A Just Cause Read online

  Many reporters had not yet arrived at work. Paul Meincke, a seasoned political reporter for Chicago television station WLS, was in the shower when his wife called out that the governor had been arrested. He quickly finished getting ready and rushed downtown. Meincke believed that the federal agents arrested Blagojevich the way they did to shock him and perhaps prompt him to start talking.1 Andrew Porte, managing editor for WLS news, was not surprised that the governor had been arrested. In the days leading up to the arrest, there had been a steady drumbeat of revelations concerning a federal investigation and wiretapping of Blagojevich’s phones. But Porte was surprised at the way the governor had been arrested—whisked from his home in the early morning hours, with no advance notice and no time to prepare.2

  Chuck Goudie, also a veteran reporter for WLS television, rushed to federal court and was waiting when the governor arrived. Although the governor was escorted by deputy US marshals, “he might as well have been in the company of political handlers, because he immediately began working the room, glad-handing with court staff, waving to spectators as he would at a rally,” Goudie recalled. “It might have been the first time a criminal defendant ever used such an occasion as a campaign stop.” Goudie asked himself, “Is he already looking for jury votes?” For Goudie the scene was paradoxical, with this man who thought he should be president of the United States standing under the American eagle inscribed on the wall overlooking the judge’s bench.3 Julie Unruh, a reporter for WGN television, was also in the federal courtroom, and her reaction was similar to Goudie’s. Here was Blagojevich, as cocky as ever, smiling, shaking hands, seemingly oblivious to the seriousness of what was happening to him. For Unruh, a veteran reporter of political events, the scene was dreamlike, and she felt almost detached from the reality being played out before her.4

  For members of the legislature and legislative staff, the startling news of the governor’s arrest remains a frozen moment. Jim Durkin, a Republican state representative from a district that includes the western suburbs of Chicago, was just waking up. “I was groggy, just getting the cobwebs out,” he recalled. His wife, Celeste, called out from another room, “Come in here—you have to see this!” As the ten-year veteran of the Illinois house watched the scene unfolding on Chicago television, it seemed surreal. The events of that Tuesday morning were unforgettable, and for Durkin the incident seemed comparable to the death of Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, the explosion of the Challenger, or the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. “I was watching the governor of Illinois being led out of the federal lockup in a blue jumpsuit, in handcuffs,” he expressed with amazement. “This was the governor.”5 But the coming eight weeks would prove to be even more amazing.

  Raised in a family of eight boys in Chicago and its western suburbs, the forty-six-year-old Durkin had followed a career trajectory that was familiar to many from the city’s ethnic Irish community. His father was an accountant whose clients included Chicago-area labor unions. Many of his relatives were Chicago police officers, and he was especially influenced by his uncle, Jim Keating, who was chief of detectives for the Chicago Police Department. Durkin wanted to be a police officer and majored in criminology at Illinois State University. But after graduating, he was influenced by his brothers Tom and Kevin, both attorneys and county prosecutors, to go on to law school. After law school, he worked for the state’s attorney general and later as a prosecutor in the narcotics and felony trial units of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.

  The Durkin family, many of whom were Chicago police officers or had ties to labor unions, were Democrats. But national events in the late 1980s, the hostage crises, and dissatisfaction with President Jimmy Carter prompted Jim Durkin to become aligned with the Republican Party. In 1995 Judy Baar Topinka, the Republican senator from the Twenty-Second Senate District, was elected state treasurer. Tom Walsh, the state representative from the house 44th District, encompassed by the Twenty-Second Senate District, was moved to the Illinois senate. Jim Durkin was chosen by local Republicans to fill the house vacancy created by Walsh’s transition. Durkin left the house in 2002, but after an unsuccessful run for the US Senate, he returned in 2006. One of his earliest conversations the morning of the governor’s arrest was with Republican leader Tom Cross. For Durkin there was no other option but an impeachment investigation. “We have to do something about this,” he thought.6

