Keefe, Campbell & Associates, LLC

Editor’s comment: We recently read the jobs pitch from the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce in their emails and on their website. Their focus is to support for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Campaign for Free Enterprise. This new national effort, called American Free Enterprise. Dream Big is a comprehensive, multiyear campaign to raise awareness among all Americans about the essential role that free enterprise plays in the success of our country. The announcement comes on the heels of the U.S. Labor Department’s announcement of unemployment exceeding 10%, a number that hasn’t been reached in over two and one-half decades. State Chamber president Doug Whitley and his team are trying to get Illinois to create 670,000 new jobs in Illinois in the next ten years. We continue to support the State Chamber and urge all of our readers to consider joining the organization that is most effective at pointing the way toward improving the climate and culture for Illinois business.

However, despite their strident efforts, we will be amazed to see new jobs come to our fair state in its present configuration. There are a number of reasons but the most glaring is Illinois is the epicenter of truly bad government. The Democratic Party that is now in control at every level appears to be trying to shoot themselves in the foot in the worst possible way. As you read this, the Chicago Sun-Times points out Mayor Richard M. Daley in Chicago is spending at least $300 million each year more than he collects in taxes—he has already sold the Chicago Skyway and the city’s parking meter income for the next 75 years to make up the difference and is looking for more assets to fire-sell. Cook County Board Chairman Todd Stroger is fighting like a wet cat to keep sales taxes for his taxpayers the highest in the country (and possibly the highest retail sales tax on the globe) and despite the painful tax bite, he is still running his government at a deficit.

Now we learn our Governor is secretly letting convicted bad guys out of prison because he is out of money and someone thinks letting crooks and felons out early is a good method to cut costs! Please understand we feel Governor Quinn is a generally honest man and has lived his life as a political reformer. We truly feel his efforts to reform Illinois politics are being hamstrung by other Democrats who will not allow him to either cut spending or raise taxes. The “borrow-spenders” in the state Democratic party feel we won’t notice a budget deficit that will be well over $10 billion dollars annually. When you consider the whole state budget is about $50-60 billion, a deficit of that size is staggering.

Guess what—every one of those government bodies have hilariously poorly run workers’ comp programs. They won’t provide workers light duty which maximizes lost time and encourages over-treating. They won’t look for vendors who are honest and will fight to save them money—WC vendors are still selected the old-fashioned way; you have to donate heavily to the right politician’s war chest to get in. These governments won’t use WC surveillance to catch malingerers—they are worried they will catch someone’s brother’s-cousin’s-uncle’s-kid and cause embarrassment. Their WC litigation levels are off the chart—the State of Illinois has over 400 total and permanent disability claimants who are collecting over $7 million a year in WC benefits. If these workers are also eligible for a state pension, there is no offset for the WC benefits; they get both and receive a lot more money on the dole than they ever made working!

Finally, we always laugh to hear this state’s WC administration is penalized regularly and routinely by this state’s Workers’ Compensation Commission!!!! Wouldn’t you think the administrators in this state would fold these two groups together so they stop the silly and embarrassing practice of having one hand slapping the other to the wild benefit of state workers and their selected lawyers?? Not so fast, not so fast, that would make way too much sense! Welcome to Illinois, folks.

Yesterday, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Associated Press reported repeat drunk drivers, drug users and felons convicted of battery and weapons violations are serving less than three weeks’ total time behind bars under a secret change in policy by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn’s prison system. They have analyzed records which show that since September more than 850 inmates have been released weeks and months earlier than they ordinarily would be. The Corrections Department is “saving money” by abandoning a policy that requires inmates to serve at least 61 days and awarding them discretionary good-conduct credit immediately upon entering prison. Following this policy, some prisoners have enough good-conduct days to qualify for release almost immediately or even before they’ve had a chance to demonstrate any conduct at all, good or bad. The inmates are kept at the Department’s prison processing centers and released after as few as 11 days. One of our readers indicated the fur will start to fly when one of these quick-releases kills someone while they should have been incarcerated.

