Jim Ryan: A straight shooter, or shooting straight for the top?

If you doubt that Attorney General Jim Ryan is a stickler for law and order, consider this: A few years back, when he was DuPage County state's attorney, Elmhurst police picked up one of his sons after a barroom brawl. Officers called Ryan at home and asked what they should do. His reply — typical, say those who know him — was "book him."

"He never once called me on it," says Elmhurst Police Chief John Milner. "And we're friends. That tells me some things. It tells me his integrity is very, very high. And it tells me he likes to do things by the book."

In fact, this by-the-book approach to the law, and to everyday life, has permeated Ryan's career.

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Early on, the Republican caught heat for his uncompromising role in one of the state's most notorious cases — the murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville in 1983, the year before Ryan became state's attorney. Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hemandez were convicted of the crime, and sentenced to death. Later, a third man — Brian Dugan, a convicted child rapist and killer — told his lawyer that he alone had murdered Nicarico.

Dugan said he would confess publicly if he were granted immunity from the death penalty, but Ryan refused the offer, choosing instead to pin his confidence on the jury system. Meanwhile, the Illinois Supreme Court ended up ordering new trials for Cruz and Hemandez; their separate cases are scheduled to begin in October and next year.

Because the Nicarico case generated such messy legal machinations and intense media scrutiny, it became a politician's nightmare. Observers say Ryan would have been smart to bail out. Instead, his office doggedly stuck with it.

More recently, as attorney general, Ryan ruffled a few GOP feathers by quashing a deal made by Republican Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka. Attempting to clear the state's books of a bad debt, Topinka had offered to settle for a repayment of $10 million on $40 million in loans to politically connected hotel developers. Following a strict interpretation of his job description, Ryan threw a wrench into the works by refusing to sign off on the financial arrangement.

The situation was a sticky one for Ryan because one developer, former GOP state official and heavyweight fund-raiser William Cellini, had contributed to his campaign. What's more, Dan Webb, the attorney for the two hotels involved in the deal, chaired Ryan's attorney general campaign.

Ryan's supporters say his apparent politics-be-damned approach reflects an integrity rare among people in the public eye. Indeed, many politicians would have stepped in to keep a family member from being arrested, and would have avoided a high-profile intraparty squabble. But Ryan's choices can't be divorced from the political ambitions he's harbored since his days as a fledgling assistant state's attorney. His "straight arrow" approach has paid off so well that he's now being touted as a future U.S. attorney general under a Republican president, as Illinois' next governor and as a shoo-in for the U.S. Senate.

"Jimmy just does things by the book," says Patrick Durante, GOP chairman for Addison Township and executive assistant to U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde. "He makes sure nobody's ever going to read about his office doing something wrong."

Close friends swear there's a comedian inside Jim Ryan that would put Shecky Greene to shame

Comic genius or 'Grim Reaper'?

Criticism of Ryan seems aimed more at his serious demeanor. Even staffers acknowledge the former Golden Gloves boxer's poker-faced persona makes him seem humorless and intimidating. It helped earn him the moniker "Grim Reaper Ryan" from Tom Roeser, a columnist with the Chicago Sun-Times and a champion of right-wing causes. "Sometimes you want to say, 'Lighten up,'" says Police Chief Milner. "He takes his roles very seriously. He's very personable once you get to know him, but he comes off as so ... anal-retentive."

But close friends swear there's a comedian inside Ryan that would "put Shecky Greene to shame" — one that recalls lines from every Honeymooners episode and isn't above playing practical jokes on his six kids. It's a side they say helps carry his family through the rough spots in a politician's career.

And family life, says Ryan, is his top priority. Growing up in Chicago and suburban Villa Park, he was close to his mother, an Italian immigrant, and his first-generation Irish father. As a youth, he was inspired by another Irishman with strong family ties. "I guess I'd say John P. Kennedy attracted me like a lot of young people," Ryan says. "His youth and energy, and I'd say his idealism. The idea that you could become involved and make a difference."

Later, at Illinois Benedictine College, he toyed with the idea of becoming a professor, but eventually decided to pursue a law degree to fulfill a calling in criminal justice work. After graduating in 1971 from Chicago-Kent College of Law, he became a trial attorney in the DuPage County state's attorney's office. Before long, he was ready to enter politics — and apparently expected to start big.

"I think I was the first political person Jim ever visited," recalls Durante, who had just become Republican chairman of Addison Township. Today it's a patch of GOP heaven; Hyde, Illinois House Speaker Lee Daniels, state Senate President James "Pate" Philip and Ryan all reside in the six-square-mile township.

"Jim Ryan came to me and said, 'I was told you're the person to see if I want to get involved in politics.' I asked him what he wanted to run for, and he said, 'I think I'd like to run for state Senate.' I said, 'That's great. There's just one problem. There's this guy named Pate Philip, and he already has that seat.' He asked me what the next lower office was, and I said, 'state representative.' He said that's what he would run for. And I said, 'That's great, too. Except there's this guy named Lee Daniels . . . '"

Twenty years later, Ryan hasn't completely lost this naivete — whether born of ignorance or arrogance — regarding political protocol. Before Lee Daniels gave his inaugural address as speaker of the House of Representatives in January, he introduced the assembled state dignitaries, including Ryan. Once the introductions were completed, but before Daniels began his speech, Ryan rose to leave the chamber for another appointment.

