Court rips patronage hiring, but Daley still doesn't get it

Those crashing sounds you hear are the hopes of the Daley Machine and its willfully ignorant supporters being smashed into a million bits by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In an exercise of simple logic that seems to escape many Illinois politicians, the court upheld Robert Sorich's public corruption conviction.

Sorich was the Daley administration's go-to patronage guy in the highly influential mayor's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, an office the court described as "the beating heart of this fraudulent scheme." On July 6, 2006, a jury found Sorich guilty of systematically rigging city hiring for the political benefit of Mayor Daley and his favored politicians.

In language even a Machine hack should understand, the court announced that the "defendants created an illegitimate, shadow hiring scheme based on patronage and cronyism by filling out sham interview forms, falsely certifying that politics had not entered into their hiring, and covering up their malfeasance. These are the hallmarks of a fraud."

After Sorich's trial, the mayor "accepted" the jury's verdict but vouched for Sorich and the other defendants, saying, "I've never known them to be anything but hardworking, and I feel for them at this difficult time." Loyal Daleyites got the message loud and clear and held a fund-raiser for the convicted felon in Daley's home base, Bridgeport, that was attended by mayoral brother and Cook County Commissioner John Daley, Ald. Jim Balcer, Daley confidant Tim Degnan and other political heavyweights.

Defenders of the status quo criticized the case against Sorich, claiming criminal charges were not warranted because Sorich didn't get huge sums of cash under the table for his illegal activities. And yet only Chicago politicians would seriously consider widespread circumvention of civil service rules, manipulating job interviews and forging official government records as less than criminal conduct. Such is the audacity of greed and power.

In sentencing, trial court Judge David Coar summarized the conduct of Sorich and his co-defendants this way: "It's corruption with a capital C. . . . There's nothing good about what you did. I don't give a hoot if this is going on for 200 years. It stinks. It stinks."

When the Hired Truck and hiring scandals were in full swing, the mayor, after his usual perfunctory disavowals of knowledge of wrongdoing, grudgingly enacted a few reforms, appointed a real inspector general and stopped trying to vacate the Shakman Decree. Not coincidentally, these actions took place as a mayoral election was looming and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Luis Gutierrez were implying they would run for the office.

Nevertheless, the 2007 mayoral election came and went, the mayor retained his seat and the Daley operation reverted to bad habits.

The mayor has increasingly rebuffed recommendations from Inspector General David Hoffman, refusing funding requests and setting up a competing Office of Compliance whose sole purpose appears to be to undermine the inspector general's ability to ensure politics-free hiring.

Furthermore, the Daley administration has fought against the various recommendations by Michael Shakman and Noelle Brennan to clean up city hiring practices.

Unlike in 2005 and early 2006, we have heard almost nothing from the mayor about the public corruption problems Chicago faces and there has been no pledge to stop it. We will probably have to wait for another indictment or election before the Daley spin machine fires up that myth again.

That is why the decision by the Seventh Circuit is so important. It spells out unambiguously that actions such as those undertaken by Sorich are not mere "politics" necessary to "get things done" but rather serious federal crimes.

Unfortunately for the mayor and his supporters, no election, bureaucratic bullying or spinning of the press can change that fact.

Jay Stewart is executive director of the Better Government Association.