Were Illinois' Governor and Lieutenant Governor Ghost-Payrollers?

The Illinois Republican Party reports:

Pat Quinn emerged from the shadows today to talk about, of all things, ethics. But Illinois Republican Party Chairman Gary MacDougal points out that Quinn, the Democrat lieutenant governor hopeful, has no credibility on this subject.

“Here we have a guy in a glass house throwing stones,” MacDougal said. “Quinn is a veteran ghost-payroller running for office with Rod Blagojevich, who cannot satisfactorily explain whether or not he was a ghost-payroller as a City of Chicago employee. Blagojevich’s own spokesman last week even admitted that the Democrat gubernatorial candidate violated the city’s ethic’s ordinance several years ago by representing clients suing the City of Chicago. Clearly, Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn are the ones who need to be answering questions.”

According to U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Pat Quinn was a ghost payroller during the administration of former Illinois Governor Dan Walker. Durbin believes Quinn was carried on the payroll of a state agency for which he did no work between 1973 and 1975. (Springfield State Journal-Register, 2/2/96) Governor Walker, a mentor to Quinn, subsequently was convicted of tax fraud and sent to prison.

In the early 1990’s, Rod Blagojevich claims he was a part-time worker at the ward office of his father-in-law and powerful Democratic boss, Chicago Alderman Dick Mell. (Chicago Tribune, 10/24/96, 10/25/96) However, at the same time, the head of the Legislative Reference Bureau of the City of Chicago states that Blagojevich was a full-time employee of that agency. Blagojevich says he did no work for the Bureau, raising troubling questions about why he was held out to the public as a full-time employee. (Chicago Tribune, 10/24/96) Federal authorities eventually questioned Mell’s staff as part of a sweeping probe into ghost-payrolling at City Hall. (Chicago Tribune, 10/24/96) Last week, Blagojevich’s spokesman admitted that Rod represented two clients at the time who were suing the city - a clear violation of the city’s ethics ordinance.

The fact that Senator Durbin would accuse Pat Quinn of this suggests that all is not well in the Illinois Democratic Party.