Just another governor gone to jail

George Ryan used to be governor of one of the greatest states in the nation. Now he's just another of 45,400 people from Illinois locked up as common criminals.

And he's an embarrassment to the 12 million people who live outside jail cells in Illinois. Ryan is the third governor in recent history to have traded in his pinstripes for a prison outfit.

The former governor is now just another inmate without remorse. He insists he's innocent and has been wronged by the system. Just before being escorted into prison through the back door, beyond the glare of the public eye, Ryan declared he has a "clear conscience."

No doubt Ryan will ponder his legacy as he serves whatever he will of his 6½-year sentence. He did do some good things for the state -- and for those who truly were wrongly imprisoned on death row.

But one would hope that, in the long, lonely hours of confinement, Ryan will discover repentance and be accountable for his crimes against the people of Illinois. Even if he arrogantly and wrongly continues to believe that he, personally, is not corrupt, can he at least be sorry for the corruption that occurred under his watch that resulted in the death of six children, the children of the Rev. Scott and Janet Willis? They were killed in a crash that has a link to bribery in the secretary of state's office Ryan once led.

But the Willises -- and the public -- have the gratification of knowing that Ryan, for all his clout and influential legal aid, didn't get away with his crime and could not postpone his jail time anymore.

Sadly, Ryan is one of many who has helped keep Illinois near the top of the list of the most corrupt states in the country. In its report to Congress in 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice Public Integrity Section noted that in the northern district of the Illinois U.S. attorney's office, which successfully prosecuted Ryan, there were 453 federal public corruption convictions from 1996 through 2005. Only the southern district of Florida had more, with 576.

Where's our outrage over this? Yes, we might be understandably cynical to the point of submission. But we can't capitulate to the culture of corruption. At some point, there has to be the kind of backlash to this entrenched thievery of public trust and tax dollars that will evoke change.

Take, for example, what is happening in New Jersey, which has had 317 such corruption convictions. People there are fed up. According to Gannett New Jersey -- which in 2003 published a series "Profiting from public service"-- the legislature there has since ended its nepotism, passed 23 ethics reforms laws -- 23! -- and has made progress in ending pay-to-play, the corruption-prone system of awarding government contracts in exchange for political contributions that is entrenched in Illinois. Eighty-three New Jersey towns took the initiative of passing their own bans on pay-to-play. And the Star Ledger in Newark reports that in Tuesday's New Jersey Assembly elections, "Several of the new senators-elect … made ethics a centerpiece of their campaigns."

A New Jersey assemblyman told Gannett that attitudes about corruption are changing: "It is getting better every day."

Oh, for the same in Illinois.