Kendall County Times

James Marter thinks a new University of Illinois at Chicago study that pegs the state’s annual corruption tab at $556 million raises as many questions as it provides answers.

“I wonder how they’re defining corruption,” Marter told the Kendall County Times. “I wonder if they’re factoring things in like when you promise pensions to teachers and others at higher rates than they could ever get anywhere else. You do that and the count becomes much higher and closer to what it probably actually is.”

UIC researchers also noted Illinois ranks as the second-most corrupt state in the country (behind Louisiana) and Chicago is the most corrupt city in the U.S., all of which goes a long way in crippling the state’s chances for economic growth.

Over the last two decades, researchers also found the state’s corruption price-tag easily tops $10 billion, or around $830 per resident.

This year alone, at least four state lawmakers have been indicted on corruption charges, adding to the state’s long and sordid political history that includes four governors having been sentenced to prison over the last five decades. Presently, longtime House Speaker Mike Madigan finds himself cast as a central figure in the ongoing federal probe involving utility giant ComEd and a pay-for-play scheme.

“It’s a vicious cycle that we need to be doing everything we can stop,” added Marter, chairman of the Kendall County Republican Party. Voters need to wake up and send most of Springfield packing. We’ve had an exodus going on in Illinois for close to a decade based on all this corruption and it’s not going to stop until we change the makeup of our government.”

Marter argues that all needs to start with ousting Madigan, the state’s longest-tenured lawmaker.

“For years and years, people have thought they were getting one thing with their vote only to learn differently,” he said. “Hopefully, they’ve all had enough now to really want to do something about it.”