Lawmakers say deal with Blago just matter of bringing home the bacon

SPRINGFIELD - A handful of state lawmakers say they were looking out for their districts and nothing more when they signed agreements with then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich last year offering to support his $34 billion, gambling-financed construction spending plan if he committed to local projects.

Those projects never happened as the spending spree stalled, but documents recently turned over to the Daily Herald by now-Gov. Pat Quinn's office offer a rare glimpse behind the scenes of last year's contentious power struggles at the Capitol as Blagojevich sought to shore up votes and wary lawmakers pondered their moves.

"At some point you're here to represent your district and however you can ... excuse me for lack of a better term ... take the bacon home, you do that. That's the way the process was going at the time. That's what I was doing. Trying to take things back to Rockford," said Rockford Democratic state Rep. Chuck Jefferson. "Maybe it wasn't as wise as what I thought it was, but, I mean, that's the way it goes."

Last July, as Blagojevich and House Speaker Michael Madigan waged an almost daily political battle over construction spending, Jefferson signed a memorandum of understanding with Blagojevich in which he agreed to the gambling and lottery plans and the governor agreed to include millions of dollars in Rockford-area road projects.

Jefferson was one of a half-dozen House Democrats to sign such memos with Blagojevich last year. The others were Waukegan state Rep. Eddie Washington, Quad-Cities area state Reps. Mike Boland and Patrick Vershoore, Homewood state Rep. Will Davis and Morris state Rep. Careen Gordon. Then-Senate GOP leader Frank Watson of downstate Greenville had previously signed similar memos on behalf of the Senate Republicans. Quinn's administration provided the memos in response to a Daily Herald Freedom of Information Act request. Attempts to get this information from the Blagojevich administration had been unsuccessful.

Blagojevich was indicted last week on federal corruption charges, following the Chicago Democrat's impeachment and ouster from office in January. He's maintained he's innocent and accused lawmakers of conspiring to remove him so they could raise taxes. Quinn took over the governor's office in January and immediately promised to be more open.

Like Jefferson, the lawmakers who signed the agreements said their local communities needed projects and that they were trying to ensure they'd get something. All except Gordon were interviewed on the House floor last week.

"It wasn't even worth the piece of paper. I never received anything to take back to my district," Washington said, explaining that the agreement was an attempt to get in writing things Blagojevich had previously promised to fund but never had. "I never got anything. But that's done. This is a new day."

And they said there were no illicit or illegal requests made by the now-indicted former governor, nor was it part of any political effort to undermine Madigan, the influential House speaker who was blocking Blagojevich's spending plans.

"No, not at all. At least that's certainly not the way I ever viewed it," said Rep. Davis from the South suburbs. "My advocacy was for my district."

At the time, many lawmakers were under intense local pressure as both unions and business interests aligned to support the construction plan and Madigan appeared to be the only remaining hurdle, repeatedly citing his distrust of the governor and his administration.

"I told the speaker, I've got to vote for it," said Vershoore. "Believe me, I wasn't signing anything to help him (Blagojevich). He didn't do anything to help me out."

These agreements had become customary in negotiating with the Blagojevich administration. Past budget deals included dozens of similar signed accords as lawmakers wanted the governor's commitments in writing. Even then several were not honored. The surprise to some political observers was that there weren't more signed agreements. Before Blagojevich, these types of deals were still done but a governor's word had been enough of a guarantee.

Regardless, the head of a leading government watchdog group called it all a troubling example of the way things work in Illinois.

"The idea that there were legislators still brokering deals with the governor is disturbing in and of itself. It shows a lack of awareness of what was going on more broadly with the criminal complaint whirling around his administration," said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.

Key to all this is the politics of that moment. By May of last year, Blagojevich had managed to, at least on the surface, get nearly every legislative leader to agree to the massive construction deal, which was sure to finance a plethora of ribbon cuttings in lawmakers' home districts just as they were about to start re-election campaigns.

The lone holdout was Madigan, whose personal dealings with Blagojevich had deteriorated to the point that he refused to meet with the governor he'd helped elect.

"It's all about trust and whether people are prepared to trust Governor Blagojevich and trust his record of broken promises," Madigan said last May as the $34 billion spending plan was being prepped in the Illinois Senate only to later stall in Madigan's House.

At the same time, Watson, then the Senate's Republican leader, signed several memorandums of understanding with Blagojevich, mostly on behalf of his GOP members, that spelled out funding for road projects in their areas if the construction deal became law.

State Sen. Dan Cronin, an Elmhurst Republican, said Friday he was unaware of those agreements until contacted by the Daily Herald, but wasn't surprised.

"Everyone knew Frank (Watson) was working for a capital bill. And everyone knew Blagojevich was, at best, a knucklehead then. But he was the governor. I don't think there's any cause for regret," said Cronin, who was among the suburban Republicans who joined the majority Democrats and voted last May for the expanded gambling needed to finance the projects.

Watson, who suffered a stroke last year, has since retired. But the Senate Republican spokeswoman said the signed agreements with Blagojevich show just how little trust there was with the former governor at the same time there was great need for road, bridge and school work.

"What we've learned since - is that was probably good foresight," Senate GOP spokeswoman Patty Schuh said of the attempt to get all Blagojevich commitments in writing.

And while Cronin said no one should be portrayed as being more "virtuous" than others for declining to negotiate with the former governor on a key state issue, Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said the subsequent events show Madigan was right.

"Oh, I think that everything Madigan said about steering clear of him," said Brown, "has been proven out by the bucket load."

With Blagojevich out of office, lawmakers last week approved a far smaller construction plan that includes $3 billion in state financing and say they hope to have a more complex, $26 billion follow-up plan approved before the session ends in May.