•August 31, 2016•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

This is the third in a series of columns on “politics and policy in Illinois.”

Ever since the Athenian assembly of 500 condemned Socrates to death in 399 BCE on trumped up charges, legislating has been a messy affair.

The Illinois General Assembly is another legislative body with a checkered past.

In the late 1800s and into the 1900s, there was an end-of-session “jackpot” from which the powerful interests awarded payments to lawmakers on the basis of how well they had supported the interests during the session just ended.

In 1909, 40 Democratic state legislators received bribes of $2,500 each (when a new Model T cost $750) to cross party lines to send Republican William Lorimer to the U.S. Senate, where he was subsequently expelled because of the wholesale bribery.

By the 1960-70s, however, good-government sorts were pushing to modernize state legislatures and make them less dependent on governors and the powerful interests.

For example, in my first year as a House member (1969), I had no office, no staff help. To make telephone calls, I had to go to a row of phone booths just off the House floor.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.