  In Marengo, a small city northwest of Chicago and just a few miles from the Wisconsin border, Jack Franks was working in his home office. A Democrat from a rock-ribbed Republican county, Franks had served in the Illinois house since 1998. Franks was informed of politics for much of his life and was active in McHenry County Democratic organizations. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and a general studies degree from the London School of Economics, he had gone on to earn a law degree from American University. Franks also studied abroad, first in Brazil, where he learned Portuguese, and while in law school he attended Beijing University for a semester. After his studies, he returned to Marengo and practiced law. In 1998, disenchanted with single-party dominance in McHenry County, he decided to run for state representative. In a year when Republican George Ryan won the race for governor, carrying 76 percent of the vote in McHenry County, the popular Jack Franks defeated his Republican opponent. Now married and the father of two sons, Franks lived on the family farm where he was raised.

  The morning of the arrest Franks was anticipating a busy day, with a new staff person scheduled to start work and a fund-raiser that evening in Chicago, when he received a call from his friend Steve Kling, who told him to turn on the television. Franks had a personal interest in what was displayed on his screen, and he was not surprised. He was intimately aware of the administrative antics of the Blagojevich administration. Franks was the chairman of the house State Government Administration Committee and over the years had held hearings on several questionable actions by the administration. In 2007 the committee, in response to an audit conducted by the Illinois auditor general, held hearings concerning the administration’s purchase of flu vaccines and prescription drugs from a foreign country (the latter through the governor’s I-SaveRx program). It is illegal to import drugs from a foreign country. Franks was an outspoken critic of the governor and had been urging the Speaker to form a committee to investigate impeaching Blagojevich for almost a year. The house leadership demurred; impeachment was an unprecedented step. With the governor’s arrest, Franks’s request had been justified. He did not hide his emotions; “I was happy he was arrested,” he said. Now impeachment could go forward. He called Speaker Michael Madigan and told him that only the formation of an investigative committee would satisfy him.7

  Like many legislators that morning, John Fritchey also received a telephone call informing him of the arrest. Fritchey represented the same legislative district that Rod Blagojevich represented when he had served in the Illinois house. An attorney, Fritchey came to politics by a different route than most Chicago politicians. He was born of modest means on a military base in Louisiana. His father was an enlisted man in the US Air Force, and his mother was a Moroccan immigrant. Moving to Chicago, Fritchey saw a chance for advancement. With the help of scholarships, he attended college and law school. Fritchey had a keen interest in government and became involved in Chicago ward politics. He was able to network with the power brokers of the city’s north wards, and when Rod Blagojevich decided to move from the Illinois house to congress, Fritchey told Thirty-Third Ward alderman Dick Mell that he wanted to run for the Illinois house. He received the backing of Mell and the committeemen and found himself sharing a campaign office with congressional candidate Rod Blagojevich. At first Fritchey and Blagojevich were friends, but the amity did not last, although the two tolerated each other. Fritchey felt that Blagojevich resented him and was unnerved by his rise in Chicago politics, from humble beginnings to the Illinois state house. “He thought I was taking something away from him,” Fritchey said.8

&
nbsp; The two men had little contact when Blagojevich served in congress, and by the time Blagojevich became governor, the resentment had given way to open hostility. Blagojevich had a few allies in the legislature, and Fritchey was certainly not among them. He chose instead to side with the Speaker and became a vocal critic of the governor. When he was informed of Blagojevich’s arrest, Fritchey began calling legislative allies and drafted a letter calling for the removal of the governor. To show broad-based geographical support for the governor’s removal, he strategically asked three other house Democrats, each from a different section of the state, to sign the letter: Thomas Holbrook, who represented a downstate district; David Miller, who was African American and represented a Chicago south suburban district; and Jim Brosnahan, who represented southwest Chicago and the southwest suburbs. Fritchey insisted that he be appointed to the investigative committee being contemplated by the Speaker.9

  News of the arrest spread quickly through the state capitol building in Springfield. The arrest was a surprise, but to those who had experienced the legislative turbulence of the past six years, it did not come as a shock. Those working in the capitol building felt a special sense of involvement, as if they had a front-row seat to the drama now unfolding. Legislative assistants answered the many phone calls from legislators and constituents and made calls of their own. People gathered in groups. Many were smiling. Everyone was “in a twitter,” remarked a senate staffer. The governor’s office on the second floor was quiet, and there was a sense of foreboding as staffers passed by and took note of the empty outer reception area.

