Marathon Pundit: The latest from the Illinois political nuthouse

The political culture of Illinois is so bizarre, even myself, a lifelong resident, is taken aback once in a while. One of those times is tonight.

A tough ethics bill--nothing like the cream puff edition from 2003 that Barack Obama pins his reform credentials on--easily made it through the Illinois General Assembly this spring.

The legislation was written to curb the abuses of the administration of Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Chicago Democrat. The heart of the bill is the provision that prevents contractors doing business worth over $50,000 from making campaign contributions to the elected officials who hired them.

Barack Obama's longtime friend, and the governor's now-jailed associate, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, was the linchpin of a scandal US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called "pay to play on steroids."

Using his amendatory veto pen, "Blago" altered the bill almost beyond recognition. The Illinois House overrode the veto, and sent it to the state Senate, where Obama-mentor Emil Jones runs things. Jones, a close ally to the governor, is a machine politician who makes no apologies about it. He planned to bottle up the bill until after the November elections--and at that time he probably would let it die.

But reformers called on Obama to to for once do something meaningful about reform in Illinois. Next week, Jones will call the Senate back to Springfield, and the veto will likely be overturned.

Plain and simple ending? Nothing is that easy in Rezkoland, as Mike Flannery of CBS 2 Chicago explains:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has a warning for Sen. Barack Obama. He predicts that before the presidential election, Obama will regret supporting ethics legislation that Blagojevich calls inadequate.

"This is a Republican trap," Blagojevich said. "They're setting Barack Obama up by using this ethics issue in Illinois."

Nonetheless, as CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, Obama's endorsement appears to guarantee the ethics bill will become law.

Sources tell CBS 2 that at least three teams of IRS agents are now investigating Blagojevich. It's a large commitment of federal resources. Among other things, they're sifting through documents related to allegations of criminal wrongdoing by the governor. While not responding specifically to that, the governor did insist Friday that he's been a model of ethics reform.

Call it the great right-wing conspiracy reform scheme.

More seriously, the governor is nuts. What do you expect from a man who bragged that only he had the "testicular virility" to run the state?

The endgame of the federal investigations is very clear. Another indictment of an Illinois governor.

During his speech at last month's Democratic National Convention, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. bragged "Illinois is America."

Thank God he's wrong.

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