Twenty years ago, Secretary of State Jim Edgar and Attorney General Neil Hartigan ran for governor against each other. Both men released their tax returns without much fanfare.
Four years later, Governor Jim Edgar and his opponent, Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch, both released their tax returns. It wasn't much of a story.
Then, in 1998, gubernatorial candidate George Ryan released his tax returns for the first time. He had adamantly refused to do so while he was secretary of state. And Ryan continued to refuse to release anything other than his current returns. Most of what he eventually got busted for happened while he was secretary of state, which may be no coincidence.