The thing about legacies is no one gets to choose how they’re remembered.
In reflecting on the life of former Gov. George Ryan, who died at 91 Friday in his native Kankakee, my mind first lands where Ryan probably would prefer: his essential role in ending capital punishment in Illinois. In addition to personally agreeing with Ryan’s position and rhetoric, the debate overlapped significantly with my first decade covering state government.
My first Illinois driver’s license came during Ryan’s tenure as secretary of state. His time overseeing that office developed the largest stain on his political career, a federal investigation called Operation Safe Roads that revealed his role in a licenses-for-bribes scheme, ultimately earning a lengthy prison sentence.
Hannah Meisel’s Capitol News Illinois write-up on Ryan’s public life balanced those tentpole issues, incorporating a 2020 CNI interview:
“I can’t really believe that there’s ever gonna be a system devised where an innocent person couldn’t be executed. You gotta have a perfect law if you’re gonna have … death as a penalty. So I just figured the best way to do it was to do away with that opportunity.”
Meisel also told the story Ryan could never escape, that of the Willis family minivan engulfed in flames on a Milwaukee highway in 1994, a terrible tragedy linked to a commercial truck driver who paid for a license, with the money funneled to Ryan’s campaign fund.
Lee Provost, writing for Ryan’s hometown Daily Journal, understandably painted a richer portrait, focusing also on Ryan’s contributions to normalizing relations with Cuba, expanding organ donations and enhancing penalties for driving while intoxicated.
For such a prominent politician, Ryan’s personal biography is clearly of another time: Born in Maquoketa, Iowa, in the late 1920s, the family moved to Illinois in the early 1930s, first to Chicago and then to Kankakee to open a pharmacy. After his Kankakee High School graduation, the draft sent Ryan to Korea for 13 months in the mid-1950s. Then it was back to grow the family business.
Political life started with winning a County Board seat in 1968, then a state House district in 1973. Two terms as lieutenant governor, two more as secretary of state and one as governor. It’s a common path in the long history of the state, but almost unrecognizable in an era of Bruce Rauner and JB Pritzker, to say nothing of the powerful familial connections that launched the career of Ryan’s gubernatorial successor, Rod Blagojevich.
Ryan remains a towering figure in Illinois history, cast in light and shadows, appearing starkly distinct based on the viewer’s perspective. Neither in life nor death could Ryan control those realities, a fitting reminder that even the powerful are eternally human.
• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.
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