The problem is finding viable alternatives and we are looking to the Republicans for someone who can figure out government has to live within its means, just like your household or ours. Our readers should know the statewide primary is in the first week of February 2010 or about six weeks away! At risk is just about every major job at most levels of government. We also want everyone to know a majority of the members of the Illinois Supreme Court will be running in the fall elections—it is possible Illinois voters could bring in new justices to our highest court who would not be quite so strongly concerned for the interests and generous donations of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association who aggressively represent the very strong Plaintiff bar in this state.

One other timeline to watch is the trial of our former Governor that is currently set to start on June 3, 2010. We are advised he will not cop a plea and will risk the rest of his adult life on the chance a jury might vindicate him. Therefore, we will have to watch and wait to see if this potentially lengthy and “untidy” trial will show the inner workings of a state that so badly needs reform at every level. We are hoping the next Governor, Cook County Board President and some day, the Mayor of Chicago might actually be solid administrators who can live within our means and run their governments to encourage job growth.

Please do not hesitate to forward your thoughts and comments. Feel free to post them on our award-winning blog at www.keefe-law.com/blog.

Editor’s comment: As many business observers are aware, beginning in 2005, Illinois has a wildly hefty penalty for any company that does business in Illinois and doesn’t have workers’ compensation insurance. The minimum penalty is $10,000 and the fines can be $500 for every day a company is in operation without coverage. If you do the math, a company that doesn’t have coverage for a year can readily be fined enough money to force it to be quickly disbanded or bankrupted. In this rotten economy, hundreds of WC insurance coverage complaints are now pending against businesses all over the state.

In the situation of small or start-up businesses, the cost of workers’ compensation coverage can be a determining factor in corporate viability, representing a hefty anti-business penalty as the Illinois workers’ compensation system now imposes can be a death knell. As we tell all of our readers and everyone who will listen, Illinois WC needs to be made more business-friendly if business and jobs are going to survive and grow in this state. We are not only concerned about the anti-business penalties, we are deeply concerned about the spiraling cost that gave rise to them—Illinois’ workers’ compensation insurance premiums that have to be among the highest in the U.S.

We were advised these punitive anti-business insurance coverage penalties made it to the desk of an unknown legislator. The legislator probably found out what we have known since 2005—any Illinois business that made even an innocent mistake on insurance coverage can still be locked into a potential bind from which they may never recover. Some of the folks at the Commission don’t care if they “kill” such businesses—the mindset is force WC insurance coverage or get out. Obviously, the legislator may have wanted to create some quiet leeway or gap in the rules for the “right” people. We consider it a shame he or she didn’t get to the root of the problem—wildly high WC premiums. We will leave that issue for a later date.

Our sources indicate the legislator supposedly put in a call to the secret-powers-that-be who run the Illinois Commission. The word went out to the Commission staff involved to cut the lack-of-coverage penalties to more bearable levels in selected situations. The internal grapevine at the Commission advised us the former Manager of Insurance Compliance responded to the call to cut the penalties with a simple response—the statute doesn’t allow it. We have been advised this former Manager who is a licensed Illinois attorney and was a former Assistant States’ Attorney in Cook County clearly indicated she swore an oath to enforce the laws and Illinois Constitution and would continue to follow that oath. We are advised she was then told to do what she was being asked or hit the highway. Welcome to Illinois!

Commission observers can now look at the IWCC’s website and note someone has been quietly appointed a new Acting Manager of Insurance Compliance in our state. We again ask all of our readers if this is a solid way to run the joint—should things like this be kept on the QT? Should there be open meetings where the so-called “Commission” considers and votes on such issues and policies? Does everyone at the IWCC owe their jobs to the secret-powers-that-be who wield all-encompassing political power?

Our answer is consider reform, Illinois. The next statewide election is 351 days away, folks. If we are going to do something, it is going to happen between now and then. We will keep you posted if we see any candidate on either side of the political parties who is willing to work hard to open up the political labyrinth that is the Commission and bring Illinois back into the middle of the fold on WC costs—we consider it a gargantuan task. Please let us know if you have thoughts and comments on the process. Please also do not hesitate to put such thoughts on our award-winning blog at www.keefe-law.com/blog

Editor’s comment: We want our readers to understand our view Mr. Blagojevich was the worst “governor” to include governors of universities, school boards, governors on furnaces or golf-cart engines; any “governor” you ever heard of. As we approach the end of the road for Milorad “Rod” Blagojevich’s political career this week, we have had a number of readers respond to his many public diatribes to ask if he is being treated fairly and whether the Senate trial is unfair. We want to provide you this short reminder of all the many, many, many things this man did that led him to being (hopefully) removed from all public office.

