Blagojevich says Rezko was 'sucked' in

Gov. Rod Blagojevich said Friday that his convicted former fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko was "sucked" into a system and that lines "were crossed."

Blagojevich has been resistant to talk about Rezko, but the Democratic governor made brief comments about him - even referring to him by name - during a press conference about changes the governor wants in ethics legislation.

"I have a theory on what happened in the Rezko situation was a system, you know, sucked him in and then some lines were crossed and then that person found himself actually violating some of the rules," Blagojevich said.

Blagojevich didn't elaborate on what his friend and longtime fundraiser did wrong. He said people are human, make mistakes and "maybe they didn't even know they crossed those lines."

Rezko was brought down in a federal corruption trial this summer involving a "pay-to-play" scheme that exposed more crooked politics in Illinois. He is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of 18 counts of fraud and other offenses involving the use of influence in state government to squeeze companies seeking to do business with the state for kickbacks.

Blagojevich has not been charged with any wrongdoing, but federal court records show he has been questioned by prosecutors multiple times.

The governor was quick to defend himself again on Friday.

"Nothing I ever did ever crossed the line," he said.

Still, Blagojevich said the Rezko case is a reason why there needs to be ethics reform in Illinois.

"Those things suggest that you learn from your mistakes and judgments and you fix them and correct them and the way to do it is to keep working to make the system more accountable to the people," he said.

But what to do and how to do it is a sticky issue.

Blagojevich has vetoed a bill passed by the General Assembly that would ban contractors with state deals worth $50,000 or more from making donations to the officeholders who hired them.

When he did that he rewrote it to apply the donation restrictions to legislators, change the way government pay raises are approved and limit the kinds of government jobs that lawmakers can hold.

Blagojevich has dismissed any suggestion that he larded up the measure to kill it.

"What we have to look at is the substance of what the governor put forward and it is language that I honestly do not believe will hold up in court - it is sloppy and it is designed on many levels to punish people. It is not designed to resolve problems," said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.

The governor has also filed an executive order to ban donations from contractors at the same level in the original bill for all statewide officials, including himself, and members of the General Assembly beginning in January.

The House has since voted to override Blagojevich's veto and the Senate is due in Springfield next week to vote. Senate President Emil Jones was encouraged to call senators back into session by his political protege, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.