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That prompted Secretary of State George Ryan to admonish the younger Ryan on the House floor in full view of the speaker's podium and the press. The attorney general sat down, stewing, through Daniels' speech.

But Ryan's faux pas didn't hurt his ability to move his agenda through the legislature. In fact, at a time when corrections officials were wringing their hands over the state's severe prison bed shortage, Ryan spearheaded "truth-in-sentencing" legislation and three other "tough-on-crime" measures that would further crowd state penitentiaries. All four proposals passed the General Assembly overwhelmingly.

These are difficult policy questions. Corrections officials caution that the truth-in-sentencing measure alone would require nearly 4,000 extra prison beds, and cost more than $320 million over 10 years. But politically it was a no-brainer for Ryan: Tough-on-crime efforts not only are popular with the public, they have been the key to his political success so far.

Surfing the suburban psyche

Ryan came of age politically in DuPage County just as its power and population exploded, with waves of Chicagoans moving westward in search of safer places to raise their families. He lost his first run for state's attorney in 1976, but by the time he won the post in 1984, he had the perfect audience for his law-and-order message.

And he took advantage of it, speaking about the need to fight gang crime and domestic violence and child abuse at every Kiwanis or Rotary meeting where people cared to listen. In doing so, he built a grass-roots constituency that would overwhelmingly re-elect him twice. He organized several task forces that brought together people from business, social service and law enforcement communities. One, on child sexual abuse, led to the establishment of a children's advocacy center in DuPage County that has become a model for the rest of the state. Ryan also set up a unit in his office to deal specifically with gang prosecutions, as well as a countywide domestic abuse program that includes mandatory arrest and prosecution guidelines and mandatory treatment for offenders.

"He challenged communities — everyone from mayors to parents — to work together and work hard," said Bill Hargreaves, a vice president at ServiceMaster Co. who worked with Ryan on a drug-fighting task force. "He put in a lot of hard work himself. He realizes that government isn't going to dictate whether drugs are used; the whole community has to be involved."

At the same time, Ryan maneuvered himself well politically — even as he seemed to deviate from the standard political playbook. "Patronage wasn't exactly Jimmy's forte," says Durante, recalling Ryan's DuPage County days. "But what you didn't get out of him patronage wise you got back in good service and respect." These days, Ryan is being asked about his plans for regional offices. The offices were in place when he was elected attorney general, but he has closed 11 of them and trimmed the number of staff. Ryan argues the cuts saved dollars, but critics question whether he plans to re-staff them later with people more loyal to him.

Although he was supported from the beginning by the mainstream Republican Party, Ryan also had a good relationship with former DuPage County Board Chairman Aldo Botti — Pate Philip's nemesis. "I have the utmost respect for him," says Botti, who worked against Ryan in his first race for state's attorney. "He's forthright — almost righteous. He always chose people for jobs based on ability, not who they knew. And he's an excellent prosecutor.

"He was the county's attorney when I was chairman of the board, and he never gave an opinion that was politically motivated. Jim Ryan was a party regular, but his job was to represent me and I can't complain about anything he did. He gave opinions that benefited me and made me look good."

"He's a mentally tough guy," says longtime friend and law partner Jack Darrah, now an 18th Circuit judge and law professor at Northern Illinois University. "He's acquired the ability to do what he thinks is right and stick with it."

While serving as state's attorney, Durante says, Ryan was mentioned as a possible U.S. attorney, but chose instead to pursue statewide office. Although he lost his first race for attorney general to Roland Burris, the political gamble seems to have paid off: Today, the man who took the job as U.S. attorney, Fred Foreman, is a behind-the-scenes lobbyist, while Ryan is making headlines with pledges to promote law and order from the attorney general's office.

But does crime fighting really fit the post? Or is the issue just too politically expedient for a rising Republican star? Political scientist John Jackson says the attorney general's office traditionally has played little role in fighting crime. "There's substance and there's symbolism," says Jackson, who is dean of liberal arts at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. "The substance is that the attorney general's office has not had a major impact on crime fighting. At the same time, constitutional officers can make what they want of these offices to shape their political images. There's relatively little the attorney general can do about the root causes of crime."

Yet Ryan insists crime is his business — even if his predecessors treated the role differently. "We're one of the biggest public-interest law firms in the country, and as such we're going to be very aggressive in certain areas," he says. "We're going to be very aggressive about gangs, for example. We're going to try to affect public policy." At the same time, Ryan says, his office will be looking into civil rights law, particularly disabled rights. "People are used to seeing this as a civil enforcement position, but law enforcement initiatives don't take away from civil areas."

Ryan was able to parlay a politically palatable agenda in DuPage County into statewide office; it's likely he'll try to push it further. He admits to thinking already about running for higher office — a prospect his Republican colleagues say is inevitable. Some paint a long-shot scenario with Ryan taking the governor's office in early 1997 under these circumstances: U.S. Sen. Bob Dole is elected president in 1996 and appoints Gov. Jim Edgar to a cabinet post, while Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra is elected to the U.S. Senate. Ryan, as attorney general, would be next in line for the governorship.

If events work out differently, he's still considered someone to watch. So far, he's reaped political payoffs with his by-the-book strategy. Look for him to continue cultivating this image as he charts his political future.

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