Kane County Reporter

Jeanette Ward longs to be the change she’s convinced is desperately needed in Springfield.

“Another Illinois Democrat state senator with corruption issues,” Ward, who is running against incumbent state Sen. Karina Villa (D-West Chicago) in the 25th District, recently lamented after veteran state Sen. Terry Link (R-Indian Creek) was slapped with tax federal evasion charges. “Sen. Link was forced by the feds to wear a wire to help them uncover more corruption among his associates,” she added.

Link is the fourth Democratic lawmaker who strongly backs the plan to now find themselves facing criminal charges, Marter argues there clearly are other reasons why taxpayers should reject the proposed tax like the plague. Facing tax evasion charges, Link joins former state Rep. Luis Arroyo, who faces up to 10 years in prison, and state Sen. Tom Cullerton, who has been hit with 41-count indictment on embezzlement charges. One-time state Sen. Martin Sandoval has already plead guilty to taking $250,000 in bribes from SafeSpeed, a red-light camera vendor.

Like many other GOP lawmakers, Ward is pressing for the governor to reconvene the legislature so lawmakers can deal with the issue of ethics reforms in a through and comprehensive way.

And then there is longtime House Speaker Mike Madigan, who finds himself implicated in an ongoing federal corruption probe involving ComEd in which its alleged bribes were steered to several of his close associates as part of a pay-to-play scheme aimed at currying favor with him.

“Fighting corruption and cleaning up our state government should be a bipartisan issue,” she said. “But it’s only Republicans who are calling for a special session to enact reforms.”