Election-time tidings questioned

Just weeks before election day, Jen and Andrew Fitzgibbon got a card from Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich congratulating them on their new baby.

The only problem was that the Fitzgibbons’ youngest daughter, Lydia, wasn’t so new anymore -- she celebrated her first birthday the week the card arrived.

Batches of greeting cards bearing niceties from Blagojevich and his wife arrived in mailboxes right before the spring and fall elections, raising new ethical questions about the Illinois governor.

Blagojevich has been accused in recent months of awarding jobs and contracts to contributors and cronies. He has also been criticized for accepting a $1,500 check for his young daughter from a friend whose wife had just landed a state job.

A state official said there was nothing political about the timing of the new-baby cards, which are part of a nearly 20-year-old program to remind parents about immunizations for their children. The state was just trying to dig out from a backlog, said Melaney Arnold, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Public Health, which oversees the program.

“It looks very coincidental, but it had nothing to do with the election,” Arnold said.

The state sent a batch of 13,792 cards in February -- ahead of the March primary -- and three more batches totaling 89,185 cards in the two months before the November election. Blagojevich, a Democrat, easily won a second term.

The year before the election, the cards went out more regularly -- eight batches in January, March, April, May and August of 2005.