Question of the day
Monday, Aug 1, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From a Pantagraph editorial…
Another day passes; another appointment is made by Gov. Pat Quinn of someone with powerful connections.
The latest appointee to raise eyebrows is Jennifer Burke, who Quinn selected for a seat on the Illinois Pollution Control Board, where she’ll make $117,043. […]
The name “Burke” might sound familiar to those of you who follow Chicago politics. Her father is the powerful Chicago Alderman Ed Burke. That raises the question of whether the daughter of an alderman should be working in a well-paid position for the city, but we suspect he’s not the only alderman with a relative working for the city — and our concern is the state of Illinois. […]
The Friends of Edward M. Burke campaign fund has donated $52,000 to Quinn since he became governor in January 2009 and loaned Quinn’s campaign $200,000 during his race for governor last year. Quinn said the campaign contributions had nothing to do with his decision.
* The Question: Do you think gubernatorial appointments like Burke’s are corrupt, or is the media overreacting? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please. Thanks.
- 47th Ward - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:27 pm:
Using the term “corrupt” so easily diminishes the actual corruption that should be a top concern among editors.
This is cronyism, not corruption. Neither are great models for government decision-making, but one is way worse than the other.
Is it any wonder why voters throw up their hands and say “they’re all corrupt?”
- Anonymous - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:30 pm:
Cronyism isn’t strong enough, given the large political contributions from the Alderman to the Governor that preceded the appointment.
- shore - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:30 pm:
we have elections, they have consequences and I am a strong believer those who win should be able to pick their team. They do so however recognizing that they are accountable for the appointment and the work product of the appointee.
- tubbfan - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:32 pm:
I believe there is yet another option, that is he’s incompetent. This appointment (like so many others) does not pass the smell test regardless of what he says in public about her qualifications and experience. He should have learned better by now how NOT to make an appointment.
- Cheryl44 - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:32 pm:
If you read Ms. Burke’s job history she looks extremely qualified for this position. However, the appointment reeks of cronyism, whether that’s the case or not. She shouldn’t have been appointed.
- steve schnorf - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:33 pm:
47, i don’t even think it’s cronyism, much less corruption. Look at the woman’s credentials. Add the fact that her dad is an alderman and her mom a Justice of the Supreme Court. She could walk into any of the major firms in Chicago for 350k. Sounds to me like she’s in to public service. Good for her.
- Small Town Liberal - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:37 pm:
Definitely media overreacting. Notice the editorials that hint or openly accuse Quinn of corruption only mention the campaign donations, not one word about her qualifications.
- Pat collins - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:41 pm:
What would Pat Q from 1980 have said? Same as I did. Corrupt.
- steve schnorf - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:41 pm:
So is the Pantograph editorial board so silly as to think Dan and Ann Burke spent $52,000 and bought their daughter a $117,000 job? What an insult to the Burkes and to our intelligence. Jesus!
- Bitterman - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:44 pm:
quid quo pro….it’s the way politics work, everywhere.
- steve schnorf - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:48 pm:
and, I forgot to add, insulting to Quinn also.
- sal-says - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:49 pm:
Corrupt. What special experience; training makes this individual the only person qualified for this ‘position’? What makes it necessary to fill this position now?
- Liz - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:49 pm:
Jennifer Burke qualified? She was hired by Mara Georges in 2006 and has spent the last five years, apparently, working for the city. Can’t think of many assistant corporation counsels who major firms would even look at. Only those whose daddies are powerful aldermen and mommies who are Supreme Court justices, installed there by the powerful daddies.
- Thoughts... - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:50 pm:
Ridiculous media overreacting. Shore’s comments were on point, as were Schnorf’s. If we absolutely remove from potential public service a class of people steeped in public service (i.e., relatives), we do ourselves a disservice as a society. Intelligent money-grubbers, of which there are many, wouldn’t even consider the job. Schnorf is right that she could walk into any firm in Chicago and get a lot of money, that’s clearly not her aim.
A person’s familial relations should not be the exclusive qualifier for a job. But, they shouldn’t be an automatic disqualifier either. As long as we vilify qualified people who want to serve, we will be left lacking, and the state will suffer as a whole.
- OneMan - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:52 pm:
I think “corrupt” might be a bit strong, but between the former legislators, kids of connected folks and the like, sometimes you think folks without connections are never qualified to have non civil-service jobs with the state.
It isn’t unique to Pat Quinn by any stretch of the imagination, but in today’s world you think he would be a little more aware about it.
- Thoughts... - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:56 pm:
===What would Pat Q from 1980 have said? Same as I did. Corrupt===
And, I’ll add that rhetoric like this from “reformers” and liberals is just as harmful to society as the rantings of no-compromise tea partiers and extreme right-wingers. Both groups’ words have led to the decline of civil discourse in the political arena and in my mind, both can be blamed for the bifurcated nation we find ourselves in today.
- Phil bradley - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 1:58 pm:
This cheapens the meaning of corruption. There is no quid pro quo here. A politically active family has a daughter in public service. So what ? Everybody has parents, but in the workplace, these days, you produce or the next guy in line takes your place. If she is qualified, and she is, end of story
- jeff - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 2:00 pm:
corrupt is probably too strong. But if she isn’t up to the job, who is going to tell the Governor and would he terminate her? That is why the appointment shouldn’t have happened.