The impeachment resolution pending for hearing tomorrow cites abuses of power that included

• He conducted allegedly completely political hiring at all levels of state government—much of it in exchange for campaign contributions the Gov then got to keep. An individual named Ali Ata testified under oath in federal court in the Rezko trial, that he provided $50K in campaign cash to be appointed by this Governor to a job paying about $125K per year. With deference to Mr. Ata, his qualifications to get the important state post were giving the $50K. If it was a crime from Mr. Ata to pay for the job, it should also be a crime for the Gov to appoint him to the job.

• To those of us who laughed to hear an individual named Stuart Levine repeatedly admit during the Rezko trial that for several decades he used and abused most forms of illegal drugs/narcotics including horse tranquilizers, please remember this admitted drug addict was quickly anointed by the Gov to the Illinois Hospital Planning Board and effectively put in charge of planning for institutional medical care across our state. Mr. Levine’s qualifications for the post were his orchestration of contributions to the Gov and his then-fundraiser, Tony Rezko.

• Soon-to-be citizen Blagojevich allegedly took $50K from a company that later got $500K in state business to do, among other things, spray-cleaning of the state’s road salt domes. If you think about it, there is no discernable reason to clean road salt containment facilities, as we take road salt and throw it under cars, cabs and buses—who cares if they are clean?

• This Governor allegedly acted on his own to illegally purchase and attempt to import foreign flu vaccines with your state tax dollars in the amount of several million dollars. He was supposedly told before he made the purchase the vaccines could not legally be imported into the U.S. and anyone who tried would be arrested and charged with a crime under federal law. The Gov went forward to purchase on his own authority. Those vaccines sat during discussions/negotiations that went nowhere; they don’t “bend” federal law because you are a Governor. The Gov then donated the vaccines you paid for to Pakistan—however, the negotiations and tomfoolery took so long the vaccines became outdated and had to be destroyed. No, he didn’t offer to pay the state or you back.

• The Governor was invited to speak at a fund-raiser for a foundation for the arts—he got a standing ovation for boldly promising $1 million in state monies to boost their fund-raising efforts. We were told he then completely refused to answer calls or take any actions to back up his braggadocio in front of the audience. No, we were advised they never got the money.

• During his initial campaign, the Governor promised not to randomly replace state workers with his political pals. Blagojevich was then sued by several former state employees who thought that he was sincere in his campaign promises. Specifically, they noted his pledge good workers need not fear losing their state jobs only to have them filled with lackeys. Yet some prison officials, Republicans and Democrats alike, found themselves suddenly unemployed. When they sued, the governor’s lawyers made an astonishingly candid argument and noted Blagojevich’s promise was nothing more than “classic political puffery.” Where we grew up, the priest and nuns taught us puffery = lying.

• The Gov keeps bragging he was elected twice to the position by Illinois voters. Please remember the monies he “raised” for his campaigns didn’t come from Oprah or you and me. During his second election, he raised $27 million dollars and outspent his opponent by a three-to-one margin. We argue when you allegedly break just about every campaign and ethics law to raise that huge war chest, it is hard to say you were fairly and freely elected.

• Probably the most despicable thing he will be remembered for is trying to intentionally stall millions due in state funds for Children’s Memorial Hospital. The partners of this firm have donated money to this charitable institution that doesn’t turn away infants/babies who need major surgery like heart transplants and other emergency, life-threatening problems. Milorad tried to “hold up” the CEO/President for $50K in exchange for releasing monies already due the facility. When the Gov didn’t get the $50K in his coffers, we are told he tried to find a way to get the state payments back.