  Andy Manar, deputy chief of staff for outgoing senate president Emil Jones and the newly appointed chief of staff for the incoming senate Democrats, had just settled into his office and had much to do—make new staff appointments, assign offices, and start thinking about the upcoming legislative agenda. His most immediate task was to plan the inauguration ceremony, just weeks away. Manar had worked for the senate Democrats for a decade and had acquired the insights of a veteran of state politics. His home was the small town of Bunker Hill. While in high school, he had met the influential senator Vince Demuzio from downstate Carlinville. Demuzio was teaching a course at a local community college, and Manar, wanting to get a jump on college courses, enrolled. Manar was already interested in politics and US history, and his acquaintance with Demuzio prompted him to join the Macoupin County Democratic Organization. After graduating from Southern Illinois University with a degree in political science, he went to work for the Democratic senate, first as an intern, then on Demuzio’s staff. He later was promoted to staff budget director and then deputy chief of staff. In November John Cullerton, the choice of the majority Democrats to be senate president, asked Manar to be chief of staff. Manar was surprised, but his budget acumen and staff experience, and the fact that he came from downstate and would balance the influence of Chicago, had led Cullerton to believe that Manar would be a perfect fit.

  When Manar was informed of Blagojevich’s arrest, his first reaction was one of disbelief. “That can’t be true,” he thought. Although rumors of investigations concerning the governor had been going around for years, and the rumors and newspaper stories had become more frequent during the past few weeks, this seemed incredible. After he verified the arrest, however, he began to realize that it had been inevitable.10

  Clayton Harris, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, was on his way to the State of Illinois Building in downtown Chicago. It was time for the regular morning meeting with the chief of staff, John Harris. John Harris liked to schedule morning meetings with his deputy early, to plan and go over the day’s events. “Before the chaos,” John Harris would say. As Clayton Harris was driving into the parking lot, he received a text message asking, “Is it true?” Another text a few moments later informed him, “They have arrested your boss.” He was stunned, but as he pulled into the parking lot, his phone went dead. He noticed an ominous sign: John Harris’s car was not there. The chief of staff always arrived early. He quickly made his way to the back elevator and to his office on the sixteenth floor. As he got off the elevator, he was greeted by a state trooper, who just shook his head. He was soon informed that both the governor and John Harris had been arrested. The former county prosecutor was greeted by a swarm of federal agents who demanded to know who he was. The agents showed him a search warrant and started taking files from offices. Clayton Harris described the scene with the word so many have used: surreal. He turned on a television. His cell phone was working again, and his first phone call was from former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Denny Hastert, a friend with whom he had worked on the Illinois Works Coalition. Denny Hastert was calling to see if his friend was all right. The second call was from his mother. She was worried about her son and, like so many that day, wanted to know what was going on. He told her he did too.11

  Clayton Harris had joined the governor’s staff in August 2008, after serving as chief of staff for the Illinois Transportation Department. He majored in aerospace technology at Middle Tennessee State University and then worked for an engineering firm at the Pentagon. He decided to go on to law school and graduated from Howard University in 1999. His work in government started after he moved to Chicago. He first worked as an assistant state’s attorney and later for the city of Chicago. Although a seasoned government professional, Clayton Harris was not part of the governor’s inner circle, had never contributed to the governor, and had never worked on his campaigns.12

