Chicago - It Was All About Pay to Play All Along
It just wouldn’t be right to have a pay to play blog and not post a comment about recent developments in the grand daddy of all pay to play trials: United States v. Blagojevich. According to recent AP reports, the Governor’s former top aid testified today that it was concern over Illinois’ recent pay to play legislation that compelled Governor Blagojevich to make a deal to sell President Obama’s Senate seat. As we reported here, Governor Blagojevich had vetoed Illinois legislation banning state contractors from making campaign contributions to the politicians who controlled those contracts and had an interest in ensuring that the Illinois State Senate did not override his veto.
According to the testimony of Alonzo Monk yesterday, Governor Blagojevich was so sufficiently concerned about the impact the new legislation would have on his fundraising efforts that he reached a deal with former state Senate President Emil Jones to let the veto stand in exchange for his agreement to appoint a state legislator to the US Senate seat. Ultimately, as we know, the deal fell apart when then President Obama urged Jones to action on the veto and US Attorney Fitzgerald revealed that he had been listening in on Blagojevich’s dealings.
And they said pay to play law was boring!