Please don’t think this is a complete list—it goes on and on and on. We laugh to hear he is now seriously comparing himself to Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, as political prisoners. While we haven’t researched it, we don’t remember any of those folks trying to extort monies from children’s hospitals. We agree with the characterization by Mayor Richard M. Daley who referred to the Gov as “cuckoo.” We salute Republican State Sen. Matt Murphy who drafted the rules for the impeachment hearings and his statement that Blagojevich was creating “a little bit more of the theater of the absurd.” Mr. Blagojevich was first sworn in as Gov on January 13, 2003 and won’t make it to the end of January 2009. One of these days, we hope he understands his wife Patti’s voice is on the tapes and she is at risk to also be indicted, leaving their young children without a parent to care for them. He might be better served to stop the public relations “puffery” and plead guilty and quietly move along to enjoying delicious prison food.

We promise to stop writing about him when the Senate reaches its verdict and will move on to other things of more importance to you, as our readers. We look forward to the administration of Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn who actually is a reformer; he worked to cut the size of the Illinois legislature. Pat Quinn isn’t a main-stream political back-slapper. Please don’t hesitate to send your thoughts and comments.

Editor’s comment: As we prepare for tomorrow’s historic inauguration, we are amazed to see Governor Blagojevich continue to mishandle the affairs of government for about two-three more weeks from the “ivory tower” of his north side home. He clearly is dug in and not listening to anyone. Having blown off his first patron in a scandal over a garbage dump two years ago, the Gov’s last patron, Emil Jones is now out of the Illinois senate and can’t directly support or protect him.

We are similarly fascinated to see his defense lawyer effectively drop the case in the Illinois Senate and potentially leave the Governor both unrepresented and not even present to hear the charges and evidence against him. He has already indicated he is taking the protection of the Fifth Amendment and will not testify. This may be the shortest trial to oust a Governor in U.S. history—all the state senators have to do is to read and present the evidence from the bill of Impeachment and vote. As things currently sit if the Gov isn’t going to fight other than his occasional ramblings to the media, why the heck not simply resign?

We want all of our readers to know the Governor heralded in the low era of workers’ compensation as it relates to government in Illinois. We hope soon-to-be citizen Blagojevich’s doings can be undone. We remain chagrined to see “Senator-by-Humiliation” Roland Burris take office last week, after having mortified himself to beg the recently-arrested Blagojevich for the appointment and then embarrassed the U.S. Senate into approving him after the Democrat leaders all initially vowed not to accept anyone appointed by the disgraced Governor. We salute Secretary of State Jesse White for sticking to his guns and staying above all of it.

What most of our readers don’t know or remember is from memory lane. If you look it up, in 2002, then-gubernatorial hopeful Milorad Blagojevich was in a three-way primary against now-Senator Roland Burris and former Chicago Schools superintendent Paul Vallas. What put Blagojevich over the top was financial and related primary support from the big Plaintiff firms in southern Illinois—the men and women who brought you fun things like the World’s Largest Asbestos docket or about 5,000 pending asbestos filings in a tiny rural county of 260,000 folks.

The zillionaire lawyers in that area aren’t shy about making as much money as they can off of their political contributions. As we reported, a judge from Madison County awarded a Plaintiff legal fee of $1.17 billion dollars or what we were certain was over $100,000 per hour as part of the verdict against the tobacco companies; later wiped out by the Illinois Supreme Court. From that shining example, understand the Plaintiff bar in that area isn’t bashful about wanting a return-on-investment with hand-picked hearing officers. Some of those lawyers have claims before the IWCC.

Similarly, in dealing with Mr. Pay-to-Play, the big-money southern Illinois Plaintiff firms got almost-complete control of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission. They immediately picked a Plaintiff lawyer to be the Chairman they wanted, switched funding of the Commission out of general tax revenues onto a new fee levied exclusively on Illinois business, more than doubled the budget, changed the name of the joint and starting adding Arbitrators who would tow the new line of their political patrons. Most of the new Arbitrators were former Plaintiff lawyers; some of them would seemingly rule only for one side of the bar—what we started to call 99.44% Petitioner-pure. We are happy to report many of them are now into the high 80’s but the place still remains wildly imbalanced toward Illinois labor.