- Skeeter - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 2:00 pm:
Qualified? Come on. Her only qualification is a family name. On top of that, while Quinn says that if we don’t raise taxes we will have to make dramatic cuts to education, we have some board that should not exist at all with members making big money. I worked to elect Quinn. I now apologize for doing so.
- Team Sleep - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 2:14 pm:
I don’t care how people react to this post, but I think it’s time a law is passed that either bans or makes it extremely difficult to place such a connected person on a board or commission (paid or unpaid). I even think it might be prudent to allow only apolitical types on boards and commissions. I realize you can’t limit positions such as legislative liaison and gubernatorial advisers. But these posts - especially the ones with a decent payday like the Pollution Control Board - are cherries that are given out to mostly or all well-connected political types and/or benefactors. In a state with nearly 13 million people, there are plenty of people outside the political spectrum who could fill the Pollution Control Board quite ably and might not even require a nearly $10,000 per month paycheck.
- Wensicia - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 2:16 pm:
Maybe Quinn should have a prepared statement for every appointment he makes.
“This appointment hasn’t anything to do with”,
Pick A, B, or C.
A. A campaign contribution.
B. A vote for my last tax increase from a previous IL Rep or Senator.
C. Returning a favor to a close friend/supporter.
- IrishPirate - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 2:20 pm:
One congressional Democrat referred to the national debt deal today as a “”sugar-coated Satan sandwich”.
As an homage to that line I refer to this appointment and similar appointments as a “Beelzebub Breakfast Buffet. At BBB the “diners” pick and choose from a variety of tasty selections that others have to pay for.
Governor Quinn needs to channel his old self and realize that Pogo was right, “We have met the enemy and he is us”.
Between the stint in the corporation council’s office and this I’m unsure what the “endgame” is for Ms Burke. Run for elected office? Judgeship? Maybe it’s all legit. Snicker.
- On vacation - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 2:34 pm:
I don’t believe hiring another connected individual can be viewed as corrupt especially when appointed to a board. But, as a state worker, it would be nice to see the Gov appoint someone to positions that have actually worked their way up to that position.
- Anonymous - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 2:34 pm:
The first half of the editorial was fair, but the board over reacted. I think its right to report the hiring, but most individual hirings don’t need editorial attention.
Its a favor regardless of merit, but that doesn’t make it corrupt. Its a small favor if based on merit, and a corrupt favor if not. Anytime anyone hires a friend, neighbor or associates child it is a favor. That applies to all work sectors both private and public.
- Anonymous - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 2:35 pm:
^^and ethics laws cannot fix this unless there are outright prohibitions, which I believe to be incredibly unfair
- Fed up - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 2:45 pm:
It is corrupt. This is about more than a 52k donation to Quinn this is about the Burkes owing Quinn one. Just another example of the avg Joe need not apply. Burke controls judicial appointments in cook co. Ann is the chief justice of supreme court. Lisa madigan and Jennifer Burke should sit down over a bottle of wine and laugh about how the little people actually have to go to job interviews and not have everything handed to them. Yeah it’s all legit in the land of Lincoln.
- MM - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 2:51 pm:
There is a link on the Pantagraph editorial to the boards and commissions executive appointments page.
322 boards and commissions? Talk about bloated gov’t. One board has a single member. Another had two members and eight vacancies. Todd Stroger is still listed as serving on the Criminal Justice Info. Authority
- mokenavince - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 3:07 pm:
Just another example of you scratch my back and I’ll get your kid a life time job. The trought never empties.
- MrJM - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 3:08 pm:
The Burke appointment is not corrupt.
It is grotesque.
– MrJM
- Captain Illini - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 3:14 pm:
Corrupt only in the sense that if it quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it’s probably a patronage hire…
- So. ILL - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 3:39 pm:
It is both corrupt and the media is overreacting. I chose the latter because this is Illinois. It’s just the way things are.
- truthteller - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 4:03 pm:
Substitute Blago for Quinn — wouldn’t this have been looked at as more evidence of Blago governing by pay to play? It may not be corrupt but the optics are terrible.
- Pat Robertson - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 4:05 pm:
Media overreacting. The governor should be allowed to appoint his cronies to true policymaking jobs, and true policymaking jobs should be adequately rewarded. The corruption, if any, is in creating high-salaried jobs that are exempt from civil service rules when they should be Rutan positions with relatively low pay, that’s the fault of prior general assemblies and governors who set it up.
- Phineas J. Whoopee - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 4:27 pm:
It matters what the pollution board does.
Does she have to be somewhere from 9 to 5 or do they have a meeting a month? Is there only function to shake down campaign donations from industry by threatening stiff regulation? I think these obscure boards and committees are pure cronyism.
- D.P. Gumby - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 4:43 pm:
This is neither corrupt nor anything other than politics. It’s the presumption of incompetence based upon family, the classic case being Bobby Kennedy’s appt as Attorney General. If the person is qualified she should not be discriminated against. Same thing was said when Justice Burke was appt’ed to the Court. Of course it didn’t hurt, but it’s more jealousy than corruption.
