Dancing around the Daley question
Tuesday, Mar 24, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Mark Brown makes some very good points today…
People ask me all the time why Daley hasn’t been charged in connection with the hiring probe, which you’ll recall is an outgrowth of the earlier Hired Truck scandal.
I can only assume that if federal prosecutors had evidence the mayor knew how his underlings were flouting the Shakman decree’s prohibition on political hiring, then he would have been charged by now. Since he hasn’t been charged, I have to believe they don’t have the proof.
Brown has already reported that HDO founder Victor Reyes is now beyond federal reach because of the statute of limitations.
But, at least as far as Mayor Daley is concerned, a RICO beef might still be possible. Interestingly enough, both Chicago papers danced around the Daley issue today.
Tribune…
“No one has had the guts to come forward and take responsibility” for the hiring system, Breen said after his client was convicted. “I don’t understand why Al Sanchez has been singled out.”
Prosecutors would no doubt be delighted for Sanchez to open up to them about the corrupt system his attorney railed about in court. With Sanchez’s cooperation, the “fat cats” could be held to account.
Sun-Times…
We have every confidence that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald will not end this investigation with Sanchez, a powerful player but not among the ultimate benefactors of the city’s corrupt hiring practices.
We expect Fitzgerald’s investigation to go wherever it leads, without fear or favor.
Both papers have screamed for Todd Stroger’s scalp over far less.
* Back to Brown…
But if you ask me how it’s possible the mayor could not have known, I understand completely.
Even if he didn’t know the details of exactly how interview scores were cooked, the mayor must have known there was a system in place to take care of finding jobs or making promotions to keep his political backers happy. And as the man in charge, he should have been asking how it was possible to do that within the confines of the law.
Yep.
* Related…
* Sanchez found guilty in four of seven counts of mail fraud
* Al Sanchez convicted: Ex-Daley aide guilty in Chicago hiring fraud trial - Juror believes the verdict ’says everybody’s aware of what’s going on and let’s clean it up’
* Daley ‘Feels’ for Sanchez, ‘Accepts’ Jury’s Verdict
* Fmr. Chicago official found guilty of hiring fraud
- Abe Froman - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 10:19 am:
Meanwhile Bill Daley is reving up to run for Senate and no one says a peep about his frequently noted involvement in this scheme. His activities in the political hiring mess came up in Sanchez’s trial and in Sorich’s trial. Bill Daley sat on the board of Fannie Mae helping run it into the ground, made millions as a lobbyist for SBC, and now is making millions a year while his bank gets BILLIONS in taxpayer bailout money. Only in Illinois is this guy considered a legitimate candidate. Anywhere else he’s asking for forgiveness. Here, he wants a promotion! Just another free ride for the Daley regime.
- Shh - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 10:22 am:
The public has lost its appetite for the “business as usual” defense. While I do not believe Sanchez was the mastermind of any hiring schemes, he clearly was an active participant. I have some sympathy for him, but its limited.
I have to believe that the US Atty will continue to go after city higher-ups in the hopes that they can get one to flip on Daley. Of course, Daley seems to have insulated himself very well so far.
My hunch is that the Fitzgerald will start taking aim at Blago’s people again. They may as well aim for the folks involved in the hiring scandal at the State to see whether they might talk before taking on the ex-Gov himself.
- Hank - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 10:29 am:
Sanchez will keep quiet, do his few years and be released in time to be named Hispanic Community Coordinator for the 2016 Olympics at a nice six figure salary
- VanillaMan - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 10:36 am:
OK - C’Mon, what gives?
Why is this guy still Mayor? Why is Chicago still electing Daleys? While we know he loves the city, a lot of people do. While we know he has experience, again, a lot of people do. His administration is ripe with corruption, yet he hangs on. Enough already.
Chicago has proven itself incapable of political reform and hasn’t had a two party political system in place since 1929. It shames the former USSR as a single party government in longevity. Even NYC and LA have chosen Republicans within recent history, but not Chicago.
So is the Mayor’s office royalty? It seems to be. If you are a Daley you get to stay in office until they carry you out cold. Why?
Chicago even had a really great black mayor already, and John Stroger was a viable County President, so the City has experienced black leadership and witnessed no nightmares. What is Chicago afraid of?
Whatever it is, their fear is keeping the City in the 20th Century a decade longer than it should. This is no way to run a city. Mr. Daley has to go, regardless of whether he does a perp walk before media cameras in handcuffs.
- fed up - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 10:37 am:
Hank more likely his kids and other family members will be taken care of. I bet the family gets some real nice jbs with cit sub contractors. Remember now that the mayor and alderman can’t give city jobs to people who they need to take care of (family members, political workers,people who keep thier mouths shut)they get companys recieving city contracts to hire these people.
- HV in HP - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 10:58 am:
My two cents here: RMD has been Mayor this long because we Chicagoans aren’t frustrated enough with him to vote against him, nor have we been presented with an alternative candidate that presents a convincing argument for taking a chance on a new mayor. It isn’t enough to say “he’s corrupt, vote for me”; You have to sell yourself better and no one has done that in a long time.
- HV in HP - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 11:00 am:
Chicago is still a great place to live. It isn’t perfect, but what place is?
