More McHenry County Blog

(Don’t tell me they already are, because Christine Tobin and I filed a $5,000 Freedom of Information lawsuit to obtain them and lost. Whose payroll were Tom Cross staffers on the Friday before the 2004 primary? Was one or more doing the same thing that Lee Daniels’ may very well be accused of earlier?)

(Of course, the U.S. Attorney could subpoena the records, but corruption like this is so far down the corruption food chain and Patrick Fitzgerald has such an immense workload--being deliberately increased by Washington--that the culture of corruption probably continues, albeit usually in a less blatant form than before.)

Other suggestions:

· Term limits for legislative leaders.

· If one really wants to have a chance of figuring out when hanky-panky is going down, require legislators, their staffs and lobbyists to file their contacts with lobbyists every day and have lobbyists do the same concerning legislators. To minimize the record-keeping load on the legislators, require lobbyists to file an electronic report each day and to give the lobbyed legislator a card containing the information to be filed to give to the Clerk’s office when session starts the next morning. Of course, nowhere will a legislative majority want to provide evidence of such contacts. Too much campaign fodder.

· The actual cost of providing state provided plane trips for the favored few between home and Springfield and elsewhere should at the very least be reported. (Who files with Mike, Emil, Tom and Frank? That’s a major perk and, if you don’t think so, try driving four hours twice a week to get to work.)

· Illinois doesn’t have a “members only” gym where ex-members can lobby them, as is the case in Washington. They do have a “members only” part of the Capitol basement restaurant where some eat with lobbyists. Others just go there to get away from lobbyists. It probably would be helpful to ban lobbyists from eating in the Ratskeller…unless the lobbyist-legislator contact reporting, explained above, is enacted.

· Ban legislative spouses from lobbying the legislature and serving on appointive state agency boards.

· Prohibit former legislative staffers from immediately lobbying their former bosses. That’s just an excuse to pay legislative staffers less than they are worth.

· Ban gifts, meals and travel provided by lobbyists to staffers.

· Ban gifts, including meals, to legislators. Considering the mentality of some that they should never be expected to pay for anything, I think that is important. In Illinois, my State Senator Jack Schaffer advocated legislators’ forfeiting part of the daily tax-free allowance when legislators do not pay for their own meals. You can see the logic. Why should state government reimburse one for a meal that a lobbyist paid for? (Whatever part of the allowance remains unspent goes tax -free right in the legislator’s pocket.)

· Full lobbyist disclosure. Reveal how much they spend on what, whom and where.

· Campaign finance reporting should be required at least monthly for those months when the General Assembly is meeting. Large contributions should have to be reported electronically within two days year-round, the same as right before an election. Voters ought to be given a chance to see if the timing of contributions is coincidentally right before or right after votes in which the contributor has an interest.

· Give legislators and their constituents enough time to read the bills being considered. Now, at the end of the session, the content of bills has to be on the computer system for a mere one hour before a vote can be taken. And, of course, there’s no way to know when such posting occurs…even for legislators…without continually monitoring the system. Effectively, this procedure denies legislators, the pubic—and even lobbyists—the ability to monitor the progress of legislation.

· How about a legislative ethics committee to which the public could make complaints. (Complaints should probably not be made public within some period before an election.) In Illinois, if an ethics committee exists, I don’t remember its meeting during the 1990’s. (There was a 1970’s complaint brought against Democratic Party Minority Leader Gerald Shea (Riverside) by State Rep. Gene Schlickman for Shea’s being paid by the Medical Society while sponsoring its bill. The Ethics Committee voted to exonerate Shea. Only six House members did not concur in the recommendation. (Susan Catania, Dick Mugalian, Gene Schlickman, John Sharp and me. Can’t remember the other one.)

· Floor amendments should be allowed to be offered and, more importantly, voted upon, without having to ask the Speaker, “Mother, May I?” The Illinois House had this privilege before Speaker Mike Madigan pulled the noose around the necks of House members so tight that he now has to give permission for an amendment to be even considered on the floor. Turning back the Illinois clock on this abominable practice would be a major step in the direction of good government.

· Now, is limiting campaign contributions “reform?” Most editorial writers think so…and they should…because it would give them more power. Every player in the political arena wants more power. I’m sure that many think having me as the Libertarian Party candidate for governor in 2002 was not good for the process. Regardless, I would not have been able to run if contributors had been limited to the congressional limit of $2,100. Without the support of two wealthy individuals, the irritation of someone like me without the necessity to kowtow to power party leaders would have been missing. And, I guarantee you that the retired IT guy and the retired Merc member would not have been as dangerous to the honesty of state government as GOP gubernatorial candidate Jim Ryan’s good buddy law school study partner and largest contributor, now indicted, Stuart Levine would have been.

· Finally, I believe the dispersion of power among disparate and overlapping local governments is a large reason for corruption in Illinois. No one can watch all of the local governments to which one pays property taxes. The local daily newspaper in McHenry County does not cover township governments, for instance. They have some of the highest paid public officials (outside of schools). There are lots of small villages that rarely see a reporter. Consolidation of governments will not guarantee more honesty, but it will mean there are fewer officials to watch.

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