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'Legacy' issue looms large for Ryan, other politicians
By Kevin McDermott
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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OXFORD, WIS (LEE)-- A day after defiantly proclaiming his innocence, former Illinois Gov. George Ryan's final act as a free man last week was to switch cars en route from Chicago to Wisconsin, then slip in the back way to a federal prison here -- thus avoiding a gauntlet of television cameras that waited to record his arrival.

The maneuver left some wondering why he would bother with such stealth at this point. Ryan stands convicted of fleecing his state while holding its highest office. He'll probably be in prison until he's at least 79 years old. His political career is, without question, over.

What's a few more unflattering pictures?

The answer may have to do with a subject that clearly has been central in Ryan's mind since long before be was convicted last year: legacy.

"You don't run for elective office if you don't have a significant ego . . . (and) legacy is important from the standpoint of ego satisfaction," said Mike Lawrence, a former top aide to ex-Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar. "All of them want to be remembered for what they accomplished in public office.

"A picture of a governor going to prison is a lasting impression," added Lawrence, who now heads the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. "It overshadows other things people might remember."

Ryan today is viewed by many of his fellow Illinoisans as a crook who cashed in on his influence from the governor's office. But in much of the world outside his home state, he's seen as a heroic opponent of the death penalty. He has long made it obvious that he cares deeply about which of those two versions of his life gets top billing in the history books.

Even as federal prosecutors were circling at the end of his term as governor, Ryan used his final days in office, in January 2003, to commute the sentence of every inmate on Illinois' death row, making headlines around the world.

By 2005 -- as a federal jury was being assembled in Chicago to consider charges that Ryan sold government influence to friends and cronies in exchange for gifts, trips and cash -- death-penalty opponents were submitting Ryan's name to officials in Norway seeking to have him considered for the Nobel Peace Prize for his continuing anti-death-penalty work.

Ryan's supporters say his Illinois death-penalty moratorium (which still stands) spurred unprecedented national soul-searching about the death penalty, and even paved the way for the U.S. Supreme Court's current review of the constitutionality of lethal injections.

``When you add it all up, it was George Ryan who really opened up this entire debate about the death penalty in America,'' said Francis Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana who is once again submitting Ryan's name next year for a Nobel Prize. ``He's a visionary . . . but obviously, a lot of the media in this state don't see it that way.''

Another death-penalty opponent, law professor Andrea Lyon of DePaul University in Chicago, was so supportive of Ryan's work against capital punishment that she ended up working with the defense in his corruption trial last year.

``Did he play the political game the way it's played? Yes. Is that always seemly? No,'' Lyon acknowledged last week.

Still, she predicted that Ryan will be ultimately be remembered not for the prison sentence he started last week, but the death sentences he prevented.

``In the state of Illinois, people are far more focused on this (corruption conviction) than the rest of the world,'' Lyon said. ``In the rest of the world, he's a hero.''

Even so -- and even given the fact that Ryan on Wednesday successfully avoided having his arrival at prison recorded for all posterity -- his legacy may still be doomed.

"If history is a guide," said Lawrence, "Ryan will be will be remembered as a corrupt politician."

That's the lesson in looking back on figures like Richard Nixon, who opened China to the west but is mostly remembered today for resigning the presidency in disgrace. Or 1960s Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner, whose groundbreaking national work in race relations was overshadowed by his later conviction for taking bribes while in office.

All indications are that Ryan's successor, too, is thinking about the issue of legacy -- and, perhaps, looking at last week's events as a cautionary tale.

Like Ryan and his anti-death-penalty crusade, current Gov. Rod Blagojevich has displayed obsession with a potentially historic policy issue (universal health care). And, like Ryan, Blagojevich has seen the public's attention distracted from his official accomplishments because of federal investigators poking around.

Blagojevich friend and fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko has been indicted for allegedly offering to trade state business for campaign contributions to Blagojevich. Federal prosecutors have confirmed they're investigating alleged hiring fraud within the administration, and the feds also reportedly have subpoenaed records from Blagojevich's campaign fund.

Blagojevich has argued that the alleged crimes were isolated incidents by people acting on their own, and not indicative of a wider criminal pall over his administration.

