He cleared Illinois’ death row
George Ryan was a cigar-chomping, salty-tongued Illinois pol whose political career pinnacled in the governor’s mansion and ended in a prison cell.
The state’s 39th governor died May 2 at the age of 91 in his hometown of Kankakee.
Ryan was a product of the Kankakee political machine, which was founded by Len Small, who served two terms as governor in the 1920s. The machine doled out state jobs to those who served the political needs of the organization.
“It was very much a populist organization that looked out for the needs of working people,” said Rob Small, a great-grandson of Gov. Small and the past president of a chain of newspapers that bore his family’s name.
After a stint in the U.S. Army, Ryan began his professional life working as a pharmacist in his family’s business before entering public service first on the Kankakee County Board and later in state government. He served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1973 to 1983, eventually becoming Speaker of the House.
“Dad stood behind a pharmacy counter 14 hours a day trying to solve people’s problems. And he went into politics for the same reason: To solve people’s problems,” George “Homer” Ryan told Illinois Times of his father.
During his time in politics, Ryan was known as a moderate Republican who wasn’t afraid to raise taxes or fees to fund projects that he considered worthy.
After leaving the legislature, he served two terms as Lieutenant Governor under Gov. James R. Thompson and later became Illinois Secretary of State in 1991. In 1998, Ryan was elected governor, succeeding Jim Edgar.
“He wasn’t afraid to change his mind on issues,” noted Charles Wheeler III, a longtime Statehouse reporter and a retired journalism professor from University of Illinois at Springfield.
For example, Ryan supported the death penalty while serving in the General Assembly but ultimately became one of its most vocal opponents. He ran for the governorship on a pro-life platform but vetoed legislation that would have restricted Medicaid from paying for such procedures for impoverished women.
Ryan’s governorship may be remembered most for his stand against the death penalty. In the 1990s, Illinois had one of the most active death rows in the country – but also one of the most troubling records of wrongful convictions. By 1999, more death-row inmates in Illinois had been exonerated than executed, largely due to DNA testing and investigative reporting that revealed systemic flaws in prosecutions.
Confronted with these revelations, Ryan declared a moratorium on executions. He said that the system was “fraught with error” and could not be trusted to administer the ultimate punishment fairly or accurately. Ryan deepened this legacy in January 2003, near the end of his term, when he commuted the sentences of all 167 inmates on Illinois’ death row to life imprisonment or lesser terms. He also issued pardons for several individuals whose convictions he believed were tainted by police or prosecutorial misconduct.
While Ryan was celebrated internationally for his moral stance on the death penalty, his political career ended under a cloud of scandal.
Stemming from his time as Secretary of State, federal prosecutors charged him with racketeering, fraud, obstruction of justice and related offenses as part of “Operation Safe Road,” an investigation into a commercial-driver licensing bribery scheme. Although Ryan was not accused of personally taking bribes, prosecutors argued that his office fostered a corrupt environment that traded political favors and licenses for campaign contributions and financial gain. In 2006, he was convicted on 18 counts and later sentenced to six and a half years in federal prison. He served more than five years before his release in 2013.
Prosecutors said the corruption cost lives.
In 1994, six children of Scott and Janet Willis of Chicago died in a fiery crash when a mudflap-taillight assembly fell off a truck and punctured the gas tank of the mini-van they were riding in on Interstate 94 near Milwaukee. The truck was being driven by Ricardo Guzman, who had paid a bribe two years earlier to an employee of the Illinois Secretary of State’s office so he could obtain a commercial driver’s license without taking and passing the required tests.
“Was (Ryan) corrupt? No, I don’t think so,” Wheeler said. “It depends on how you define ‘corrupt.’ By what’s generally accepted practices in Illinois politics? No. He was not corrupt. If you define it in the terms of the “goody-two-shoes way,” yes, he was corrupt. I use the analogy that George went to jail for the equivalent of rifling the gumball machine. Rod Blagojevich, on the other hand, went to jail for the equivalent of sticking up a 7-Eleven.”
But political reformer Cindi Canary said Ryan deserved a prison term.
“I don’t think George Ryan ever said, ‘Hey, let’s put crazy drivers on the road.’ But I do think he was complicit in not knowing what was happening (in that) bribes that were being taken,” she said.
Phil Gonet of Springfield, who served on Ryan’s budget staff while he was speaker of the House, visited the former governor in prison.
“So, I went over to Terre Haute to see him (in the federal prison) probably six to eight times while he was there,” he said. Gonet said the former governor acclimated to prison life well despite his wife of 54 years, Lura Lynn, dying while he was incarcerated.
“He was my boss at one time, but he was a good boss,” Gonet said. “He was my friend. He could yell at you and be upset because you didn’t get something done on time or he wanted something else. But he’d give you the shirt off his back. He’d go out of his way to do things for you and your family.”
Phil Angelo remembers one such instance while they were neighbors in Kankakee.
“My kids were paperboys for the Daily Journal. The biggest edition of the year at the time, was the day before Thanksgiving. Delivering the papers was a family activity. I did it, my wife did it, my two sons did it. For some reason, my wife and two children were away the day before Thanksgiving. So, it fell to me to deliver the Thanksgiving papers in the neighborhood. I put them in one of those children’s wagons and then pulled it behind me delivering papers. When I got to George’s house, he was outside and he said. ‘Let me help you. So, I gave him the map and he actually delivered two blocks worth of Daily Journals the day before Thanksgiving.”
Widowed while in prison, Ryan found love again after his release, his son, Homer, said. Her name was Alice “Kitty” Kelly and she was the mother of Chicago lobbyist John Kelly. They lived together for five years, first in a Chicago condominium and later in Ryan’s Kankakee home.
“She was walking up the stairs one day and had a heart attack. She literally died in my father’s arms,” Homer said. Kelly died in 2019.
Although Ryan changed his position on issues during his time in office, his most marked political transformation happened after leaving prison. He moved away from being a moderate, establishment Republican and became an enthusiastic Donald Trump supporter, his son said.
“He loved that Trump won the election. Trump pardoned Blagojevich but he never pardoned my father. It would mean a lot to me and my family if he would pardon him posthumously.”
Scott Reeder, an Illinois Times staff writer, was the Statehouse bureau chief for the Kankakee Daily Journal and four other newspapers while George Ryan was governor.
This article appears in January 1-7, 2026.