- Maggie - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 11:00 am:
The answer to the Daley question is Blagojevich and John Harris. Also they are probably putting the heat on Joe Cini.
Birds of a feather.
- chiatty - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 11:03 am:
It’s amazing to me how eager federal court juries are to convict politicians, political figures and people who have anything to do with political organizations. The crimes that Sanchez was charged with were literally invented by federal prosecutors. They cooked up charges of theft of honest services, because Sanchez helped Hispanics get jobs in the city. Then they tied that to mail fraud, the old faithful for the feds. In essence, he was charged with violating a civil decree (Shakman) and with the prosecutorial legerdemain, voila, it becomes a crime. Some of the “heater” evidence against Sanchez: while his wife was dying of cancer, some city workers came to his house and cut his grass. Give me a break! What Sanchez was doing is no different than what the Irish and the Poles did before the Hispanics did it: they got politically active in order to force the city (the largest employer) to hire more people of their ethnicity. If you go to college or professional school, they call this networking. At 219 S. Dearborn, they call it a federal crime.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 11:10 am:
The RICO question is legitimate. He’s the ultimate beneficiary of these illegal acts in the form of a political army that punishes his enemies and boosts him at election time.
Think of the Daley Regime as a mafia family. Those below get the ability to earn, in the form of jobs or contracts, so long as they kick up something of value, be it votes or campaign contributions.
After the tumult of the Byrne and Washington years, the downtown business community and newspapers yearned for another Daddy Daley to bring “stability.” That’s why they back him over and over again. They don’t love him, they fear him. But not as much as they fear the unknown.
And Daley has done a masterful job co-opting other groups that might be inclined to mount a challenge against him, ie the black ministers and Hispanics.
- fed up - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 11:14 am:
Chiatty,
It is a crime to hire someone not based on thier test score, not based on thier qualifications but based on what race they are and who they do political work for. Just like Sorich, Sanchez knewingly violated federal law. IT IS A FEDERAL CRIME.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 11:15 am:
fed up, what federal statute is that?
- Wiseup - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 11:16 am:
Hey listen…Sanchez, Sorich, Daley and Daley and Daley and Daley…all knew what was going on….knew that it was illegal in every way…thought they were immune because Da Mare was in charge…and got caught…that’s all!
- Louis G. Atsaves - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 11:17 am:
Come on guys. Be fair here.
Chicago has the best public school system in the world, so good that all the politicians send their kids there, the best public transportation system in the world, all neighborhoods are completely desegregated, and there isn’t a pothole to be seen anywhere. The expressway system is never bumper to bumper traffic, the garbage gets picked up once a week and the recycling program is a model for the nation to copy! Parking meters are efficient and cheap, and sold off to the highest bidder, as have been sidewalks (for bus stop shelters), the Chicago Skyway and soon, Midway Airport. O’Hare Airport has been remodeled and upgraded and all major construction projects including that park with the Bean in it have come in well under the bidded contracts. Red lights are easy to see and every other intersection has a big brother camera to catch offenders. Public avenues have four way stops every other block to make sure traffic moves evenly. Wrought iron fencing surrounds every school, park and newly constructed buildings, and flower pots adorn major streets and parkways!
Anything else we can add to the “City that Works.”
Just drink the Kool-Aid like i did and add on! Don’t let a “little” corruption get you down about Chicago!
- Truthful James - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 11:23 am:
Vanilla Man –
You know why. Da Mare knows how to get rid of the competition. Degnan and Joyce are ruthless supporters and the Business community has been coopted. The Black power structure is focused on the State, and the Hispanics have been satisfied with jobs.
Fitz goes up one stairstep at a time, never breathing too hard, turning the last guilty plea into a usable source for the guy or gal on the next rung up — notice, always being careful in keeping some credibility for the guilty guy.
He did this in DC and would have turned Scooter Libby who would have fingered his boss. However GWB authorized a commutation and stopped the impending train wreck. It depends of what the new Pres will do along the same line
Otherwise, it is off to Mexico for Mr. Sanchez
And there is no Republican Party of any note.
- Independent Democrat - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 11:25 am:
Is Mark Brown right from his earlier column? Specifically–is Victor Reyes really beyond the statute of limitations? Did the US Attorney give Mark Brown off the record information?
Wasn’t Victor Reyes a player in the 2004 and 2006 election cycles and even the 2008 and 2007?–that is less than 5 years not saying he did anything wrong?
What about RICO? Wouldn’t that beat the statute of limitations and go back 30 years?
Is Victor Reyes really in the clear as Mark Brown says and beat the Statute of Limitations?
- Carl Nyberg - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 11:52 am:
Daley is playing the system the way it’s set-up to be played.
He appoints people steeped in Chicago political tradition sufficiently that they know what to do to achieve the desired results.
Daley’s appointees don’t have to be told to break the law. Daley gets the results he wants without explicitly putting himself in legal jeopardy.
Fitz was able to convict George Ryan without a smoking gun of Ryan giving a corrupt order. However, Ryan did take the envelopes of money. Without the envelopes, would Fitz have gotten the conviction?
