Fitzgerald Takes on Illinois Corruption

The AP reports on Patrick Fitzgerald and Illinois corruption:

Fitzgerald's passion for rooting out corruption is obvious. In a speech to the Better Government Association last November, he said everyone must get involved.

"If people are not corrupt but they think they see corruption around them but don't want to know it, that's part of the problem, not part of the solution," he said. "That's part of the culture we have to change."

Fitzgerald found himself in a battle with Chicago's deeply entrenched political culture two years ago when he indicted four men who helped to direct the army of patronage employees on the city payroll who get out to the vote for Mayor Richard M. Daley and his allies on Election Day.

Patronage is illegal in most of city government, but a court decree barring the century-old custom has been largely ignored.

All four men were convicted in the case, but a deep reservoir of resentment lingers over what many people viewed as high-handed treatment.

Many community leaders, however, praised Fitzgerald for his stand.

"I happen to be very unsympathetic to patronage and its consequences," says Abner J. Mikva, a former Chicago congressman, White House counsel and federal judge. "So far as I'm concerned, Fitzgerald did the right thing."