What then started to happen were all sorts of hi-jinks. First, we saw one of Illinois’ largest defense firms strangely get a Commission post from the pro-labor Democrat Governor. Then almost as fast as she got the appointment, rumors and investigations of “pay-to-play” began and she quietly resigned from the position. It is fascinating to see this “puzzle wrapped in a conundrum surrounded by an enigma” has never again been investigated or mentioned by either the U.S. Attorney or the media. We also later saw another Commission appointment and her political patron hit the “Rezko list” which was an Excel spreadsheet faxed to the Governor with a listing of who got what jobs and who their political sponsors were. Trust us; the only thing that surprised anyone is they were stupid enough to write it all down; this again emphasized the Commission remained highly politicized.

Finally, we saw the silly PR battle of the 2004 and later 2005 Amendments to the Workers’ Compensation Act in which Illinois’ already sky-high rates and benefits were again raised and new benefits instituted. As part of the strange bargain, Illinois business got

• A clunky and partial medical fee schedule,
• Non-mandatory utilization review the Commission sometimes considers and most times ignores and
• A workers’ comp fraud provision that has no real “teeth” in the face of wide-spread prosecutorial indifference.

We remain particularly troubled to hear:

1. While we assure you the vast majority of current Arbitrators are intelligent, honest and professional hearing officers, our readers remain infuriated to see so many former claimant attorneys acting as Arbitrators in this state. We still feel the Commission remains completely out of kilter on a simple issue of locating and appointing actual “civil servants” in these positions by employing a secret political selection and retention system. We feel such systems lead directly to the “pay-to-play” mentality that is the current sewer of Illinois politics. While police and fire testing for open positions is posted on the web in this state, you and I and the man-in-the-moon can’t find the results of civil service testing for the Arbitration posts. We assure you the best candidates get selected only if they have the political pull to get the appointments—that is not what civil service is supposed to be.

Some of our top hearing officers also continue to work under the continued threat of immediate removal from office if they simply do their jobs but issue rulings or conduct their calls/hearings in a fashion not considered favorable to the politically connected attorneys across the state. We are told the former Chairman would routinely call Arbitrators at home to threaten them with immediate removal if they conducted too many pre-trial hearings, rather than try claims. Again, that is not how civil service is supposed to work. If the jobs are going to be political, make them openly political appointments. If not, they should be available to the best possible candidates who match the requisite qualifications. And when we great solid hearing officers their jobs should come with civil service protections and not be subject to the whim of the administration of the moment. We hope the continued politicization of these posts gets media attention and is reformed.

1. Many Illinois government entities, including some departments of the State of Illinois, refuse to provide light work or institute mandatory light duty return to work programs. Outside Illinois, lots of states, counties and municipalities have their modified duty programs on the web—you will not find such programs listed for the State of Illinois, County of Cook or City of Chicago. It is not a coincidence such government entities are now taxing Illinoisans at record rates. The lack of modified work programs leaves hundreds of state and local government workers off all work and collecting Illinois’ generous and tax-free TTD rates paid for by you and me, when they could otherwise be working. If you don’t know and understand how critical modified duty and return to work programs are to cutting WC costs, please send a reply. We feel we need leadership in the various government entities who will actually start to understand running good government and avoiding truly unnecessary waste means running aggressive workers’ compensation programs.
2. We are also told and infuriated to hear there are state, county and municipal risk managers who quietly turn over lists of non-litigated but accepted work injury claims for their employees with addresses of potential claimants to Plaintiff law firms. The law firms then send letters to the injured workers to seek to initiate attorney-client relationships and file Applications. To our knowledge, if no money or other “favors” are changing hands, there is nothing specifically “illegal” about such practices but the ethics of it are deplorable. We truly feel there should be a law passed to make such referrals illegal—it is completely contradictory to every concept of good government and sound business practices for this to occur.

We will never forget the joke from the comedians at Saturday Night Live where they told our Governor, “if you are too corrupt for Illinois politics, you are too corrupt.” We want all parts of Illinois government, particularly the Workers’ Compensation Commission, to learn the lesson from the past administration and start to move to being a place where honesty, fairness and an aversion to fraud are the name of the game. Please do not hesitate to reply with your thoughts and comments.