- Thoughts... - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 5:04 pm:
It happens all the time in the business world but no one bats an eye.
A guy I know runs a venture capital firm primarily financed by his dad’s privately-held mortagage company, one of the largest in the United states.
Another buddy of mine is a VP at Chase and was hired when his dad was President of the company.
A person I know who used to work for the Tribune was hired when a relative was a prominent columnist for the paper. Funny how they didn’t report that.
People need to learn. Sometimes the best candidate to become a mechanic is a mechanic’s son - should there be a lifetime prohibition on the kid being a mechanic?
Our probate laws are such that family members more often than not inherit their parents’ businesses - should there be a prohibition? Maybe the state should get the business when a sole propieter dies?
Why is it only the children of policymakers and the “influential” who are subject to this vitriol and promoted as corrupt?
- olddog - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 5:22 pm:
Corrupt? Nah. It’s just politics. Is the newspaper overreacting? Nah. That’s just politics, too.
- Doug Dobmeyer - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 5:24 pm:
Too often in politics and Illinois politics in particular people end up appointed when they ran knowing they would be vacating the office they held. In the case of Obama this was not so, but many state reps run in a safe district, then run for something else, like a Chgo aldermanic seat leaving their successor to be appointed.
Seats vacated this way should have a mechanism for citizen input prior to any appointment.
- Former Bar Association Official - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 5:26 pm:
Of course, Gumby, those who said that Justice Burke didn’t belong on the Court were entirely correct.
- cermak_rd - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 5:44 pm:
Media over-reaction. Since there are no hard and fast rules for who gets appointed to this board, he’s free to appoint who he will. I would have preferred someone with a scientific background, but legal works well, too.
- John A Logan - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 7:11 pm:
In Illinois it is not corrupt. In every other state it is.
- steve schnorf - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 8:00 pm:
All of you frothing at the mouth in your high dudgeon over this ‘corruption” ought to take a look at the next posting on here. The kind of absurd over zealousness heard on here today is what leads to such things as happened to Jerry Stermer, and is similar to Tea-Party absolutest demands.
A whole lot of very good people have worked in our Governor’s office over the years, but Stermer has to be as non-corrupt as any to ever serve. Our inability to see the difference between corruption and bull___t makes Stermer and a self-reported mistake into a media event and makes the Burkes and their daughter examples of “corruption”. None so blind as those who will not see.
- Its Just Me - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 8:23 pm:
There have been more than just a few coincidences, and it isnt just in state government. There seem to be a lot of sonns, daughters, nieces, and nephews that are getting some pretty nice jobs lately.
- wordslinger - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 8:24 pm:
==Lisa madigan and Jennifer Burke should sit down over a bottle of wine and laugh about how the little people actually have to go to job interviews and not have everything handed to them.==
I’m pretty sure Lisa Madigan won a contested primary the first go-round and had GOP opponents in the generals. That’s not being handed anything.
Schnorf and Shore are spot on. This and the Shermer story are just laughable. We all know what real corruption looks like, don’t we?
- Indeedy - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 8:57 pm:
I can think of a half a dozen people who are as qualified (maybe even more qualified) for this position. I would be inclined to believe the media were overreacting if there had been some genuine, full-field search for the right or best Illinoisan. Do I think that happened? No. Is it pay-to-play in that blatant Blago cash-for-contract/job sort of way? Not quite but it’s close. The recurring problem is how appointees are short-listed, who has the ear of power and who doesn’t. This Governor should have known better and could have done better.
- Give Me A Break - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 9:03 pm:
I wish the Cap. Fax blog was around the during 26 year span of GOP Govs. It would have been great to read the comments when Big and Little Jim and George were running patronege operations that made your eyes water. If this is corruption, some of you need a history leason.
- Anonymous - Monday, Aug 1, 11 @ 9:37 pm:
Perhaps Ald. Burke thought it too obvious after putting both his wife and son-in-law on the bench to also put the daughter there. Or maybe this is the stepping stone, as was the wife’s first quasi-judicial appointment to the Court of Claims.
- poor jenny - Tuesday, Aug 2, 11 @ 12:35 am:
why can’t Pat do his friend a favor? you certainly wouldn’t hire your enemy’s daughter, plus she’s qualified. there’s a bunch of hipocrits (spl) here.
- Springfield Skeptic - Tuesday, Aug 2, 11 @ 9:04 am:
Question (and I honestly don’t know the answer to this). Is this a full time job or does she get to continue her previous job and/or practice law while on this board?
And yes, I know I’m displaying a gross lack of knowledge here.
- Mike Huntoon - Tuesday, Aug 2, 11 @ 9:52 am:
I believe the deal for this hire was made back in January . . .
- lincolnlover - Tuesday, Aug 2, 11 @ 10:27 am:
The Pantagraph is so completely, totally in anti-Quinn territory that they automatically cast any move he makes in a bad light. I am on the brink of organizing a state employee boycott of their subscription because of their editorial presentation of the Illinois Policy Institue’s studies as fact. In other words: I don’t believe it if I read it in the Pantagraph.