Chicago Alderman just following leader in sweetheart zoning

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Whether America likes it or not, Chicago Machine Democrats are on a mission to clean up our nation's politics. But back here in the neighborhoods, the song remains the same:

It's all about taking care of your own, the Chicago Way.

The latest superstar is Ald. Patrick O'Connor (40th), who was featured in a recent installment of an ongoing Tribune investigation called "Neighborhoods for Sale."

In Sunday's segment, written and reported by Robert Becker and Dan Mihalopoulos, readers learned that the North Side alderman has a strange habit. He habitually approves zoning for developers who magically engage his wife, Barbara, as their real estate agent.

Mrs. Alderman O'Connor has sold more than $22 million worth of houses and condominiums in her husband's ward, after her husband approved the zoning changes. How Chicago is that?

That's the gist of the O'Connor story, and if you want the fascinating details, get on the Internet at chicagotribune.com/zoning. You'll find other stories there, too, about the first family of zoning, the Banks family.

Of course, the family that leads all other families by voracious public example is the Daley family, which is pushing its own reform candidate toward the White House.

What these stories, and others, suggest, is that in Illinois, there are two types: those who are politically connected, and their wives and kids and nephews and sisters-in-laws and brothers who make money through government deals.

They write the laws. They shape the so-called ethics ordinances and ethics boards. They define the right and wrong of things. They make the rules. The rest of us pay.