Will County Gazette

Veteran state Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) finds the root of all the state’s problems in Springfield’s rising levels of corruption.

“It’s why a lot of people are leaving Illinois and heading to other places,” Batinick told the Will County Gazette. “It’s clear not enough is being done to clean things up and more needs to be done.”

In the meantime, the cost residents across the state are being forced to pay continues to swell. A new University of Illinois at Chicago analysis finds that the state’s culture of corruption annually costs taxpayers in the neighborhood of $556 million. Researchers also noted Illinois ranks as the second-most corrupt state in the country (behind Louisiana) and Chicago is the most corrupt city in the U.S., all of which goes a long way in crippling the state’s chances for economic growth.

Over the last two decades, researchers also found the state’s corruption price-tag easily tops $10 billion, or around $830 per resident.

“My guess would be that the corruption costs are actually greater than that,” Batinick added. “All I know is there hurting a lot of taxpayers and it’s really a shame because things don’t have to be that way if we were putting in the kind of safeguards we should be.”

This year alone, at least four state lawmakers have been indicted on corruption charges, adding to the state’s long and sordid political history that includes four governors having been sentenced to prison over the last five decades. Presently, longtime House Speaker Mike Madigan finds himself cast as a central figure in the ongoing federal probe involving utility giant ComEd and a pay-for-play scheme.

Batinick points to the ongoing Madigan scandal as yet another example of that.

“It’s maddening that ComEd would admit to bribing the Madigan organization and he would still be there,” he said. “I think he survives because a lot of people like the money he raises and the way he wins elections and to some people winning an election and is worth more than anything else.”