The State of Illinois has a long history of corrupt partisan politics and patronage hiring. Politicians guarantee their political survival by trading government contracts, jobs and promotions for votes, campaign contributions and those who worked on their campaigns. Apparently, one politician would rather cover up wrong-doing instead of taking a chance at losing a seat.

The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper, has asked for U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to step down.

Hastert was accused of covering up for Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who has been accused of sending sexually suggestive e-mail messages to a teenage boy working as a congressional page and two other boys. Hastert denies having had prior knowledge of the damaging e-mails and allegations against Foley. However, according to CNN, Hastert was notified of e-mails twice, the first time from Rep. Rodney Alexander (D-La.) who was contacted by the boy’s parents. Hastert was notified a second time of the e-mails this spring by Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.). However, Hastert said in a CNN interview that he does not remember.

The main question remains, is partisanship more important to Hastert that outing a child molester?

Another example is former Gov. George Ryan, who was recently sentenced to six and a half years in prison for steering state contracts to political supporters. Lucky for him the judge did not consider the other conviction for selling drivers licenses, or the people who lost their lives because of those illegally licensed drivers

Meanwhile, accusations of patronage hiring in Illinois are being investigated by federal prosecutors. Patronage hiring is common in Illinois.

For example, my father was a Republican precinct committee member for years. Prior to his death, he told me how at the meetings the committee members would vote on who would get the state jobs in Lee County. They always looked at the voting records of the candidates and then chose the candidate who contributed the most time or money, and sometimes nepotism would come into play.

Now, the Democrats are being accused of patronage hiring. Now that Illinois has a Democrat for governor, Democrats are in charge of hiring state employees. The majority of state employees are Republican. Blagojevich is the first Democrat elected governor of Illinois in over 20 years. He most likely has no political loyalty to the majority of state employees who are, for the most part, Republicans.

Governor Blagojevich wants to sell the tollways to create additional funding for education. Illinois has a reputation for having some of the worst roads in the country. Illinois roads are not built with the best road-building technology. This creates more government contracts to fix the road and more jobs filling the potholes.

The tollways are not being efficiently operated. Those tollbooths were supposed to be temporary until the road was paid off. Instead, the road is usedlike a cash cow for the state, its employees and contractors.

That is just the way it is. Our government is for sale to the highest bidder.

Liz Baxter is an opinion columnist for the Northern Star.