A public official in Chicago faces a sentencing hearing in federal court. It’s a scenario people in Illinois are all-too familiar with – and one that reform advocates say is not likely to vanish anytime soon.

On Wednesday, former US Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. – once a shining star of the Democratic Party who considered a run for mayor of Chicago – was sentenced to 30 months in prison, plus three years of supervised release, for misspending about $750,000 from his campaign fund. He used the money for luxury items – including furs, watches and memorabilia – and for the renovation of his Washington home.

In the same hearing, Sandi Jackson, his wife and former Chicago alderman, was sentenced to 12 months in prison for failing to report about $600,000 in income.

The sentencing of both Jacksons continues a shameful tradition in Illinois of public officials ending up behind bars. A 2012 report published by the University of Illinois at Chicago found that 1,828 public officials in Illinois have been convicted of public corruption since 1976, making the state the third in such cases behind New York and California.

The Illinois Northern District, which includes the Chicago metropolitan area, leads all federal districts in the nation for public corruption convictions in that time period, accounting for 84 percent of the state’s convictions.
The state’s legendary patronage system, which was established last century to reward political insiders with plumb jobs and other perks in exchange for election muscle, is responsible for sending a long line of public officials to prison, as well as establishing a culture that costs taxpayers $500 a year, according to the report.

The Jackson sentencing closely follows the conviction of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges related to selling President Obama’s former Senate seat. Mr. Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 and is one of four Illinois governors since 1973 convicted on federal charges of wrongdoing.

Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman who is now a political scientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the Jacksons’ sentencing “is a continuing pattern, not a new pattern” of corruption, which suggests these recent cases are not effective as a deterrent.
“We’ve had 1,561 officials to jail and that hasn’t curbed corruption yet,” Mr. Simpson says. “People always think they’re going to get away with it and rationalize to themselves that they’re not doing a crime.”

Apparently, the last honest politician to come from the state of Illinois was a rather tall man called "Abe".

where was obama from?... oh yea, Chicago...

Wasn't he a Republican?