By Gov. Bruce Rauner From Chicago Sun Times
To unleash our full potential, Illinois needs to end
corruption in state government.
For decades, career politicians and political insiders have
abused their positions of power to line their own pockets and rig the political
system in their favor. The result has been a state government that works for
career politicians and their cronies to the detriment of the people.
Illinois has suffered the embarrassment of watching four of
our last nine governors go to prison. National headlines about my predecessors
— like Rod Blagojevich, who was caught on FBI wiretap trying to sell President
Obama’s senate seat to unethical insiders — made our state a national
punchline.
Beyond embarrassment, the people of Illinois have also been
forced to deal with the harmful consequences of corruption: state government
dominated by the Chicago political machine and pay-to-play politics,
out-of-control spending on sweetheart deals for special interests, and decades of
destructively high taxes that stunt economic growth and ask hardworking
families to continually pay more for a broken system.
For too long, public service in Illinois has been treated by
career politicians as a way to make money. I couldn’t stand by and watch my
home — the state I love — continue down the wrong path. I didn’t run away from
the problem; I ran for office.
When I ran for governor four years ago, I campaigned on a
bold, independent agenda to clean up state government and wrest power away from
the entrenched political insiders. The people of Illinois affirmed my
commitment to change the culture in state government.
In my first term, our team delivered meaningful, measurable
reforms that have ended some of the corrupt state government practices holding
Illinois back. We strengthened ethical requirements on all executive branch
employees to change the culture within state government.
By requiring enhanced annual economic interest disclosures,
we promoted transparency and accountability for employees of the executive
branch. We closed the revolving door between public service and lobbying by
banning anyone from lobbying the administration for one year after leaving the
executive branch and stopped lobbyists and government contractors from
unethically influencing state regulators by closing loopholes in bans on gifts
and lobbyist-funded travel.
And we ended the illegal patronage hiring in state
government made infamous under my predecessors Blagojevich and Pat Quinn. Unfortunately, the Illinois General Assembly has failed to
hold itself to these same high standards. Career politicians in the legislative
branch are happy to put desperately needed ethics reforms on the back burner as
long as it helps them stay in office and regardless of calls from the people of
Illinois to clean up their act. That’s why six times in the last six years the
House has shot down legislation to put term limits on elected officials.
Disturbingly, those who control the General Assembly have
made no effort to stop elected officials from engaging in harmful conflicts of
interest. House Speaker Mike Madigan himself makes millions enriching himself
by running a property tax appeals firm in Chicago while simultaneously hiking
taxes on hardworking Illinois families and businesses while in Springfield. And
allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation call into question how his
organization conducts business.
This kind of unethical behavior has to stop. Corrupt
insiders and their cronies should no longer run our government. The people of
Illinois deserve better. In my first term, we’ve made real progress in making state
government more accountable to the people it serves. But there’s more work to
do. I’m committed to working with reform-minded lawmakers from both parties to
continue to root out the corruption holding us back and make government work
for the people of Illinois again.
Gov. Bruce Rauner, now running for re-election, first was
sworn into office on Jan. 12, 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment