George Ryan
George Homer Ryan was an American politician who served as the 39th Governor of Illinois from 1999 to 2003. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as Secretary of State of Illinois from 1991 to 1999 and as lieutenant governor from 1983 to 1991. He was later convicted of federal racketeering, bribery, extortion, money laundering, and tax fraud stemming from his time in office.
Ryan was elected governor in 1998, narrowly defeating Democratic Congressman Glenn Poshard. He received national attention for his 2000 moratorium on executions in Illinois and for commuting more than 160 death sentences to life sentences in 2003. He chose not to run for reelection in 2002 amid a scandal. He was later convicted of federal corruption charges stemming from the illegal sale of commercial drivers licenses which resulted in the deaths of six children while serving as secretary of state and spent more than five years in federal prison and seven months of home confinement. He was released from federal prison on July 3, 2013.
Early life, family and education
George Homer Ryan was born in Maquoketa, Iowa, to Jeannette and Thomas Ryan, a pharmacist. Ryan was raised in Kankakee County, Illinois. His brother Tom became a prominent political figure in Kankakee County. Their sister Kathleen Dean's former son-in-law, Bruce Clark, would become the country clerk in Kankakee County, Illinois.George was drafted into the US Army in 1954, serving a 13-month tour in Korea, where he worked at a base pharmacy.
He attended Ferris State College of Pharmacy in Big Rapids, Michigan.
Early career
After Korea, George Ryan worked for his father's two drugstores. Eventually, he built his father's pair of pharmacies into a successful family-run chain which he sold in 1990.Early political career
Ryan began his political career by serving on the Kankakee County Board from 1968 to 1973. He was then elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1972, where he served five terms. In 1976, he was elected House Minority Leader. As Minority Leader, Ryan led Republicans to win a 91-86 majority in the House in 1980; he was subsequently elected Speaker in January 1981.In July 1981, Dave O'Neal, the lieutenant governor under Republican Governor James R. Thompson, resigned unexpectedly. To fill in the vacancy left by O'Neal's resignation, Thompson selected Ryan to be his running mate in the 1982 election. The Thompson/Ryan ticket narrowly defeated the Democratic ticket of Adlai Stevenson III and Grace Stern. Thompson and Ryan were both reelected to their positions in 1986. In 1990, Ryan was elected Secretary of State of Illinois. During his first term as Secretary of State, then–State Treasurer Pat Quinn was publicly critical of Ryan, specifically drawing attention to special vanity license plates that Ryan's office provided for clout-hungry motorists. This rivalry led Quinn in a failed bid to challenge Ryan in the 1994 general election for Secretary of State.
Governor of Illinois
On August 30, 1997, incumbent governor Jim Edgar announced he would retire after his second term; three days later, Ryan announced his candidacy for governor. He won the Republican nomination with minimal opposition and defeated his opponent, Glenn Poshard, in the general election by a 51–47 percent margin. Ryan's running mate was first-term state representative Corinne Wood. Ryan outspent Poshard by a 4-to-1 margin. Poshard, a firm believer in campaign finance reform, placed limits on individual donations and refused to accept donations from corporate or special interests.One of Ryan's pet projects as governor was an extensive repair of the Illinois Highway System called "Illinois FIRST". FIRST was an acronym for "Fund for Infrastructure, Roads, Schools, and Transit". Signed into law in May 1999, the law created a $6.3 billion package for use in school and transportation projects. With various matching funds programs, Illinois FIRST provided $2.2 billion for schools, $4.1 billion for public transportation, another $4.1 billion for roads, and $1.6 billion for other projects. He also improved Illinois's technology infrastructure, creating one of the first cabinet-level Offices of Technology in the country and bringing up Illinois's technology ranking in a national magazine from 48th out of the 50 states when he took office to 1st just two years later. Ryan committed record funding to education, including 51% of all new state revenues during his time in office, in addition to the billions spent through Illinois FIRST that built and improved schools and education infrastructure. In 1999, Ryan sparked controversy by becoming the first sitting U.S. Governor to meet with Cuban President Fidel Castro. Ryan's visit led to a $1 million donation of humanitarian aid, but drew criticism from anti-Castro groups. In 2000, Ryan served as a chair of the Midwestern Governors Association.
Capital punishment
Ryan helped to renew the national debate on capital punishment when, as governor, he declared a moratorium on his state's death penalty on January 31, 2000.This decision was heavily influenced by lawsuits filed by exonerated prisoners who made false confessions as a result of police torture under the direction of a police commander named Jon Burge. "We have now freed more people than we have put to death under our system," he said. "There is a flaw in the system, without question, and it needs to be studied." At the time, Illinois had executed 12 people since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977, with one execution, that of Ripper Crew member Andrew Kokoraleis, occurring early during Ryan's term. Ryan refused to meet with religious leaders and others regarding "a stay of execution" in light of the impending 'moratorium' and other facts relative to the 'flawed' capital punishment system in Illinois; in fact, under Ryan's governorship, 13 people were released from jail after appealing their convictions based on new evidence. Ryan called for a commission to study the issue, while noting, "I still believe the death penalty is a proper response to heinous crimes... But I believe that it has to be where we don't put innocent people to death."
The issue had garnered the attention of the public when a death row inmate, Anthony Porter, who had spent 15 years on death row, was within two days of being executed when his lawyers won a stay on the grounds that he may have been mentally disabled. He was ultimately exonerated with the help of a group of student journalists at Northwestern University who had uncovered evidence that was used to prove his innocence. In 1999, Porter was released, charges were subsequently dropped, and another person, Alstory Simon, confessed and pleaded guilty to the crime of which Porter had been erroneously convicted. Simon himself was later released after serving fifteen years for the crime, after it was proven that he, too, was wrongfully accused.
On January 11, 2003, just two days before leaving office, Ryan commuted the sentences of everyone on or waiting to be sent to Illinois' death row — a total of 167 convicts — due to his belief that the death penalty could not be administered fairly. He also pardoned four inmates, Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley and Leroy Orange, and Stanley Howard. However, Patterson is currently serving 30 years in prison after being arrested for drug trafficking he committed after his release from death row. Howard remains in prison for armed robbery. Ryan declared in his pardon speech that he would have freed Howard if only his attorney had filed a clemency petition; Ryan then strongly urged investigators to examine Howard's alleged robbery case, because it appeared to be as tainted as his murder conviction.
These were four of ten death row inmates known as the "Death Row 10," due to widely reported claims that the confessions that they had given in their respective cases had been coerced through torture. Ryan was not the first state governor to have granted blanket commutations to death row inmates during his final days in office. Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller also commuted the sentence of every death row inmate in that state as he left office after losing his 1970 bid for a third two-year term, as did New Mexico Governor Toney Anaya before he left office in 1986 and Ohio Governor Dick Celeste before he left office in 1990.
Ryan won praise from death penalty opponents: as early as 2001, he received the Mario Cuomo Act of Courage Award from Death Penalty Focus and in 2003 the Rose Elizabeth Bird Commitment to Justice Award from the same organization. On the other side of the Atlantic, Robert Badinter, who had successfully introduced the bill abolishing the death penalty in France in 1981 praised Ryan's decision. Many conservatives, though, were opposed to the commutations, some questioning his motives, which came as a federal corruption investigation closed in on the governor and his closest political allies. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan called Ryan "pathetic", and suggested the governor was attempting to save his public image in hopes of avoiding prison himself. Buchanan noted "Ryan announced his decision to a wildly cheering crowd at the Northwestern University Law School. Families of the victims of the soon-to-be-reprieved killers were not invited."
Scandals, trial, and conviction
Ryan's political career was marred by a scandal called Operation Safe Road, which involved the illegal sale of government licenses, contracts, and leases by state employees during his prior service as Secretary of State. In the wake of numerous convictions of his former aides, he chose not to run for reelection in 2002. Seventy-nine former state officials, lobbyists, and others were charged in the investigation, and at least 75 were convicted.The corruption scandal leading to Ryan's downfall began more than a decade earlier during a federal investigation into a deadly crash in Wisconsin. Six children from the Willis family of Chicago, Illinois, were killed; their parents, Rev. Duane and Janet Willis, were severely burned. The investigation revealed a scheme inside Ryan's Secretary of State's office in which unqualified truck drivers obtained licenses through bribes.
In March 2003, Scott Fawell, Ryan's former chief of staff and campaign manager, was convicted on federal charges of racketeering and fraud. He was sentenced to six years and six months. Former deputy campaign manager Richard Juliano pleaded guilty to related charges and testified against Fawell at trial. Roger Stanley, a former Republican state representative who was hired by Ryan and testified against Fawell, pleaded guilty to wide-ranging corruption, admitting he paid kickbacks to win state contracts and campaign business, secretly mailed out vicious false attacks on political opponents and helped obtain ghost-payrolling jobs.