Mayor’s Row….by Ned Mitchell

                What will $50,000.00 buy you these days?  For one thing if you are a candidate running for the Appellate Court Justice position, it will buy you a lot of publicity both good and bad.  Of course $50,000.00 will buy a lot of television, radio and newspaper ads but it will also give your opponent a heaping plate full of ammunition to fire back at you.  Just ask Judge James Wexstten of Mt. Vernon who last week had to report that he had accepted the paltry sum of $50 grand for his campaign from republican right wing fanatic Barre Seid who is chairman of the board of Fiber Bond Corporation in Michigan City, Indiana.

                This brings up a lot amount of questions for the voter to look at and to seek answers for.  The first thing that comes to my mind is why would a dyed in the wool republican donate that kind of money to a democrat?  That goes against the grain of logic in anyone’s mind.   What would someone want from any candidate after they have donated $50,000 in one check to that person?  I know there are nice guys out there and some of them donate large amounts of money but you can rest assured when a donation of this magnitude is given to a judicial candidate there is a pay day looming out there somewhere on the horizon.  Nobody but nobody gives that kind of money without a string being attached somewhere.

                You see I have been on the inner circle of this little game during my brief stint in Springfield and although I never did have anyone drop $50 grand in my lap I know how the system works.  Let’s say an elected office holder is hard at work in their office and the phone rings.  The secretary answers the phone and tells the politician it is some retired widow woman wanting to ask about her pension check.  The politician is engrossed in making government work and decides he or she is too busy to talk to the widow woman.  No sooner does the phone get hung up and it rings again.  This time it is a guy who has donated $50 grand to your campaign.  All of a sudden what the politician is working on is not so important and mister fat cat gets to talk to his favorite office holder.  It is a simple fact, money, especially big money buys access and influence.  Is our court system for sale?  It appears to me that we have some heavy bidding going on in this particular race and for some reason this is starting to look a lot like the last Supreme Court race where we watched in awe as two seasoned politicians slugged it out to the tune of several million dollars.

                I have been on the crusade for years and it gets frustrating but the answer is really quite simple.  Until you and I get to the polls and vote against candidates who accept thousands of dollars in campaign contributions we will continue to be bought and sold like cattle at an auction.  I am convinced and know it to be a fact that if a matter comes up that is beneficial to John Q. Public but is opposed by some individual or group that has put the cash in the politician’s pocket, nine times out of ten you and I will end up on the short end of the stick.

                Is it fair for democratic candidate Judy Cates who is running against Judge Wexstten to make an issue of this donation?  Of course it is and I would expect Judge Wexstten to raise questions if candidate Cates had taken $50,000 from this man or any other individual or group.  We all have many choices to make come February 5^th in Illinois and it is important for each of us to study the candidates and more importantly find out who is financing their run for office.  I would feel so much better if Judge Wexstten had received 100 donations for $500.00 each from that many individuals who believed he was the best person for the job.  I am very concerned when someone from another state and of the opposite political party drops $50,000 in one day to any candidate for a judicial seat.  Our courts may not be for sale but if we had a trial on this particular issue I think a case could be made that someone for some reason is trying to buy a lot of clout and influence and that most likely will not be with our best interests at heart.  Judge Wexstten should do the right thing and return this contribution or explain to voters, especially democrats exactly why he is accepting $50,000 from a right wing republican with a known agenda.  Trust me here, Barre Seid does not have any of our best interests at heart.  Judge Wexstten, by accepting this cash is on the doubtful list by association.

                As big a goof ball as the reformer/unreformer governor of this state is I had to laugh at his latest antic concerning the mass transit problem up north.  He has kept the legislature tied up since January of last year with this issue and I have lost count of all the special sessions he has called to deal with the matter.  We have spent millions of dollars on overtime sessions that accomplished nothing.  He has said for a year that he would not sign a sales tax increase to pay for mass transit.  He has now done just that and after all the over time wrangling signed the very law that he proclaimed he would never sign.  The only catch, and this is the good part, he threw a monkey wrench in the deal and put in the law that senior citizens anywhere in the state will be able to ride mass transit for free.  I am sure we are all for helping those on fixed income but what he did was put every legislator behind the proverbial 8 ball.  Now they either live with what the governor has done, or they vote against senior citizens.  With the election looming and with many of them in tight races what do you think they are going to do? 

                Then we have the public works program called “Illinois Works” hanging out there and many of the downstate legislators tried to pull an end run around the Chicago politicians and hold up the mass transit legislation in exchange for a construction program.   That may have been a great theory but in political science 101 that has failed badly.  Now the question is once a public works program is hammered out will the legislators who voted against the mass transit bill be punished for their no vote?  That remains to be seen but I would say that is a situation worth watching.

                Congratulations to Curt Johnston of Sesser who has just retired from the Illinois Department of Corrections.  Curt was surprised last Saturday with a reception of friends and family in the area.  Mick Spotanski is out and about exercising after having heart related surgery a couple of weeks ago and he appears to be doing well.  My parents, Amos and Rosemary Mitchell will celebrate 63 years of marriage on January 20^th, the same day my daughter Jonna turns 31.  Congratulations to all of them!