once served in Springfield — or, in one case, their survivor.

Sandoval’s widow is drawing his state pension despite his prolific bribe-taking. The list also includes Mapes and Madigan. Mapes can keep drawing checks until his sentencing, and Madigan can keep receiving his pension until a possible conviction.

McClain has had his legislative pension suspended. But he could get it back if Attorney General Kwame Raoul and state retirement officials determine that McClain’s wrongdoing as a lobbyist didn’t relate to his time in office in the 1970s and early 1980s. Criminality arising from an ex-lawmaker’s time in office has to be established to trigger felony-forfeiture provisions warranting revocation of a legislative pension.

Sorensen said the rash of corruption cases should motivate lawmakers to revisit ethics reform proposals that largely went unimplemented, including a report from a commission headed by former federal prosecutor Patrick Collins and assembled by then-Gov. Pat Quinn after Blagojevich’s 2009 impeachment.

Among the panel’s recommendations were:

• Ban political contributions from state-regulated entities, like Commonwealth Edison or gambling entities.
• Give prosecutors the authority to seek wiretaps in corruption cases and permit the attorney general to empanel statewide grand juries for corruption investigations.
• Extend greater powers to state inspectors general.

“If you go back and look at the recommendations of the Illinois Reform Commission, they’re really good,” Sorensen said. “I think they are very thoughtful, and, if they were all implemented, I think they would go a long way, honestly, toward changing the culture of corruption in Illinois.”

Sorensen said the repeated wrongdoing by some in the state’s political elite has harmed the health of the state’s democracy.

That goes full circle to another time, to another federal courtroom and another corrupt official awaiting sentencing.

That was Blagojevich, who stood before U.S. District Judge James Zagel after being convicted by a federal jury on a second try by prosecutors in 2011.

Zagel, who died last summer, will be remembered for the way he described the damage of Blagojevich’s illegal deeds and how they tore at “the fabric of Illinois.”

“The harm is the erosion of public trust in government,” Zagel said. “If confidence in the integrity of the highest-ranking officer of the state, a sovereign officer, is lost or diminished, things will get worse and not better.”

And here the state sits all these years later.

One could almost take an elevator to their floor of choice at the Dirksen Federal Building to see what prosecutors and Zagel’s successors on the bench are seeing on an all-too-frequent basis: As corruption cases keep mounting, things don’t appear to be getting any better in Illinois.

Dave McKinney covers Illinois politics and government for WBEZ and previously was longtime Springfield bureau chief for the Sun-Times.

Contributing: Jon Seidel

This story is part of The Democracy Solutions Project, a partnership among WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times and the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government examining critical issues facing our democracy in the run-up to the 2024 elections.