During George W. Bush's lame-duck portion of his term, there was a push by former Illinois Governor Jim Thompson and Sen. Dick Durbin to issue clemency to another former Illinois governor, Republican George Ryan. But then Ryan's successor, Rod Blagojevich, was arrested on corruption charges. So ended that clemency drive.
Ryan was convicted of a whole slew of fraud charges dating back to his tenure as secretary of state. The Kankakee pol is almost half way through his seven year prison sentence. Thompson, a Republican, is Ryan's lawyer.
The clemency drive is back--Ryan is of course making his request to President Obama. Both the former governor and his wife are ailing. Obama served in the state Senate while Ryan was governor, and Obama was able to secure some pork for his district during Illinois' good-old-days when it had money to spend. Of course the state is still spending, it just doesn't have the money, but that's another topic for another time.
Technorati tags:
politics 
Blagojevich 
illinois 
Democrats 
Illinois Politics 
Durbin 
George Ryan 
Republican 
Barack Obama 
Obama
No comments:
Post a Comment