Editor’s comment: It was painful to watch our current Governor get lambasted and buffooned on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. And we were even more pained to watch our state get pilloried by the comedians. It is hard to say we don’t deserve it. The challenge may be whether Illinoisans can wake up and smell the coffee and do something about it. Trust us, this isn’t just one more troubled official going down—there are still lots of kinky deals and secret stuff everywhere in this state. The corrupt culture of Illinois politics didn’t start overnight and it won’t end when this guy gets his due.

What may be hard for Illinois voters to do is to weed out the worst, or perhaps the best, liars in the world. Our former Republican Governor, who is now enjoying delicious prison food, came to the electorate with an enormous cloud over his head from prior bad dealings in lower offices. But if you asked him before and during his terms of public office, he was an updated version of Honest Abe. We are chagrined to see he has now apologized publicly to the electorate and the Willis family who lost their children due, in some part, to his actions. Please note his apology doesn’t bring those children back nor will it change the face of Illinois politics. While he was in lower state office, the other Republican state leaders blindly followed the “ladder” which allowed him to climb to the Governor’s office, despite substantial questions over his honesty.

While in high office, he committed trivial crimes that would make a carnival huckster blush. He then had another former Republican Governor literally throw away $25 million in a failed legal defense—please note the level of the financial crimes this “Great Apologizer” committed was less than a tenth, maybe even a 20th of the amount spent to defend him. But stealing is stealing. They are now begging our President for a pardon. Apology or not, if you read the blogs, we and thousands of Illinoisans will spit on the ground at the mention of our current President’s name if he gives that crook a pardon. His actions directly led to the mess we currently have in this state and any pardon won’t undo it.

As to our current Gov, we have told our readers for more than six years he is someone who cannot be trusted. We have told all of you over and over his claims to be a “reformer” were high comedy. One leading Republican has pointed out how none of the other Democrats outlined what a slippery guy he was during the last election. Many of our readers replied to complain we had taken a political position against a Democrat—we assure you our political position is any side of the Illinois political spectrum which stands for truth, justice and the American way. With a few exceptions, looking from Waukegan to Carbondale, we still don’t see many honest and open Illinois politicians you can readily trust in any meaningful fashion.

This current Gov is an amazing pretender—with his trademark bouffant hairdo and grin, he has told everyone who will listen, right up to eight hours prior to being arrested he was an innocent, decent and honest public official. While everything about him seemed slippery, it is hard to listen to flim-flam and not question whether it might be true. Until you read the criminal complaint, it is hard, almost impossible, to countenance what we feel is his truly extraordinary level of deceit. Prior to the shameful international embarrassment of our state last week, we now find out almost every public official, on both sides of the spectrum, have pushed this goof away. But the same officials who shunted him to the curb all maintained a code of silence about how truly crooked and disgusting a man he is and has been.

The news reporters missed two aspects of what happened last week in our state:

1. Someone in high office ratted this guy out. The FBI didn’t find out with a Ouija board or crystal ball–we salute the unknown public official who secretly went to the FBI and said this loser was selling a U.S. Senate seat. The New York Times points to his former chief of staff but we may never find out. That person’s affidavit was unquestionably used to support the warrant  allowed our Governor’s office, phone and home to be bugged. It led to one of the funniest and most ironic statements we have ever read in my 28 years as an attorney—the Gov told someone in a taped phone conversation to be careful not to discuss selling the Senate seat on the phone!!!
2. Second, someone in the U.S. Department of Justice or U.S. Attorney’s office pulled the plug on the investigation prior to allowing a number of our other political leaders to make crooked deals with this Governor clearly would have cost them their careers and their freedom. We will only be left to wonder also why the decision was made to rein it all in so quickly.

Moving forward, please note the Illinois political system is still wildly flawed. Pay-to-play bargains, back-door deals and shenanigans may continue without any real way to find out what is going on. If you or I or anyone wants to do business with and for the State of Illinois, after January 1, 2009, you may still be legally asked to donate up but not more than $25,000 to a political candidate to get the job. We don’t consider that new law a substantial limitation on pay-to-play politics; it just means you need to find more willing folks with money who want to make a buck off the state. It may just be a matter of time before another crook sees and grasps the same self-serving opportunities our current Gov saw.

