Topping out at 361 feet, the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield is the tallest of the nonskyscraper-style state capitol buildings in the United States. By law, it is the tallest building in Springfield. No other structure is allowed to exceed its height. One of its grander features is the unobstructed view one gets from the center of the first floor all the way up to the stained glass replica of the state seal in the oculus of the 91-foot tall dome.
That view can be daunting for anyone, let alone a newly-elected state representative. As I stood there at the end of my very first day in office in 1972, I felt much like a college freshman far away from the security of home.
I was lost in thought for a bit, thinking back to about a decade earlier. If you had asked me then to predict my future, my answer would have been easy: I was going to be a pharmacist and run the pharmacy that my father, Thomas Ryan Sr., had started in 1949 in Kankakee, Illinois. My father’s father was a railroad worker. My mother, Jeanette Bowman, came from a cattle ranching family. I was born February 24, 1934, in Maquoketa, Iowa, and was just a toddler when my father took a job as a pharmacist at a Walgreens drugstore on the South Side of Chicago. Not long after, he was offered a job as an assistant manager of a pharmacy in Kankakee, situated sixty miles south of Chicago on the banks of the Kankakee River. Kankakee would be my lifetime home and where I expected to spend my life as a pharmacist.
But years later here I was, standing at the vortex of this law-making, deal-cutting, and legend-creating building that had been completed in 1888 at a cost of $4.5 million. This was the home of the Illinois General Assembly, and my new “office” was in the House of Representatives, overseen by the stern visage of Stephen Douglas, one of the state’s most renowned representatives of the nineteenth century. Across the way was the Illinois Senate chamber where a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, the state’s most prominent Republican figure of all time, kept silent watch.
“Hey, Ryan!”
I was jolted out of my reverie by the booming voice of Emil Jones, a Chicago Democrat, who, like me, was a freshman legislator.
“Ryan,” he declared. “What are you doing tonight?”
“I don’t know,” I said, somewhat sheepishly, figuring I should have something important to do.
“Let’s go play some pool,” Jones said and flashed a grin. He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “What do you say?”
“Well, why not?” I replied.
Two hours later, I had lost twenty dollars. I thought I had gained a friend and for years we were. But some friends don’t last forever. Such are the fortunes of living a political life.
In 1952, I graduated from Kankakee High School where I played linebacker on the football team and fell in love with a girl in my English class named Lura Lynn Lowe. Two years later, while I was attending Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, I was drafted into the US Army. I served from 1954 to 1956. While stationed in South Korea for thirteen months, I was detailed to a military pharmacy. Lura Lynn and I married in 1956. In 1957, after our daughter, Nancy, was born, I went back to school. In 1961, I graduated from Ferris State University College of Pharmacy in Big Rapids, Michigan, with a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy. Our second daughter, Lynda, was born that same year.
By 1962, there were two pharmacies in the family, and I was part owner with my family. I loved it. Working fourteen-hour days, it seemed as if I were in contact with just about everyone in Kankakee. I helped young mothers who were concerned about the health of their babies. I consulted daily with the elderly about their medications. This was small-town America and on a daily basis I spoke with and listened to people from all walks of life about their worries and fears. These were plainspoken folks. They said what was on their minds and weren’t afraid to say what they liked and didn’t like.
It was, in a powerful way, the beginning of my political education.
And so, in 1962, when Edward McBroom, a Kankakee farmer and businessman, who owned a car dealership and a travel agency, decided to run for the state legislature and asked me to be his campaign manager, I thought why not? That was my first taste of politics. And I found that I liked it as much as I enjoyed being a pharmacist. In 1966, when a vacancy opened on the Kankakee County Board of Supervisors, I accepted an appointment to fill the slot. By then, our family had grown. Triplet daughters, Julie, Joanne, and Jeanette were born in 1963 and my son, George, was born in 1964. When my county board seat came up for reelection in 1968, I decided to run and I was successful. Two years later, in 1970, I was elected County Board president. Then, in 1972, the Kankakee County Republican chairman asked me to run for a position in the Illinois House of Representatives. I was honored to be asked and I said I would run. And I was elected.
Five years later, I was standing at my desk in the House of Representatives for what I thought would be an easy vote—the restoration of capital punishment. I was aware that in 1972, during my first year as a state representative, the US Supreme Court, in the case Furman v. Georgia, struck down capital punishment. The state death penalty laws, the justices declared, were “haphazard” and “racially discriminatory.” As a result of that ruling, all death row inmates in death penalty states, such as Illinois, were automatically spared execution. Most were resentenced to life in prison.
Almost immediately after the decision, state legislatures scrambled to create new death penalty laws that would pass constitutional muster, essentially following a blueprint of sorts laid out by the Supreme Court ruling. Illinois had been no exception and in November 1973, the Illinois General Assembly passed, and Governor Dan Walker signed, a new death penalty law. Its chief feature was the creation of three-judge “sentencing panels” for all capital cases. The accused would be tried before a single judge with guilt decided by either a jury or the judge, as is the case in criminal trials. But after conviction, defendants would go before a sentencing panel that would decide whether or not to impose a death sentence. In theory, this structure was designed to prevent any miscarriage of justice. But that law was barely on the books when, in 1975, the Illinois Supreme Court struck it down, concluding that the legislature lacked the constitutional authority to create three-judge sentencing panels.
