Illinois State of the Union

The state of Illinois achieved statehood in 1818 and began in much of the same form it is currently in, broke.  In 1818, Shadrach Bond was elected the first governor of Illinois.  With the difficult task ahead of him to lead a newly formed state with no funds, no transportation, and largely undeveloped areas, Bond was able to provide a strong leadership to his state with would continue for roughly 140 years until Chicago politics would begin to turn hard working public servants into selfish millionaires with no sense of their constituents.

As the 19th century rolled around, Illinois produced some honest leaders including Abraham Lincoln, Richard Yates, and Shelby Collum.  These were the days, right?  As time progressed, so did the state as well as the rise of Chicago politics.  Corruption is no recent development here.  When Otto Kerner was elected governor in 1960, he would hold the crystal ball to show the downfall of those who would take office in future decades.  Kerner gained notoriety by prosecuting automotive icon, Preston Tucker by claiming his company was a scam in return for Tucker lobbying for government intervention on lack of safety features offered by the Ford Motor Company.  Kerner was also known for accepting bribes from executives of horse racing tracks in exchange for two exits to be build on the highway to lead to the tracks. He was convicted of 17 counts of bribery, conspiracy, and perjury.  This is how it all begins...

Over the next couple decades, we witnessed convictions of Daniel Walker, George Ryan, Rod Blagojevich, and hopefully sooner than later, Pat Quinn.  Blagojevich gained national attention for making bids to sell Barack Obama's seat in the Senate.  After denying the entire event, tapes and conversations were made public not only incriminating the soon to be convicted governor, but turned him into a national joke. 

Now we have Pat Quinn, who has signed a bill into legislation that directly affected my own way of life by requiring affiliates doing business with out of state retailers to remit sales tax on items not shipped from or to Illinois.  While in his eyes, this may have been a good idea, it simply pushed numerous companies out of the state with a growing hatred toward Illinois politics with their lack of common sense approach.  While our state has one of the highest unemployment levels in the country, more jobs are leaving the state than coming back in and from a local standpoint, many of the businesses looking to move in are simply sent packing to greener pastures.  With all this history, one would think something could be learned from all this.  In reality, it's just one more ignorant politician with his hands in the wrong pocket.