We assure our readers the nuclear-level secrecy in Illinois state personnel matters at the IWCC and other state agencies  is an Illinois tradition isn’t going to change any time soon. Please don’t look for open job searches for important positions, such as the chairmanship or seats on any state board and commission. For example, you and I and your cousin may be able to apply for a job as an Illinois Arbitrator but you won’t get it because you did well on a test or had PhD level background and training in workers’ compensation. We don’t expect test scores to ever be posted without a Supreme Court level fight. Don’t kid yourself–candidates for state jobs are still going to have to have secret patrons to get the nod and the way to get a political patron is to bring a political bag-of-tricks to the table.

One hope for the future is lots of government stuff won’t be “government-run” in the near future. To raise money, we have seen the Chicago Skyway and their parking meters moved to private companies with long-term leases in exchange for upfront cash. Both Chicago Midway and O’Hare Airports may be private concerns soon. This is going to take some of the snap out of political skullduggery, at least in privatized venues.

We assure Doug Whitley of the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce and Ed Murnane of the Illinois Civil Justice League this state might be much better off to privatize the courts or find some way to avoid the political/ethical poison that comes from needing lots of campaign cash. We need to get our hearing officers out of the same “pay-to-play” concept that comes with judges/justices who are influenced by the evils of needing substantial campaign cash to get their posts and then openly or implicitly reward the folks who paid big money to get them there. If you don’t see how crooked the concept is, you simply aren’t looking.

Finally, we want all our readers to again understand anyone around Illinois politics has to start to view this month, December 2008 as the nadir, the lowest point in the political history of this state. We may soon have not one but two former governors sitting in federal prison, begging for pardons. It won’t stop until we start to dig out corruption and force our politicians to open up the process and be honest with the electorate and themselves out the tough decisions facing us in the future. Please reply with your thoughts and comments.

Editor’s comment: Graft occurs when a public official obtains something of value, not part of his/her pay, for doing work that is a part of the job. In Illinois, judges run for office. There are some restrictions on campaign contributions but not a lot. To our knowledge, any public official can take monies donated to their campaign, pay the taxes on it and put the money in their pocket. Please understand we are not accusing anyone of committing a crime but how can anyone say giving a judicial candidate or group of candidates $100,000 or more during a campaign wouldn’t affect their impartiality during any subsequent hearing?

We have gone on record numerous times asserting it should be a conflict of interest for a judge to whom a lawyer has donated campaign funds to allow the attorney to appear before them. Please note the vast majority of judges don’t even disclose substantial campaign donations to all parties prior to a contested hearing.

Now, four Illinois Supreme Court justices have been asked to withdraw from hearing an appeal of a legal-malpractice case against Corboy & Demetrio, one of the nation’s top personal-injury firms, because the justices have gotten major political contributions from the firm’s attorneys. The matter involves a hotly contested case alleging Corboy lawyers mishandled a lawsuit brought on behalf of the family of a woman who was killed and her two daughters who were injured in a car crash in 1995.

The motion seeking the recusal of four Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justices comes just after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in a West Virginia case testing whether elected judges can take part in cases involving their campaign contributors. In the West Virginia case, Justice Brent Benjamin won election after the chief executive of the Massey coal company contributed $3 million to his campaign and raised half a million more; amounting to 60 percent of the justice’s campaign funds. After the election, Benjamin twice cast the deciding vote to set aside a $50 million judgment against the coal company. Similar complaints were raised involving the campaign between current Illinois Supreme Court Justice Karmeier and his opponent Gordon Maag. Justice Karmeier accepted monies from the tobacco defendants and then ruled in their favor. His opponent raised several hundred thousand dollars from class actions lawyers outside of Illinois that we assure you was implicitly or explicitly designed to curry favor in future class action rulings.

In the Corboy suit, because there are only seven justices on the Illinois court, the motion sets up the possibility that, should the four justices recuse themselves, there would not be enough jurists left to hear the case, rendering the appeal meaningless. The Illinois Constitution requires four votes for any Supreme Court ruling to be official, and the constitution has no provision for appointing substitute justices.

The motion for recusal states some members of the Corboy firm and two of the firm’s experts in the car crash case donated well over $100K to the four justices or their families. That is a substantial amount of money. We invite your thoughts and comments.