Is Senate candidate to blame for Blago blunder?
Allegations pose first campaign test for Cheryle Jackson
Are the fingerprints of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cheryle Jackson on one of the state's biggest political fiascos under now-indicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich?
Jackson -- the Chicago Urban League chief who was Blagojevich's deputy chief of staff for communications until late 2006 -- emphatically says no.
(Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)
But a series of previously undisclosed e-mails between Blagojevich staffers call that assertion into question. The e-mails were flying as the then-governor's staff scrambled to fulfill his promise to give $1million in state aid to Pilgrim Baptist Church, a Bronzeville landmark destroyed by fire.
Blagojevich's promise, made with TV cameras rolling in January 2006 as he was seeking re-election, blew up in his face last year when the Chicago Sun-Times revealed that the money intended for the church went instead to a clout-heavy private school, the Loop Lab School, that had rented space from the church in a building next to its sanctuary at 3300 S. Indiana.
Jackson no longer was on Blagojevich's staff at the time the story was published March 3, 2008. But Blagojevich aides discussed her involvement in the matter in e-mails retrieved by Illinois Auditor General William Holland and reviewed by the Sun-Times.
"Cheryle Jackson ... indicated that Loop Lab School -- an entity that leased space from the Church -- would be the actual recipient" of the money, then-Blagojevich deputy chief of staff Kristin Richards wrote that same day.
Now, only days after announcing her candidacy for the Senate seat formerly held by President Obama, Jackson's role in the Loop Lab School decision poses her first test in what's likely to become a theme of her campaign: distancing herself from her scandal-scarred former boss.
Jackson says her only tie to the ex-governor's broken promise and the misguided grant to the school was as his voice to the news media.
"I did not direct the grant to Loop Lab School," Jackson says.
She calls Richards' claim to the contrary "made up."
Loop Lab School -- run by a pardoned ex-felon named Chandra Gill -- was leasing space from Pilgrim Baptist Church at the time of the fire. The school used the $1 million from Blagojevich's administration to move out of Bronzeville and buy a downtown office condo that was supposed to become the school's new home.
Blagojevich's response to the news that the school got the $1 million meant for the church was to claim he was blindsided by the disclosure. He blamed everything on a bureaucratic mix-up by two former staffers and offered what he called a "win-win" solution, deciding to let the school keep the money and promising to direct another $1 million to the church.
But the church still hasn't gotten that state money. And the Loop Lab School never reopened in the office condo downtown.
The state is taking steps to try to get back the grant money from the school. Also, the auditor general found that Blagojevich's administration broke state rules on how grants are awarded.
In another e-mail written the same day the Sun-Times story broke, Richards said Jackson was the one who directed, early on, that Loop Lab School get the state money instead of the church. The decision to route money to the school came after the American Civil Liberties Union questioned the legality of giving state funds to a church.
Richards was responding to an e-mail from Blagojevich budget director Ginger Ostro, who had asked for advice from Richards and two others on where the administration could come up with $1 million "ASAP" to help Blagojevich save face.
"After the [January 2006] announcement, and after a few weeks had passed and the ACLU contacted us, Cheryle directed the grant to Loop Lab School -- those funds paid out," Richards responded to Ostro. "So I'm clear -- we're trying to find $1m NOW for the Church?"
An earlier memo that Jackson's personal assistant, Michelle Harris, wrote Feb. 6, 2006, directed a budget staffer in Ostro's office to contact a lawyer for Loop Lab School who had been calling Jackson "several times a day stating they need the funds right away to get the school up and running."
"Cheryle would appreciate you giving him a call as soon as possible to explain the time frame and procedure for the release of funds," Harris wrote.
Asked by Mike Maziarz, a top auditor in Holland's office, about Jackson's "critical role" in awarding the $1 million state grant to the Loop Lab School, Jackson's lawyer, Adrienne Pitts, said Jackson had done nothing beyond "convey the administration's decision to the media."
Pitts, who's on the Chicago Urban League's board of directors, told Maziarz it was Jackson's "understanding" that former Blagojevich Deputy Governors Louanner Peters and Bradley Tusk had approved the Loop Lab School grant.
Neither could be reached for comment.
Jackson also raises the possibility that Richards' assertions might have been part of an effort by the Blagojevich administration to discredit her in 2008 after she had moved on to become the Urban League's $227,867-a-year chief.
Jackson points to her opposition to Blagojevich's failed gross-receipts tax and to the lawsuit her organization filed against Blagojevich challenging the state's school-funding formula.
"It's not true," Jackson says of Richards' assertion. "It's either a faulty kind of remembrance, or it's a self-serving recollection of what really happened. You have to remember, by the time these statements were made by Kristin, it was after I left the administration.
"I was probably the most high-profile Democrat who opposed the gross-receipts tax, which was a centerpiece of the administration's [budget] proposal. And I sued the governor with the education lawsuit. It doesn't surprise me that someone could have made up a story about me and others who left the administration, particularly to serve their own interests."
Told what Jackson said, Richards declined to respond in detail.
"I don't speak for the former administration," says Richards, who's now policy director for Illinois Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago).
Cullerton has endorsed state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias -- not Jackson -- in the Senate race.
Richards says she stands by the e-mails she wrote. But she adds that she did not mean to convey that Jackson was the "sole" decision-maker on the Loop Lab School grant.
Last year, a source close to Blagojevich had pointed to Jackson as one of the ex-staffers the former governor was talking about when he described himself as being "angry about those who work for me who allowed this to happen. We've identified a couple of people involved, and they no longer work for us, but I think they made an honest mistake."
In January, just days before being booted out of office by the Illinois Legislature, Blagojevich indicated to Holland's audit team that he did not know just which former aides he was referring to back then, in 2006.
"The governor recalls being told by a staffer that two individuals were responsible for the miscommunication that resulted in the grant being disbursed to Loop Lab School," Melissa Riahei, a lawyer in Blagojevich's office, wrote in a Jan. 20 e-mail to Holland's office.
"Given the passage of time, the governor cannot recall, with any certainty, who the staffer was that communicated this information to him or whether the names of the two individuals referenced were ever mentioned to him."