What were they thinking?
Cross-posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:
Two stories in the Chicago press today had me scratching my head with wonder. Why is clean government so baffling to people in power?
The Tribune reports on city aldermen who think Patrick Fitzgerald has gone too far in enforcing rules against political patronage. The rights of public servants to their own political affiliations are well-settled, but in Illinois, it seems that prosecutors have to swoop in every few years to remind our public officials what the rest of the nation learned over a century ago. Politicians cannot hand out jobs to supporters. Hiring, firing, promotions, contracts, and other benefits should not be doled out based on campaign considerations. Taxpayer funds should benefit taxpayers. And yet, one unnamed alderman insists, “nobody has considered it a crime before.” Maybe nobody at City Hall, but surely after Rutan, and Shakman, and (gulp) the 2003 Ethics Act, we’d have hoped they’d have learned differently.
The Sun-Times has another doozy, revealing that Gov. Blagojevich was maintaining a favors list that connected new hires with political sponsors. At the same time that the governor was bragging about changing the way business was done, insisting that other politicians fought with him because he was reforming the system, it turns out his office was also tracking special interest sponsors of state employees. Maybe the governor now wants to explain why he let a riverboat casino lobbyist pick the Gaming Board’s lobbyist? Was that the new and improved way of doing the people’s business?
Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised. Scott Fawell was indicted (and convicted) of abuse of public office for acts he committed after he knew he was a target in the Safe Roads investigation, and some Hired Truck defendants were charged with crimes committed after the first Hired Truck indictments came down. Some people just think they’re immune; even when they know prosecutors are looking at them, they keep on breaking the law. But our public officials are lucky, in a way. If they haven’t learned the lesson yet, the latest round of federal prosecutions will give them all another chance to get it right.
14 comments:
Regarding the reaction by Chicago Aldermen, it seems to stem from an overreaction on the part of the federal court and its appointed manager. If you call an Alderman's office to request a meeting, an aide is going to ask the nature of the meeting. As it now stands, if you ask the Alderman ANYTHING about ANY position in city government, even if it is a general question as to what are the statutory requirements to apply for a particular civil service position, the Alderman would have to report the conversation to the Czarina Manager appointed by the onetime Gubernatorial Patronage Chief turned Federal Judge. In short, the Aldermen have been turned into third-class citizens, with fewer rights than any of their constituents in the eyes on the feds.
If there hadn't been such a long standing pattern of criminal conduct in regards to city hiring then City Hall wouldn't be in the mess it is today.
The administration and the alderman brought this upon themselves by their own actions.
The problem being revealed over at 219 S. Dearborn isn't that there were too many rules in regard to hiring. The problem is that politics ruled hiring.
If anyone is a third-class citizen, it is the taxpayers who have been paying for this foolish and criminal activity for years. The entire time majority of the alderman sat by silently.
They are getting what they deserve. It will be interesting to see if any of the aldermen get tagged once the feds are done with Sorich.
The aldermen really need to shut their mouths regarding hiring right now. The feds are in the process of uncovering a corrupt system leading to a majority of their offices. It boggles my mind that they would choose to protest hiring when every day for the next 2 months a city employee is going to testify in open court that they were fixing jobs at the behest of the Mayor's Office for the benefit of the politically connected including the aldermen.
The phrase "bad timing" comes to mind.
As far as the Governor's hiring scandal, I am continually amazed at the brazen denials of corruption from the governor's office while the evidence is so obviously apparent. They are the most unapologetically disingenuous group of political insiders I have ever seen. I would not be surprised if they air a commercial next week about Topinka's hiring practices in the State Treasurer's office.
Thank you for posting this. I needed to vent.
The governor is going to have the cell door slammed on him while chanting Not Guilty.
You can hardly blame the Aldermen.
They were raised in a corrupt system fueled by poltical patronage. They advanced in that system, always dreaming of the day when wealth and personal spoils that would be theirs once they gained control of the levers of political patronage. Now, when they have clawed their way to the top, the Feds want to change the game by actually enforcing rules against political patronage. I'm sure the Aldermen are dazed and confused.
Whhhhhaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!
Randall, who is the onetime gubernatorial patronage chief turned federal judge?
I give credit to Cindi Canary and the Chicago Sun-Times for making a front page story out of something that is completely legal.