And so, on March 10, 1977, my time to confront the issue of capital punishment finally arrived when House Bill 10 came before the Illinois House of Representatives. This second attempt to reinstate capital punishment separated the guilt phase from the punishment phase. A defendant would first have a trial which, if it culminated in a guilty verdict, would then proceed to a sentencing hearing before a judge or a jury. The choice would be up to the defendant. The sentencing hearing would be conducted in two stages. The first stage determined whether the defendant was eligible for a death sentence. The second, if eligibility was found, would be to determine whether death was the appropriate punishment.
There was more than a hint of spring in the air that day. The sun shone brightly and the temperature topped seventy degrees. It was that time of year when cautious optimism begins to bubble after the cold and snow and bluster of winter.
Representative Roman Kosinski, one of the cosponsors of the bill, spoke first. “House Bill 10 is the work product of many people over a period of a year and a half,” he began. “The work product of staff, Legislator attorneys, prosecutors, experts we flew into Springfield from Chicago, and the public. This legislation is needed. It is needed because of escalating murder rates. It is needed because of its implied deterrent effects. It is needed because of the demands of the people of Illinois.
“It is needed as a swing of the pendulum back to the realities of law and order—law and order which is much needed to ensure an orderly society,” Kosinski said. After a quick description of the legalities of the law, he wrapped up. “I have said before that in an educated, cultivated and organized society, it is unfortunate the death penalty is needed, but Illinois laws are so lenient presently they almost condone murder. I offer House Bill 10 for your consideration.”
More speeches were made. Some representatives were for the bill. Some were opposed to it. Some were more passionate than others.
Don Duester, a Republican from Mundelein, a suburb north of Chicago, was adamantly in favor of it. “I think that if we enact this law and just one person, just one person who is on the verge of committing murder hesitates and stops because of the fear of death to himself, we’ve saved one life. And by putting this statute on the books, if we can save one life, we have shown that this is a civilized society that holds life to be sacred and dear. And I think the death penalty is a real reflection of a society that does believe that life is sacred and anyone who takes a life ought to be dealt with seriously.”
On the other side was Bob Mann, a Chicago Democrat who predicted that the poor and minorities would populate death row. “I tell you that capital punishment is a lethal lottery and the poor and the black are the losers,” Mann declared. “This is an awesome responsibility we have. It’s a moral dilemma. Remember, you can’t justify killing by the state unless you really feel that killing by one justifies killing by another.”
His next words were chilling.
“I say to you here today that if you vote for this bill, you might as well be there to push the switch that kills the next man who dies in Illinois. And the more sober among you will wonder: Has a mistake been made? There is no way of turning it around—it is an irreversible mistake.
“How many of you would stand down there and pull that switch?” Mann asked. “That’s not our job. Our job is to make sure that everyone, regardless of economic status or race be protected against killing. And killing is not our business—preserving human life is our business.” He implored us to “take cognizance of the fact that our courts are not perfect, will take cognizance of the fact that there is a rich man’s justice and a poor man’s justice. Please, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you—do not pass this bill.”
Years later, I am still struck by the memory of how stirring the debate was on both sides of the aisle as Republicans and Democrats alike favored and opposed the issue. At that time, the death penalty wasn’t a wedge issue that split the chamber down party lines. It wasn’t a predictable “Republican issue” or a “Democrat issue.” While there were more Republicans for the death penalty than Democrats, there also was bipartisan support. This was a true public policy debate, not a political debate.
On both sides of the House chamber were large tote boards that showed how each legislator was voting. Each board contained the names of all 177 representatives. Next to each name was a horizontal row of three light bulbs: one green bulb, signifying a yes vote; a red bulb, signifying a no vote; and a yellow bulb, signifying a vote of “present,” essentially an abstention. On each of our desks were three switches that corresponded to the bulbs—a green switch, a red switch, and a yellow switch. I had already voted “green” as the debate continued when Elroy C. Sandquist Jr., a Chicago Republican, stood up, perhaps emboldened by Bob Mann’s comments.
“Most of us when we came down here probably had our minds made up as to how we feel about this. It is an emotional issue,” Sandquist said. “But I think what we really must do is be leaders of our people too. If something is wrong, just because they are clamoring for it, we should not bet on that bandwagon and join it. We should really look at it closely to see if it is going to solve the problem that the people are concerned about, which is safety in the street; freedom from crime. And I really don’t think this death penalty is going to do that.
“I spent four years in the State’s Attorney’s Office in Cook County when we had the death penalty on the book,” Sandquist said. “Was it carried out? No, it was not carried out. Because people are afraid of that last step—of pushing the button to execute a person. So, I ask each and every one of when you push your switch to vote: Would you also push your switch to turn on the electricity to take someone’s life?”
Sandquist paused ever so briefly. For a moment, the chamber was hushed.
“Because that is what you’re doing when you pull that switch for a yes vote,” he concluded. “I honestly ask you to vote no.”
I believed the law was necessary. And so, I pressed green to vote yes.
The bill passed by a vote of 118 to 41.
The debate in the Illinois Senate mirrored the House debate and on June 2, 1977, the Senate passed the bill with a vote of 40 to 13. Nineteen days later, Illinois governor James Thompson, a former federal prosecutor, signed the bill into law.
And while I went on about my business as a state legislator—my responsibilities were expanding because I had been elected the House minority leader and would soon become Speaker of the House—that debate ever remained clear. The words of Bob Mann and Elroy Sandquist had, for a moment, given me pause. I remember saying to myself, “Yes, this law is necessary, but I don’t want to be the guy who throws the switch.”
Little did I know that twenty-two years later, my hand would be on that very switch.