Friday, May 12, 2006

“Governor's re-election bid a shambles, observers say”

That’s the headline yesterday, but not in Illinois.

Yet.

Kentucky’s Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher was indicted by a Grand Jury on three misdemeanor conspiracy charges for breaking a state law forbidding hiring on political considerations.

Patronage hiring, to translate.

Kentucky’s governor, like our own, is running for his second term in office.

And, headline yesterdayhe’s angry, just like our governor is when he "uncovers" something wrong in his administration.

The article from which my headline came says the governor could pardon himself. That’s probably better than spending time in a state prison. He's already pardoned everyone else involved in the scandal.

Who does this sound like?

(The governor) entered office in 2003 on a pledge to cut "waste, fraud and abuse" in state government. He promised to “clean up the mess” in the state capitol.

It could be Blagojevich, but it’s Kentucky’s governor.

And, today, Governor Rod Blagojevich announces the firing of the people he picked to run state hiring…back in April.

Here is the Saturday Chicago Tribune story.

Read the more detailed Sun-Times story, too.

The Kentucky governor tried an affirmative defense, too, but it obviously didn't work.

Mayor Richard Daley’s hiring team is on trial for violating patronage hiring rules and Governor Rod Blagojevich decides to fire his hiring team.

Timing is everything.

ABC’s Andy Shaw did a story last October on a developing Federal investigation into Blagojevich hiring abuses. (Actually, the Channel 7 reporter used the word, “practices.”)

Of course, Governor Blagojevich could not pardon himself from a Federal conviction.

But there is more irony than his annoucing the personnel firings the first week of Daley's counterparts' trial.

Blagojevich announced them the day after after former Republican Governor Richard B. Ogilvie’s patronage chief, Don Udstuen, got told he would spend the fall, winter and most of next spring in a Wisconsin prison.

Of course, Udstuen’s offenses had nothing to do with patronage. They were about bribes.

Another involved in the Ogilvie administration’s systematic replacement of Democrats with Republicans was Alan Drazak, Director of the Department of Personnel. Drazak figured out a way to put the people Udstuen selected on the payroll. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 9th. He so angered Cook County Democrats when he played the same role when Ogilvie was sheriff and county board president that Senate Democrats refused to confirm him as director. He remained an "Acting Director."

Among Drazak's offenses was laundering Udstuen’s share of the Secretary of State vendor bribes that went to Larry Warner. (Warner got 1/3, Udstuen got 1/3, and 1/3 went elsewhere, according to testimony.)

No wonder the first reform of government in the United States was civil service.

Also posted at McHenry County Blog.

13 comments:

Anonymous,  8:27 AM  

Interesting that DeFraties and Casey were moved to other high-paying jobs when the allegations first came out. An effort to buy their silence? After all, it's unlikely that they were manipulating those applications purely for the fun of it. Somebody must have told them to do
something.

The move to other high-$$ jobs
and hopefully buy their silence is epidemic in the Blago administration. Over at DCFS, which has been riddled with corruption and nepotism under Blagojevich, the press reported a few months ago that Robin Staggers, the DCFS personnel chief, and her aides Thomas Putting and Corey Novick, were moved to other high-paying DCFS jobs during an investigation into DCFS personnel practices. No word yet on how it came out. But these three are likely still collecting the big bucks. Our bucks.

Cal Skinner 9:07 AM  

Check out the link to the Saturday Chicago Tribune story I just put up

Anonymous,  10:02 AM  

Cal-
When you were a Representative, did you ever make any type of call, or use influence in order to get someone a state job or promotion?

Just curious.

Anonymous,  12:02 PM  

It's been a fact for a long time that the state test were dummied down so people could pass them.So I guess the Democrats that were still to dumb to pass them they still got a grade.BIG QUESTION.Were is our AG? You know Democrat Madigan

Cal Skinner 2:16 PM  

Patronage was generally handled by our Repupblican County Chairman Al Jourdan while I was in office in th 1970's and 1990's.

I remember writing a letter for a guy who wanted a job on the tollway in the 1970's and in the 1990's trying to help an ally of Jourdan, who was then state GOP party chairman, and my former State Senator Jack Schaffer get a job at IDOT under Edgar. Despite all three of our efforts and the applicant's being a veteran, if memory serves me correctly, it took the better part of a year. It was a job similar to the one Blagojevich gave the immediate past chairman of the McHenry County Democratic Party, I believe, interfacing with local officals.

I am sure there were others. If you're near NIU and have sufficient interest, check out my legislative correspondence at the regional historical library.

My guess is that, if a consituent asked for a letter of recommendation, I wrote one, but there was no regular interface with the patronage folks.

Were any of my close friends on a state payroll? No.

When I was County Treasurer, I went to the patronage committee chairman of our central committee and did what I thought I was supposed to do. (I was all of 24 and what I knew about party politics I had learned in college.) The clerk jobs paid so little, none of the party folks were interested--even in referring prospects--so I had to fill the jobs myself.

When I was state rep in the late 1970's I recruited my own secretary--one with truly outstanding qualifications--with a Springfield newspaper ad for which I took some heat:

"Not your typical state job. You'll have to work."

My name does not appear on Fawell's Favors List.

Anonymous,  4:54 PM  

I have absolutely no problem with patronage. If you win, you fill the jobs. As Skinner himself admits, the state GOP did it for years and now it is our turn.

What I DO have a problem with is Blagojevich's people blamming these two people and paying a law firm big bucks when they are the ones responsible! Abby seems to imply by her comments that DeFraties and Casey made this all up on their own. Obviously they were directed to do this by higher ups, and if you believe their attorney actually tried to improve the system.

So typical of this administration. Blame others when YOU are responsible.

Anonymous,  1:40 AM  

Balgo is done, the Feds have him and plenty are talking, Joe Cini was the patronage guy-everyone knows that, and Chris Kelly is the money guy and had a lot of control on contracts and hiring

Anonymous,  3:19 PM  

I posted an email from IDOC personnel staff on my blog back in March about shady state hiring practices: Reason and Common Sense.

The email references Cini's name.

Cal Skinner 7:25 PM  

It seems my Germanization of English left a misunderstanding above. I was trying to help a friend of Jourdan and Schaffer get a job at IDOT.

Anonymous,  10:16 PM  

This is testicular verility! I may actually have to vote for Rod. Perhaps with my hectic s-hedule, I may have missed it. But has his administration actually said that they fired these two due to their misdeeds? And is the "truth" that they were actaully against the preferential treatment? Blago-ites actally said that the feds were looking into them, now we find out that the feds are reaching out to them? This guy has a pair on him, my goodness.

Anonymous,  10:17 PM  

Cal, did you ever cheat or get someone unqualified a job they didn't deserve? That is a more appropriate question

Cal Skinner 1:41 PM  

I'm afraid the first part of your question would require a bit more reflection on my entire life than I am willing to do in a blog comment. I did go to Oberlin College, where there was one of the few remaining honor codes, which I followed.

As to the job question, I have never helped someone get a job they were unqualified for, whether in the private or public sector.

Anonymous,  2:16 PM  

Ask around, I bet no one at CMS, especially Personnel, was sorry to see DeFraities go.

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