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• Thursday, December 4, 2008 05:18 AM

  Illinois

  Dan Lipinski is a particularly bad example of Illinois nepotism. He had been working as a college professor in another state before he was anointed as his daddy's successor.

  But we have many such examples here. Besides Jesse Jackson Jr, there's Sandi Jackson (Mrs Jesse Jr) who was elected to the Chicago City Council in 2007. She succeeds Darcel Beavers who had been appointed by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley after the 2006 November elections to succeed her father William Beavers, Jackson's rival.

  Then there's Todd Stroger. His daddy, John Stroger, ran Cook County (population 5 million) as Board President for many years. In 2006 John Stroger suffered a severe stroke and was never seen in public again. Todd said his dad would return to office but no one outside the family was permitted to see or speak to him. Eventually, four days after the deadline for third-party candidates to file for the Board presidency race, John Stroger announced his resignation. Todd is now County Board President and has hired many other relatives. His earlier political office? Apppointed by Mayor Daley as alderman in 2001. He did once win an election, back in 1992.

  And now there's Emil Jones, a power in the state senate for many years. Jones announced in August 2008 that he will retire in January 2009. Of who would replace him on the ballot, his spokesperson said, "His preference, yes, would be to see his son [Emil Jones III] serve," which has prompted criticism and been described as "anointing one of his children to take over for him." While accepting the nomination, Emil's son, Emil Jones III announced he would work diligently for the people of his district.

  So the mayor is a son of a previous mayor, the county board president is a son of the previous one, most of the aldermen are children of earlier aldermen and almost all of them are controlled by the mayor, the governor is the son-in-law of a powerful alderman, and Dick Durbin has requested a pardon for the previous governor, jailed for corruption.

  It's a cozy little group here. Well, except for the occasional family spats that affect public policy, but there's no time to go into that!

  (Text above partly from Wikipedia, partly from personal recollections)

  —Nutella Read Nutella's other letters
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