Ryan's attorney, fellow former Gov. Jim Thompson, attempted to shore up Ryan's legacy before escorting him to prison. "He was my lieutenant governor twice and he served admirably in that post," Thompson reminded reporters. ". . . It's a hard thing to contemplate that a man who has given so much, at his age, now faces the prospect of over six years in a penitentiary."

But Ryan himself -- in his last public appearance before becoming inmate No. 16627-424 at the Federal Correctional Institution at Oxford, Wis. -- appeared less concerned with the 6-1/2 year prison sentence ahead of him than with the image of himself he was leaving behind.

To the people of Illinois, I'm not blind to the sentiment that some hold," Ryan told reporters Tuesday night outside his Kankakee home -- a much better backdrop, legacy-wise, than the minimum-security prison he would virtually sneak into the next day. "But I want you to know that I did my best."

Take a look
Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan leaves his homewith his wife, Lura Lynn, in Kankakee, Ill., Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2007, as he prepares to head to the federal correctional center in Oxford, Wis., to serve his sentence for his April 2006 conviction on racketeering and fraud charges. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
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Reader comments on this story - 12 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

Guess which wrote on Nov 11, 2007 6:20 PM:

" major world power doesn 't have the death penalty ? Answer. RUSSIA. Now that's coming a long way since Joseph Stalin ! What happened to the USA ? "

Ret'd leo wrote on Nov 11, 2007 1:32 PM:

" For a man so obsessed with the death penalty, too bad he couldn't have given up his greed for money and not indirectly caused the death of the 6 willis children who were innocent of any crime, unlike those he set loose from death row. "

Concerned about Corruption wrote on Nov 11, 2007 12:27 PM:

" I don't think we heard much about the death penalty until George was in trouble with the Feds then it was time to attempt to distract the spot light from George. If he could think far enough ahead to worry about his legacy then all he had to do was keep his nose clean but he didn't. By taking bribes for licenses he declared his own death sentence on the 6 innocent Willis children all killed by an unlicensed driver. George is where he needs to be, it's time to forget about him. He can spend his golden years with his johnnie mop at the rate of $.20 per hour "

The Irascible Fachna wrote on Nov 11, 2007 11:44 AM:

" It gives me the itch to stand up for a Republican, but George Ryan's commutation of pending death sentences was one of Illinois' prouder modern moments. "

To: Legacy as I see it wrote on Nov 11, 2007 11:12 AM:

" Oh come on.... The only reason he commuted the death penalty, was that he saw his own problems looming on the horizon. This was his attempt at spin control against his own problems. Didn't do him much good now, did it??!?! As for switching cars and sneaking in the back door... he may be too cowardly to face this like a man. There will be plenty more back doors in prison once he gets settled in. "

Legacy as I see it wrote on Nov 11, 2007 8:44 AM:

" He gave leniency to known murderers who showed no leniency to their victims in crime. "

candy wrote on Nov 10, 2007 11:11 PM:

" He is now in jail where he belongs and that is what counts, may he never be a free man again. "

Enuf already! wrote on Nov 10, 2007 11:04 PM:

" Let him fade away into the grungy past he really lived in - no more media coverage! "

thanks from those of us... wrote on Nov 10, 2007 8:27 PM:

" w/ CDL's. The warped perception of the general public stems fom your watch. Most of us are looking out for everyone; whether it be another driver who is a dork, or the four wheelers that we try to coexist with ......thanks for helping make good old hard working drivers the enemy.....rot in jail. "

we wrote on Nov 10, 2007 7:47 PM:

" cannot ever forgive him for overturning the death penalty single-handledly, forcing his very own convictions upon the entire population of this state, thumbing his nose at all current laws against murderers,rapists,thugs. secondary, is lining his pockets, as there are so many folks in this state doing THAT on a daily basis & getting away with it, starting with MUCH lower folks in public offices, that it becomes rather moot. "

READER wrote on Nov 10, 2007 7:02 PM:

" He "did his best" all right,to line his pockets with the kickbacks & gifts. "

Retired Prison Bus Driver wrote on Nov 10, 2007 6:43 PM:

" Not everyone think Ryan is a hero for overturning the death penalty here in Illinois !!!!! "
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