When President Donald Trump revealed on Wednesday he may commute the 14-year prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, it made a certain sort of twisted sense.

With all the Illinois politicians under investigation or indicted right now, perhaps the federal penitentiaries are running out of room.

Move out, Blago. State Sen. Tom Cullerton, D-Villa Park, might need that bunk.

The curious case of Cullerton, the former Hostess truck driver now facing embezzlement charges, shows just how fast the seemingly straight can twist into pretzels of alleged perfidy. Before he was indicted last week, Cullerton had the look of a politician on the rise — with a knack for jumping on high-profile political issues in order to do some good, for the state and for himself.

Read the rest at chicagotribune.com.

David Greising is the president and chief executive of the Better Government Association, joining the BGA in 2018. For nearly a century, the BGA has fought for honest and effective government through investigative journalism and policy advocacy.

Greising’s career started at the City News Bureau of Chicago, with stops at the Chicago Sun-Times, Business Week magazine, the Chicago Tribune and Reuters. He was a co-founder of the Chicago News Cooperative and worked briefly as a consultant to World Business Chicago. Today, Greising writes on government issues in regular columns for the Tribune and Crain’s Chicago Business.

Under Greising’s leadership, the BGA has played a key role in uncovering public corruption amidst the wide-ranging federal probe, starting with an in-depth report about Ald. Ed Burke’s conflicts of interest before the federal charges against Burke. The BGA also has exposed waste and fraud at O’Hare and the proliferation of corruption and poverty into Dolton, Lyons and other Chicago suburbs. The BGA’s policy team has led calls for ethics reform in Chicago’s City Council and in state government.