Thursday, May 11, 2006

An Open Letter to the Reform Community from the Governor (via the Board of Elections)

Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

Nine days ago, the eight biggest reform organizations in Illinois came together to send a joint letter to Gov. Blagojevich to remind him of his pledge to rock Springfield. Today, we got a response. From the State Board of Elections.

Why, you ask, is the State Board of Elections answering the governor’s mail? Apparently, because he asked them to. Why he would do that, we can’t say. You could say we’re gobsmacked.

Here, in its entirety, is the body of the letter from the State Board of Elections:

“The Governor’s office forwarded me a copy of your “Open Letter from the Campaign Reform Community to Governor Rod Blagojevich” so that the State Board of Elections might respond. However, the State Board of Elections is powerless to take actions which are not authorized by statute. Therefore, the only the Governor or members of the legislature could accurately answer the questions you have posed in your letter.”

The one grammatical error we can deal with; perhaps this is a first draft. But the substance of the letter is what’s confusing. Is this what the governor’s office thinks is an adequate response to corruption in Illinois?


UPDATE: The Better Government Association has posted a pdf of their copy of the letter here.

3 comments:

Anonymous,  5:23 PM  

Sort of sounds like they're bouncing the ball back to the Guv. Otherwise, it makes no sense. I think he got handed back his own t--d sandwich.

Jonah 8:22 PM  

Bouncing the ball back to the gov publically seems suspicious. Either they tried bouncing it back to Blago in private and he refused, or else somebody in the Board of Elections doesn't like Blagojevich. Or both.

Anonymous,  10:14 PM  

Or it could simply be that the letter was written by a staffer who didn't think it would end up on a website.

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