Just go away.
Former state Rep. Luis Arroyo and Ald. Ed Burke face federal corruption charges, which has led to Arroyo being forced to resign and Burke being stripped of his outsized City Council powers, and you might think they’d get the message.
But even as the Legislature this week considers new measures to hold public corruption in check, Arroyo and Burke are hanging in there, playing the game of old-school party bosses. Cook County Democratic Party leaders have asked both men to stop down as committeemen, but you can guess how that’s going.
Burke never will. Being alderman and committeeman of the 14th Ward is core to his self-image. It’s the Eddie he sees in the mirror, like the white hair and green tie. Burke inherited both jobs from his father, Joe Burke, and they have soaked into his DNA.
Now we learn, by way of reporting by Rachel Hinton of the Sun-Times, that Arroyo, Democratic committeeman of the 36th Ward, has no intention of stepping down, either. A week after resigning from the General Assembly — because House Speaker Mike Madigan was ready to give him the heave-ho — he has called for a meeting with a group of committeemen “to decide who shall be” his “replacement” in the Legislature.
You get chased out of a job because you might be a crook — bribery is the specific charge — and you still get a say in who’s your replacement?
“Only in Illinois,” said House Republican Leader Jim Durkin.
If that happens, Durkin says, he might call on the House to refuse to recognize Arroyo’s replacement. And Madigan is on board with that, too.
“Any process that includes the participation of the 36th Ward” in choosing Arroyo’s successor, Madigan announced Monday, “would call the legitimacy of the appointment into question, and the qualifications of their candidate would be challenged by the full Illinois House of Representatives.”
Sounds like a plan. And any Democrat who sees it otherwise does not care about honest government.
The argument made in defense of Burke and Arroyo keeping their committeeman gigs is that neither man has been convicted of anything, only charged.
That’s an excellent argument for why they shouldn’t be in prison. But the local Democratic Party has every right to demand a higher standard of presumed integrity.
Luis and Ed, just go away.
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