Governor of Ill-Repute

As most of you know, this past week the Governor of Chicago (er, excuse me, Illinois), Rod Blagojevich, was arrested and charged with a number of criminal violations—the most notable was his attempt to ‘auction’ off President-Elect Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder (as you know, the Governor of the state can appoint somebody to replace a Senator’s seat).

For most not familiar with Illinois politics, it’s as corrupt as it comes—and it’s predominantly due to the Chicago influence. Over the past 40 some years 4 governors have been convicted of felonies and have served time—currently the Governor prior to our current one, is serving 6 years for corruption in his role as Secretary of State (the position before he became governor).

It is also ironic that the current Governor also instituted a lame-ass attempt to bring ethics back into the state by mandating all state-employees go through an annual web-based tutorial on ethics (however, politicians are exempt from going through this training). This is a worthless activity that three years ago caused a great stir around the state because several faculty at SIU (around 50) completed the training but the training was negated because, according to state officials, they completed the training too quickly. It’s typical of Illinois—a very anti-higher education state—to accuse people of being too smart. For those in education, have you ever questioned anybody who finished too soon? These 50 individuals were threatened to be fired because they completed a typical 30 minute tutorial in a time less than 12 minutes.

I took this test (I completed it in 18 minutes and I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer)…apparently 18 minutes was acceptable. One of my colleagues finished in 14 minutes…he was one of the 50 ‘smart people’.

Although the Blagojevich acts were incredibly stupid and arrogant, it does make one pause to think of the possibilities associated with his idea. Maybe universities can use this approach to raise funds. I propose that we sell ‘administration’ positions at universities for a fee. Obviously, one would need to be qualified, but we would get them to pay for a seat. For example, a chair would have to pay $100,000. We’d even allow them to pay this over the course of let’s say 10 years. OK, we hire the poor smuck for $120,000, have them kick back $10,000 a year for ten years (under the guise of a ‘donation’), to the university. We do that for all the chairs, the university can create some decent funds. Of course, the fees would go up according to the position…perhaps a Dean’s position is at $250K, Provosts at $500K, etc. Again, all the money would go back to the university. Heck, we could even format this so that the money could be sent back as a ‘donation’ from the person—a tax-deducted ‘gift’.

The difference between this and the Blagojevich plan is that it’s out in the open and the money wouldn’t go into an individual’s pocket but back into the institution. I betcha if Blagojevich would have used the money received for his senate appointment to go back into the state coffers (instead of his pocket) that the people wouldn’t have been so upset.

My second option is for Illinois to only allow felons to run for governor. Have them get the crime out of the way prior to entering office so they can actually spend time running the state. But, that’s for a different day.

Oh, by the way, if this is read by any state official or attorneys who do not have a sense of humor (I assume most), let me finish by saying ‘I’m JUST KIDDING!’.