Struggle about plates may be near end

ALWAYS RIGHT – NOVEMBER 18, 2007
Struggle about plates may be near end
by Fran Eaton

This Thursday, when families all over Illinois join together around their dining room tables to give thanks, one family in Kankakee will have an empty chair at the head of their table.  The family’s patriarch – still defiant former governor George Ryan -- will be spending Thanksgiving in a Wisconsin prison.

George Ryan’s first full day in a Wisconsin federal prison was November 8, 2007 – thirteen years to the day after 13 year old Ben Willis and five of his siblings were burned to death on a Wisconsin highway.

That November 8, 1994 Election Day six children perished when the van in which the Willis family rode exploded into flames when a steel bracket that had just fallen from a truck ahead punctured the van’s gas tank. 

An investigation into the tragedy led eventually to a licenses-for-bribes scandal.   Ricardo Guzman, the driver of the truck that lost the deadly bracket, had obtained his truck driver’s license by paying a bribe to a state employee.  But not only were drivers’ licenses sold in the illegal scheme,  so were vehicle vanity plates.  For a sizable campaign donation, one could obtain a monogram car license plate, marking his political influence.  The state’s licensing system was used to facilitate corruption and greed. 

Over seventy people have been convicted of their part in the fund-raising scheme. And finally last week, former Governor George Ryan – the system’s ultimate beneficiary – began serving his own six and a half year prison term.

Pastor Scott Willis and his wife Janet survived the tragic accident and five years later were awarded $100 million, an amount they said could never compensate for the loss of six of their children.  They moved from their humble apartment above their Mt. Greenwood church’s sanctuary and bought a lake view condo within walking distance of Chicago’s Pacific Garden Mission.  There the Willises continued reaching out – almost anonymously – to needy and homeless people.

In an almost therapeutic effort to cope with the loss of their children almost ten years afterward, the Willises selflessly engaged in an effort to use the proceeds from state-issued specialty license plates to fund and promote adoption. 

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the people of Illinois could, one by one, turn this state from a place where license plates symbolize devastation and grief to a state where license plates encourage the joy and happiness of life?” Pastor Willis asked Chicago’s southside Triedstone Church congregation March 9, 2003. 

But in order for the whole system to be corrected, something good must be constructed where evil once stood, the pastor told reporters.

“Janet and I believe allowing ‘Choose Life’ plates to be an option for drivers in Illinois is a step in the right direction, symbolizing a brighter future for our state and for those who come after us,” he said.

In the months following, Pastor Willis testified before our Illinois legislature, encouraging Choose Life licenses to be added to Illinois’ list of specialty plates.  

Concerned that the term “Choose Life” be interpreted as anti-abortion,   the powerful pro-abortion lobby abruptly stopped the effort in committee. 

Not to be deterred, adoption advocates continued to gather over 25,000 names of those who promised to purchase the Choose Life plates if the Secretary of State made them available.  At $10 to $25 a plate, the amount of money raised for adoptions would be significant. 

When the Secretary’s office persisted in delaying production, the Choose Life effort filed a lawsuit to push the issue, and Judge David Coar ruled last January in favor of the Choose Life plates.   Still, the plates are not available, although other new specialty plates have been added. 

George Ryan’s prison entry last week jarred memories of the Willises and their unfinished effort to revamp the impact of Illinois’ licensing system.  It was delightful to discover that within a few weeks, the final decision on Choose Life plates could be made.  Secretary of State Jesse White appealed Judge Coar’s January 2007 ruling, and on November 27 oral arguments will commence on whether the words “Choose Life” constitute controversial “government speech.” 

Choose Life’s attorney Tom Brechja is hopeful next week will mark the final battle.

“The State has made license plates into a public forum, letting all variety of private groups promote their favored causes -- from the environmental bird to the peace dove, and so forth,” Brechja said.  “The alleged avoidance of 'controversial' subjects is transparently bogus as so many of the plates that have been approved, are in production and use all over our Illinois highways are 'controversial.'”

And Choose Life Inc’s president Jim Finnegan, who endured alongside Scott Willis those gut-wrenching pleas before the Illinois General Assembly, is confident that adoptions will increase in Illinois when the Choose Life plates emerge as the state’s number one best-selling license.

How fitting it would be that while the Ryan family grieves the empty chair at the head of their Thanksgiving table this week that Scott and Janet Willis may be one step closer to having their unspeakable grief play a crucial part in re-directing the very system that stole away six innocents from their family’s celebrations. 

May God bless them all.

Fran Eaton is a south suburban resident, a conservative activist in state and national politics and an online journalist.  She can be reached at featon@illinoisreview.com.