Seven pens -- seven Governor of the State of Illinois ballpoint pens -- are carefully laid out on a scuffed desk in a conference room on the 15th floor of the Thompson Center.

Gov. Quinn is scheduled to have his sole public event of the day -- signing legislation creating an inspector general for the Illinois Tollway Authority.

The governor has been staging a flurry of bill signings around the state, and I decided to drop in on this one. Republicans accuse Quinn of grandstanding, conflating these signings into campaign events but, frankly, Quinn lacks the pizzazz to grandstand. As Harry Caray once said, you can't ballyhoo a funeral.

Heading up the glass elevator, I picture myself the lone spectator. Who'd want to see Pat Quinn sign a tollway bill at 9:30 on a Wednesday?

Many people, it turns out -- three television cameras, a dozen members of the media. They wait, growing increasingly unhappy. The governor is 10, 15, 20 minutes late.

"I really don't have time for this today," complains one reporter, repeatedly, to no one in particular. "We've got stuff to do, and this isn't it," grouses another.

Finally, at six minutes to 10 the governor lopes into the room.

"Twenty-four minutes, guy," a radio reporter chides, quite loudly, a surprising display of disrespect. Then again, any harried public schoolteacher can coax a classroom of 6-year-olds into their bee costumes and giant sun outfits and shepherd them onstage to sing about good nutrition without being this late. It is not a performance that inspires confidence but then, heck, this is Pat Quinn. Confidence has left the building long ago.
You think you've got bill worries

I don't care about the tollway bill -- another example of government admitting that it can't control fraud and waste, then solemnizing the occasion by creating yet another level of government that is supposed to magically do what the current strata have proven themselves unable to.

No, I'm here because of a bill that on Wednesday was awaiting Quinn's signature -- SB 3084, which says that anybody who ever committed a sex crime has to remain on the sex offender registry forever. It passed unanimously in both Illinois House and Senate earlier this year. Heaping new punishments on criminals is a favorite pastime of politicians -- it looks good, the electorate likes it and the criminals rarely complain.

Though sometimes they do. In June, this newspaper ran an editorial calling the new sex registry bill counterproductive and unfair -- often these offenders plead guilty with the understanding they'd be on the registry for a decade then, if they stay out of trouble, they will be removed.

"There is no question sexual predators pose a real danger," the paper wrote. "But the assumption behind this bill that anyone ever convicted of a sex offense remains a threat to society forever is absurd."

As it is, sexual "predators" are already required to remain on the list for life. This bill would place thousands of people guilty of less serious offenses years ago permanently on the list.

After the editorial ran, a Berwyn man named Ken Chiero phoned the paper. Since colleagues often direct weird stuff they'd rather not cope with in my direction, I spoke to him.

"They told me if I did this, if I plead guilty, in 10 years I would be done with it," he said, his voice choking with emotion. "I did everything they asked me to do, never once tried to weasel my way out of it."

"It" was solicitation of a minor in 1999. He made an indecent proposal to a 16-year-old neighbor.

It would be easy to look away from a guy like Chiero. Talking with him, I suspect that his life is so filled with missteps and problems that being on the sex crime registry might not even be the most pressing.

"I've done some bad things," he said. But he's also a U.S. Marine who served in Vietnam who kept his nose clean and endured the scorn of his neighbors for a decade.

"It's been terrible," Chiero said. "I've been spit at, threatened."

He is set to go off the registry on Aug. 28.

"I am four weeks away," he said. "I did everything they asked me to do, I paid every fine, did every hour of community service. I have not broke the law."

Isn't that what we want? Are sex offenders going to behave better if we keep them on the registry whether they reform or not?

My concern is not with Chiero and his ilk so much as with our limited law enforcement resources. More than 21,000 Illinoisans are on the list already. Keeping people on forever means, if they don't comply, somebody has to find them and somebody has to put them in jail and a cell bunk is required.

Perhaps in an ideal world we'd want to do that. But the state is broke and law enforcement overextended. Our police can't investigate all the shootings that happened last week, do we really want a new law requiring that in 20 years Chiero -- now 59 -- be arrested for not registering due to a crime he has already been punished for committing?

"I can't see how he would sign something like that," Chiero said.

I can, though the good news is he won't get the chance. On Wednesday, I phoned the bill's main sponsor, State Sen. Iris Martinez, (D-20th), and asked her about the bill. Late Thursday, she called me to say she had decided to pull the bill back from the governor and rework it.

Maybe she will get it right this time.