  Now, with the top of the organizational structure lopped off, confusion set in. Some people who should have come to work that day did not. People began to come into the deputy chief of staff’s office asking what was going on. Some were crying. Harris instructed everyone to meet in a conference room on the fifteenth floor. “Someone had to step up,” he later said. He told those present to calm down and carry on as if it were a normal workday. And he asked those who were crying to please stop. “I can take everything but crying,” he said. He officially became the acting chief of staff one week later.13

  For Illinois’ longtime Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, the day started in an ordinary way, with a visit to his chiropractor. Madigan was contemplating an out-of-town trip and felt relaxed, and his doctor later remarked that he had seemed particularly happy that morning. He then returned to his home on Chicago’s Southwest Side, oblivious to what was happening. He found that his wife, Shirley, had been trying to contact him and was somewhat agitated. She had been fielding calls from seemingly everyone. The methodical and controlled Speaker began returning the calls and made some of his own. Madigan spoke to his chief of staff, Tim Mapes; chief counsel David Ellis; and soon-to-be senate president John Cullerton. He decided to go to his political headquarters, the Thirteenth Ward office, on South Pulaski Road. The ward office was a familiar and comfortable place, out of the public spotlight, where the most powerful politician in Illinois could surround himself with trusted confidants, digest incoming information, and discuss and plan the reaction of the legislature.14

  Michael Madigan is sometimes referred to as a master chess player, because he thinks several moves ahead. The arrest was a surprise, but the Speaker was prepared. For years the Chicago papers had been reporting on the corruption occurring within the Blagojevich administration. Some of the governor’s confidants had been convicted, and several more were under indictment. The reportage of the Chicago Tribune was particularly withering. On September 29 the paper had run an editorial titled “Indict or Impeach.” Indeed, the possibility of removing the governor was being discussed as a real option. In June 2008 Republican senator Larry Bomke had written a letter to Michael Madigan urging him to begin an impeachment investigation, and the Speaker’s staff had begun to compile evidence of the governor’s indiscretions and maladministration.15

  With his arrest, there were few options to consider. Blagojevich had to be quickly removed from office. The governor had been arrested and booked on suspicion of several criminal acts and was facing
certain indictment and a trial. There was some hope that in the coming days, Blagojevich would consider his situation and resign from office. Another option, presented in the Illinois Constitution, was that the governor could temporarily step aside, and his duties would be assumed by the lieutenant governor.16 The third option was that the Illinois house of representatives could immediately hold an impeachment investigation and pass an impeachment resolution. The senate would hold a trial to decide whether to remove the governor from office.

  Madigan was hesitant to act immediately that Tuesday morning, conscious of the political repercussions of acting too soon. Lisa Madigan, Illinois’ attorney general, was the Speaker’s daughter, and there was talk of her possible aspirations to the governor’s office. The following Monday, the delegates to the Electoral College would meet in Springfield and officially cast their votes to elect Barack Obama president of the United States. Madigan decided to give Blagojevich six days to resign or step aside. If the governor did not remove himself from office, the Speaker would announce an impeachment investigation on Monday after the Electoral College met.17

  Madigan was managing events instinctively, thinking of moves three steps ahead of the current situation. His instincts and political skills were honed by years of involvement in old-fashioned Chicago ward politics. His family was involved in city politics and had an early association with Richard J. Daley, when the future mayor worked in the Cook County Clerk’s Office. Madigan’s political career had followed a charted course. He went to Chicago’s St. Ignatius College Prep, a Catholic preparatory high school; attended college at Notre Dame University; and then earned his law degree from Loyola University. The young attorney was chosen by the Democratic organization to be a delegate to the 1970 Constitutional Convention. A year later he was elected to the Illinois house of representatives. He rose rapidly in the house, and when the Democrats gained control in 1983, he was elected Speaker. Madigan served in this capacity until 1995, when the Democrats lost the majority in the first midterm election of the Clinton presidency. The Republicans held the house for only two years, and in 1997 Madigan again became Speaker. In 1998 he was elected chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party and still held that position in 2008.