These were not civil service jobs on the Blagojevich "clout" list. They were political appointments. Are we really shocked that they were mostly refered to Blagojevich by his political supporters?
In case we've all forgotten, Patrick Fitzgerald himself is a political appointee, who only got his job due to the political support of U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald. Should Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald be investigated for using politics to get the job?
Much ado about nothing.
It may not be illegal, but I thought there was going to be a change to "Business as usual". Appointing (not all of them are) unqualified masses to jobs because they walked precints for you is disturbing. This is taxpaye rmoney after all.
As for Fitzgerald, he is competent and you are a sad liar ydd.
Ydd
From the Sun Times story
Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said she wasn't familiar with the list the Sun-Times obtained and insisted that all vacancies were filled "within the guidelines of the law." She also denied that jobs were doled out in hopes of reaping political favors later on.
Do you really think the administration kept a list of who recomened who for jobs and had no plans of 'reaping political favors later on'? If there was no expectation of favors down the road, why keep a list?
If the governor says politics doesn't influence hiring and we take him at his word then why keep a list?
If the governor says politics doesn't influence hiring then the fact that 274 out of 292 of the people on this list have or had state jobs is just a reflection of the high quality of the referals from polticial folks? Do they really expect people to belive that?
Again, we see the same reponse we always see from that administration.
A) Hey, it's not what it looks like.
B) Hey, look at George Ryan
Much as I hate to, I have to agree with Yellow Dog here.
It appears that many of the names on Blago's political hire list were placed in positions where such appointments are legal.
Given the job titles it looks as though all of the positions were
at will or four year term positions which may legally be filled with political appointees.
The fact that Blago is a corrupt Chicago Machine Democrat doesn't
change the fact that political appointments were very likely legal for these positions.
If we want to change this, we need to change the law. But a state government in which everybody is in a Rutan-covered position is
a state government in which you can't ever get rid of anybody...civil service jobs are jobs for life whether the incumbents work or not. And there are a lot of middle aged employees right now in state civil service jobs riding the easy train to a plush retirement under civil service--nice pensions, free lifetime health care, and so on.
So..what do Cindi Canary and her reform coalition recommend? Everybody who gets a job in state government has a no-work job for life?
I'd rather see them all it will.
They might be political but at least they'd have to do some work
on something. And the taxpayers wouldn't have to pay hundreds of thousands in legal fees to get rid of them.
Unless something has changed, not all 4 year term appointments are Rutan exempt.
Steve is probably right.
But is the Rutan-non Rutan distinction written into the
job description, or can the guv's office change it at will.
My guess is that they don't have to jump through any huge bureaucratic hurdles to change a term position from Rutan to non-Rutan legally.
Again, I'd rather see more employees at will, especially in the management classifications.
There are far too many "managers" especially in porky agencies like DHS, DHFs and DCFS who are coasting to a plush retirement on the taxpayer dime.
And the needs of the taxpayer/citizen should take precedence over everything in these matters. We are not getting our money's worth from most state management personnel in relation to their exorbitant compensation.
Blagojevich, whether for political reasons or out of fear of the bureaucracy has done far too little to reduce their ranks.
What bothers me about the Governor's hiring process is not whether it is legal or illegal. It is the bald face lying about why he hires people. Voters are not all idiots but they treat us that way. If they would tell us straight, these are my supporters and that's why they got hired, we would at least know where the governor was coming from.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if this administration goes down in flames. At a time when the democrats are going to sweep the country and hopefully get the middle class back in power, Illinois will elect a republican.
Go figure.
YDD,
The following sentence in the article makes it clear not all the jobs were Rutan exempt, "They ranged from powerful administrative and deputy director posts to more menial positions doing secretarial work and supervising a state park's gift shop. Further, Scnorf points out that not all 4 year term positions are exempt.
Accordingly, if politics were a factor in placing individuals in any of those positions there is a big legal problem.
As other posters have noted, putting aside all legality the practice of tracking employees based on their clout is contrary to the theme of reform and renewal put forth by the governor on a regular basis.
The Sorich trial demonstrates that if the politics leaked into civil service positions as part of a scheme, the Feds are going to start bringing charges.
Finally, even political jobs cannot be handed out on a quid pro quo basis (i.e. you get the job if I get the campaign contribution, etc.) If those sorts of facts come to light then the placement Rutan exempt positions comes into play for the Feds.
Post a Comment