Meet Chicago's All-Stars of clout

Sluggers go to bat for friends in the game of City Hall

In the game of Chicago clout, politicians always say they'll go to bat for you.

But who really gets the hits?

Who gets those sweet city jobs or coveted promotions for their hard-working precinct workers?

And who strikes out?

Tim Degnan, the mayor's friend and political adviser, is the biggest slugger, batting .825, according to a Sun-Times computer-assisted analysis of a secret City Hall clout list.

More than eight out of every 10 times he made a request, Degnan got his person that city job, promotion or transfer.

Of course, it probably doesn't hurt that Degnan ran the mayor's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs during the early years of Mayor Daley's administration. That's where prosecutors say city officials ran a scheme to rig city hiring to reward members of the mayor's political army with city jobs and promotions.

Degnan hasn't been charged with any crime and couldn't be reached for comment Friday.

The list came out during the trial of Robert Sorich, the mayor's former patronage chief who worked in IGA, and three of his colleagues. The men are fighting charges they helped run the alleged city hiring scheme, and their attorneys say the document is just a way for IGA to track job recommendations, nothing more.

The Sun-Times ran the numbers on the 5,743 requests made to IGA for city jobs, transfers and promotions from 1989 to 1997, as documented on the list.

There were plenty of politicians who asked for only two or three city jobs for their people and got them -- thus batting a thousand.

But the Sun-Times was looking for the politicians who played for the long haul, who made request after request from IGA.

The analysis took the top 15 people and groups who made the most requests and figured out how well they did or did not do.

The mayor's political coordinators and advisers topped the list.

After Degnan, the Coalition for Better Government, a controversial political group with some felons as members, came out swinging hard, too. While the group has fallen out of favor with Daley, in its heyday it got a little more than half its requests fulfilled, batting .551.

"I was persistent," said Dominic Longo, a leader of the coalition. "I was very persistent."

"The Cubs could probably use me," Longo quipped.

Mike Broderick, who was the mayor's patronage chief before Sorich, fared well in rankings, with a batting average of .460.

Broderick's attorney, Michael Ettinger, turned to another sport when asked to comment on his client's average.

"If he was kicking field goals for the Bears, I wouldn't be in a position to ask for a bonus," Ettinger said.

Broderick has not been charged.

In fact, some on the list argued that the numbers show politics wasn't at work in getting city jobs.

After all, how good is any so-called clout if a politician can't get what he wants, when he wants it?

Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th) got his requests fulfilled 38.8 percent of the time, the Sun-Times analysis shows. Carothers was listed as the clout for people 98 times, and 38 requests of his were fulfilled. Carothers did this before he was elected alderman and while he was a high-ranking Streets and Sanitation official and top political lieutenant in the mayor's political army.

"Clearly this bears out that these were purely recommendations. Some people were found qualified. Some may have gotten hired even without a recommendation," Carothers said.

Sorich's defense attorney, Thomas Durkin, said the list disproves the prosecution's theory that IGA controlled all the city jobs. Overall, about half the requests for jobs, promotions or transfers to IGA got taken care of, according to the list.

Prosecutors, however, have argued that IGA would have more success in controlling some city jobs than others. And they've noted that there was a fierce competition to get city jobs and promotions among politicos to reward the people in their political armies and keep them motivated to continue working campaigns.

Durkin has argued that one job IGA had was to increase diversity among the city work force. But the Sun-Times analysis shows that whites had a much higher success rate than any minority group at getting jobs through IGA, with a 56.5 percent success rate. African Americans came in at 41.7 percent and Hispanics at 44.2 percent.

Durkin disputed the Sun-Times analysis, saying it didn't look at the whole picture.

"There certainly was testimony at trial . . . that absolutely anybody who knows the city would confirm, that the racial makeup of the city work force has changed dramatically under the Daley administration," Durkin said.

Keep in mind that not every detail was filled in on the IGA list. At times, politicians got the city jobs or promotions for their people, but the success wasn't noted on the list. Other times, the person's clout was not written down on the list, but it still may have been at work.

So, if anything, the Sun-Times analysis may understate certain individuals' clout.

A few of the clout-heavy privately griped that their batting averages should be higher.

"You're kidding me," said one man when told his clout batting average. "I've got to be higher than that."

Name	Requests	Favors granted	Success rate
Tim Degnan	57	47	82.5
Dominic Longo/Ron Calicchio	136	75	55.1
Victor Reyes	49	26	53.1
Gerry Reyes	52	26	50
Mike Harjung	38	19	50
Laborers' Local Union 1001/Bruno Caruso	125	61	48.8
Al Sanchez	111	54	48.6
John Malatesta	77	36	46.8
Mike Broderick	50	23	46
Chuck bowen	48	22	45.8
HDO North	107	49	45.8
Ike Carothers	98	38	38.8
Tony Munoz	60	23	38.3
Javier Torres	39	12	30.8
Tom Simmons	175	52	29.7
Total	1222	563	46.1

The Sun-Times did a computer-assisted analysis of the 5,743 requests for city jobs, promotions or transfers made to the mayor's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs from 1989 to 1997.

The analysis is based on the list from IGA kept by Patricia Molloy, who was the secretary of Robert Sorich, the mayor's former patronage chief. At times, the information on the list is incomplete.

The list frequently tracks who recommended a candidate, but about 40 percent of the time, it's blank as to a specific name. At trial, Molloy testified she didn't always update the list.

For instance, when people got a city job or promotion they requested, she didn't always note the change.

So the Sun-Times analysis, in some instances, may underestimate the clout or influence of certain individuals in getting people jobs or promotions because a success in that area wasn't always marked, nor was the person's clout always put on the list.

Sometimes, the clout wasn't specific enough to be counted. The clout for some candidates was listed as "union," but didn't specify which one, so the Sun-Times couldn't assign credit to a specific labor group or labor leader.

The list is also incomplete in tracking people's race. In all, 111 people are listed as other, while in 147 instances, the spot for the individual's race is left blank.

The Sun-Times based its analysis on the data available.