To convict Daley, Fitz needs something concrete to show the jury, some piece of evidence.
Daley’s goal hasn’t been to have the least corrupt administration. It’s to get stuff done, without giving the prosecutors enough to convict him. His subordinates? They’re on their own.
- Cosmic Charlie - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 12:35 pm:
OK, so most posters here think Daley has to go. Who is the alternative? Who would do a better job, be more honest, make the city better?
Look at who some of his opponents have been: Sawyer, Evans, Vrdolyak, Byrne, Pincham, D. Davis, Burris, Rush, Jakes, D. Brown, etc. Are these the honest politicians who will make Chicago work better for you? How about the two Congressmen who always talk about running but wimp out each year. Jackson and Guitierez? Are they the pinnacles of honesty and competence you so badly desire? Maybe we need politicians on the up and up like Ed Burke or Dick Mell running things?
Gimme a break.
The bottom line is that while far from perfect, Daley has been a very good mayor and Chicago is a better place to live now than it was when he took over. It doesn’t excuse corruption and I don’t defend everything he has done or wants to do. But overall, he is flat out a good mayor.
- Upstate - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 12:52 pm:
Daley has presided over systemic corruption, and is letting the little folks take the fall for him. Just like in the mob, the top guy is insulated.
- Anon - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 5:01 pm:
It’s amazing how easy it is for all the usual suspects here to heap criticism on the Mayor, but when called out to point to someone who actually exists in the real world who would — even in theory — do a better job, there is nothing but silence from the resident nattering nabobs.
But what’s really amazing is that the U.S. Attorney’s Office is literally permitted to invent a new crime out of whole cloth (”hiring fraud”) that — despite “fed up’s” insightful legal analysis — doesn’t exist anywhere in the actual criminal law and obtain felony convictions against people who had no idea that they were in jeopardy of committing a felony. And the editorial boards simply call it “corruption” and call for its immediate end.
A violation of the Shakman decree isn’t “corrupt” in any sense of the word. It demeans the very concept of “corruption” to include it. The Shakman decree is hardly the black and white prohibition it is made out to be. I challenge anyone here to even make sense of the various rulings — one of which explicitly holds that the Shakman decree in no way mandates a merit-based hiring system or forbids political recommendations, concluding:
The Decree simply prohibits hiring which gives political recommendations MORE weight than other relevant recommendations (including recommendations of rival political groups).
607 F.Supp. 1086 (N.D. Ill.1985) (emphasis added)
Implicit (and explicit) in that holding is that political recommendations are permitted.
At a constitutional level, the Supreme Court has identified the types of transgressions prohibited by the Shakman decree as First Amendment violations (see the Rutan case). We should find out in the coming Blagojevich indictment if violating Rutan carries the same criminal consequences as violating a civil decree in the eyes of the Lord Protector of Illinois. If it does, it should send a shudder down the spine of every member of the press still employed. Because it is a small sideways step from prosecuting a violation of the First Amendment as a criminal case against Rod Blagojevich and criminal defamation.
- fed up - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 5:14 pm:
Mail fraud rich dont you read the papers.
- fed up - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 5:23 pm:
Rich and Anon.
Guess what its illegal we have precedent Sorich & Sanchez so expect more indictments and the argument they didnt know it was illegal is BS. Why did they try and hide it then. why in both cases are counts of lying to federal agents involved. Why didnt Daley sorich or sanchez come out and say in listing job qualifications we are seeking a Hispanic democrat who worked on Rich Daleys mayoral campaign to drive a truck CDL not important everybody else dont bother we dont want nobody no body sent. Because they new what they were doing was wrong.
- Independent - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 6:04 pm:
Die hard Daley supporters love to perpetuate the ridiculous myth that Chicago would collapse without him. If that’s the case they had better plan an exit strategy. Whether he’s carried out or escorted out one day he will be gone. Chicago was a great city before Daley became mayor and it will continue to be a great city after.
- Truthful James - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 6:07 pm:
Independent –
you are correct. It will take time to reorganize the City. Normally it would be done with a strong County organization helping…but you see what we have there.
- Independent - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 6:24 pm:
Doctoring test scores and conducting sham interviews is fraudulent activity. Congress expanded anti-fraud legislation twenty years ago to make it a crime to “deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” The Supreme Court also shot down Sorich’s appeal. Daley and company can whine and stomp their feet, or grow up and deal with reality.
When Daley leaves, willingly or not, so too will the fear of retribution for mounting a vigorous campaign against him. Good candidates will emerge to fill the vacuum.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Mar 24, 09 @ 8:14 pm:
Charlie and Anon, so Chicago would just shrivel up and die without a Daley in charge? What a joke. The city was built on its location and the guts of the people who came here and built it.
Couldn’t make it without him? How weak and pathetic.
- Cosmic Charlie - Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 12:04 pm:
This may be too late to respond but I’ll do it anyway. I didnt say the City couldn’t make it without him. I said 1.) Who is a better alternative? 2.) He has done a good job. I remember the city before Wordslinger, probably as you do. The city is better now than then. If he has worn out his welcome in your eyes then fine. Who would you like to see as Mayor? I dont see anyone better so I want him to stay.