It shouldn’t come as any surprise that
John Wyma is lobbying for GTECH. The Illinois Lottery contractor will most
likely operate the state’s proposed keno network. Gov. Rod
Blagojevich wants to put electronic keno gambling games in 2,000
taverns and restaurants to help fund a construction plan for
schools. Wyma was the governor’s chief of staff
when Blagojevich was a congressman, and he was the political
director for the governor’s 2002 campaign. He is just the
sort of guy whom companies like GTECH hire when they want to get
something done in the state. Actually, it’s not just the state: The
same thing goes for Chicago and most other municipalities in
Illinois. And it’s not just Illinois: How many
companies hired disgraced Washington, D.C., superlobbyist Jack
Abramoff because they believed that he could grease the skids with
the national Republican establishment? Before GTECH hired Wyma, they used Wilhelm
& Conlon, which was once headed by David Wilhelm,
Blagojevich’s campaign media strategist. Before Blagojevich
was elected, GTECH used Republican megainsider Bob Kjellander as
its mouthpiece in Springfield. According to the Chicago
Sun-Times, IGOR The Watchdog Group is
GTECH’s lone subcontractor in Illinois, meaning that it could
very well make a bunch of cash if keno is approved. IGOR, a large
contributor to the governor’s campaign fund, is represented
in Springfield by Wyma. It has also been represented by Republican
lobbyist and Springfield businessman Tony Leone, according to the
secretary of state’s office. Another firm, the Sun-Times also reported, may compete against GTECH for
the keno contract. That company, Scientific Games, is
represented by Milan Petrovic, a Blagojevich campaign fundraiser and
Springfield lobbyist. Scientific Games has also been represented by
Leone in the past, according to the lobbying list. Just to give those of you an idea of how
things work, Petrovic’s firm has done work with PAR
Solutions, which has lobbied for Scofield Communications, which is
a company owned by the governor’s campaign spokesman, Doug
Scofield. PAR is run by Paul Rosenfeld, who has been a Blagojevich
friend forever. Many corporations routinely seek out the most
politically connected lobbyists they can afford, believing that it
gives them an advantage in the game. Does this mean that the system
is completely wired? Not necessarily. If you look at any major contract-bidding
process or legislative battle, you’ll see connected lobbyists
working every angle. It’s both an insurance policy and a
standard business decision (as with most things, if the other side
has something, then companies think they’d better have one as
well). The problem for Blagojevich is that he pledged
to end “business as usual” in Springfield but obviously
hasn’t. In fact, he probably can’t. Unless he bans
lobbying by everyone connected to him, there’s no way he can
prevent this sort of story. He won’t ban lobbying by his friends and
supporters because lobbying is the ultimate form of patronage for
the highly connected. Midlevel employees of legislative leaders and
the governor often move on to bigger and better things, usually
with the blessing and even help of their former employers —
but the top people almost always end up making fabulous amounts of
money in the lobbying game, which frees them up in the off-season
to help out on campaigns. And those superlobbyists are usually good
hires. Beyond the “goodwill” that they may engender
with the powers that be, they know how things are done, and they
know the people who can get them done. Lots of people tried to warn Blagojevich that
he was setting the ethics bar way too high when he first came into
office, and now routine matters such who is lobbying for what have
become front-page stories. Those pay-to-play articles then feed on
each other and reinforce the message that Blagojevich is no
different than anyone else, despite his protestations to the
contrary. Wyma claims that he never lobbied for keno on
behalf of GTECH. Blagojevich’s staffers claim that they never
talked to Wyma about keno and didn’t even know Wyma was
working for GTECH. All of that may be true, but how many people
will believe it? Not many.
This article appears in Jan 19-25, 2006.
