Cal Skinner contributes one of the best pieces that disects the differences between how George Ryan and Jim Edgar ran the Secretary of State’s Office. The SOS has long been a patronage offices and there are certainly some skeletons in Edgar’s closet, but ultimately, Edgar put in place a system that didn’t tolerate wide spread corruption in the office.
?We did have corruption in that office,? Lawrence remembered. ?The difference is that we addressed it squarely. We had an Inspector General who was a career law enforcement officer. He was on leave from the Illinois State Police, so if he felt he was being compromised in any way he would not be out of a job. He had the full support of Secretary Edgar.
?I can?t think any agency where there hasn?t been some wrong-doing,? Lawrence continued. ?The key to me is the culture that is set by the elected official. If the elected official doesn?t set the right culture, the wrong-doing is going to go unaddressed and it is going to increase.?
Grosboll revealed that he spent almost half of his time each day as chief of staff ?on personnel and undercover operations, matters involving whether someone in the office was doing something improper, how to handle an employee and getting updates on investigations.
Another key difference was,
Grosboll pointed out a structural difference in the way the two administrations operated. Under Edgar, the chief of staff ran the government side of the Secretary of State?s Office. The political side was separate.
Ryan started out that way with the former IRS district head Ira Loeb as his chief of staff with Scott Fawell running the political end. After about a year, Fawell took control. Loeb got sick. With Loeb?s death, power was concentrated both, in fact, and on the organization chart in Fawell?s hands.