Rep. Luis Arroyo, D-Chicago, was arrested by the FBI on Oct. 28, 2019, for attempting to bribe a state senator. House Speaker Michael Madigan, who was under investigation himself, called on Arroyo to resign that same day.
The next day, Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, was one of three House Democrats who signed a petition to automatically trigger the creation of a Special Investigating Committee. Welch and the two others included the sworn federal criminal complaint against Arroyo as evidence.
Arroyo announced his resignation just hours before the first investigating committee hearing. He was later sentenced to almost five years.
On Feb. 25 of this year, now Illinois House Speaker Welch, without an announcement, kicked Rep. Harry Benton, D-Plainfield, out of the House Democratic caucus and stripped him of his committee assignments and House staff support.
In April, my colleague Isabel Miller asked Welch if Benton should resign, but he wouldn’t respond. On July 1, Welch announced that he’d received an inspector general’s report and demanded that Benton resign, which Benton did two days later.
And that brings us to Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, who was indicted last week by the feds on multiple charges, including paying her daughter more than $15,000 from her campaign fund disguised as a payment to what appears to be a nonexisting consultant, and then allegedly receiving kickbacks.
Ammons is also accused of killing an appropriation for the Urbana Neighborhood Connections Center and in its place arranging more than $650,000 in the fiscal year 2020 budget for Hood Vote for Neighborhood Transformation — and then her daughter was paid out of that appropriation. Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration figured out what was going on and told Ammons and the group that this was an impermissible conflict of interest. Ammons’ daughter left the payroll.
The next year, Ammons allegedly inserted a $612,000 grant to Bridgewater-Sullivan Community Life Center into the state budget. Ammons allegedly then assisted the group in drafting the contract to hire her daughter, and allegedly received kickbacks. That same daughter was also paid about $10,000 by the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center, which Ammons helped with budgetary member initiatives totaling $700,000 in fiscal year 2021 and fiscal year 2022.
The feds allege that, in total, Ammons and her daughter received benefits “in excess of $100,000.” The government allegedly has multiple text messages that implicate Ammons. She’s also accused of lying to the FBI when she said she had no knowledge of any conflict of interest with the Hood Vote group.
Welch told reporters last week that he wouldn’t call for Ammons’ resignation because she has the right to due process. I asked a day later how a still-secret legislative inspector general report would qualify as due process for Benton and a public federal grand jury indictment does not for Ammons. I was told by a Welch spokesperson that the speaker considers the federal indictment akin to Welch’s own referral to the legislative inspector general. And then the adjudication happened during the legislative inspector general’s investigation and report. Seems a bit of a stretch.
Welch told reporters he’d consider a special investigating committee to be “due process” if members demanded it.
The special investigation committee can ultimately lead to a House floor vote to expel Ammons.
However, Welch also told reporters, “I think the courts is the proper place for this. They have the tools available to them, and it’s the proper place.”
Welch had basically the same response when he chaired the special investigative committee looking into Madigan’s operation. But, unlike Ammons, Madigan had not yet been indicted.
Also, the House voted to expel Rep. Derrick Smith, D-Chicago, after his arrest and before his federal bribery trial. And Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office before his federal trial. The argument doesn’t really hold water.
Trick bag
On Friday, Republicans filed paperwork to initiate the investigating committee. Welch appointed members to it that same day.
And that, finally, brings us to President Donald Trump. We’ve seen serious problems at the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago the past several months, and in my opinion, believable allegations have been made of politically motivated prosecutions.
The Ammons indictment was filed by the Central District of Illinois. I’ve seen nothing yet, which indicates that office is having the same problems as the Northern District.
But an argument will likely be made that this is yet another politically motivated Trump-era indictment and people should wait, particularly after what happened to Sen. Emil Jones, III, D-Chicago. The splashy federal bribery case against him completely fell apart at trial. Lots of folks, from Pritzker on down, had demanded Jones resign when the indictment was issued.
It also didn’t help matters that, like with the Madigan probe, only House Republicans signed the petition to initiate action against Ammons. It can be portrayed as partisan.
Ammons says she’s innocent. I doubt she’ll resign. So, Welch is in a bit of a trick bag.
So, the charges may have to be narrowed or people can hope that the feds file a superceding indictment.
* Anyway, I’m all ears on what your thoughts are on how this sort of thing can be prevented.
- Just Me 2 - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 9:29 am:
It is definitely on brand for Illinois to struggle to find a way to keep corrupt politicians from serving in public office.
- GoneFishing - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 9:29 am:
It’s a bit strange that the Federal Government wants to work these cases when the President and members of the Cabinet do the same thing.
- Frida's Boss - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 9:33 am:
It can’t be prevented. Unless you have elected officials who use bodycams to report every minute or every day, people are going to do bad things.
- 44 - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 10:06 am:
To answer the ? We need to limit these pork barrel type projects. Six and seven figure grants with little oversite and with so much discretion to the sponsor is a recipe for abuse. I.e. Kickbacks, hiring abuses and Required campaign donations.
- Just Me 2 - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 10:11 am:
44 makes a good point. It is inherently corrupt to allow a legislator to insert a special pet project into the budget without any scoring or cost benefit analysis, or even a transparent process. I was actually surprised to learn this still was happening.
- Blazzzer - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 10:25 am:
Legislators have to enact laws to hold themselves accountable. That is the problem. Until the public demands it and the pressure is there to force the legislators to do it, it just won’t get done. And if by some miracle it gets done, there will probably be loopholes and grey areas…Side note: I don’t think many legislators realize it is inappropriate to direct member initiatives to organizations they or their families financially benefit from. I’m guessing that’s part of why the whole concept of “member initiatives” exists (snark-ish).
- Google is Your Friend - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 10:45 am:
==- Just Me 2 - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 10:11 am:==
By this definition of corrupt, any law passed or bill filed is corrupt because any legislator can file a bill and get it passed.
- Sue - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 10:58 am:
Prohibit legislators and other officials from using their campaign funds to pay for criminal proceedings- it might not eliminate misconduct but folks might think twice knowing they have to foot their own legal fees- at a minimum it is unseemly that donors should be paying the legal fees for criminal investigations- an argument might be made that people are innocent until proven guilty- them at a minimum convicted pols should be forced to reimburse their campaign funds with all unspent balances forfeited to the State treasury
- Bagger Vance - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 12:14 pm:
Let’s zero in on this:
*** The next year, Ammons allegedly inserted a $612,000 grant to Bridgewater-Sullivan Community Life Center into the state budget. Ammons allegedly then assisted the group in drafting the contract to hire her daughter….***
1. At what point did the Pritzker administration inform lawmakers and caucus leadership that member initiatives could not directly or indirectly benefit a lawmaker or their family?
2. At what point did the Pritzker administration inform Speaker Welch that Rep. Ammons had violated that policy in the 2020 budget, and why did they keep it a secret?
3. How did the Pritzker administration and Welch let it happen again with the same lawmaker?
Fool me twice? Shame on me.
This sounds familiar to legislative scholarship program problem. But unlike the legislative scholarship program, I think the membership initiative program can be salvaged pretty easily.
Require the member initiative request to include an affidavit from the legislator making the request, the executive director, and the board chair. The affidavit should stipulate that no request has or will be made or honored in connection with the grant for any campaign contribution, endorsement, political support, employment opportunity, contract or subcontract, and that no member of the legislature nor their family is or will be an employee, contractor or subcontractor for the group during the period of employment.
File the affidavits with the Clerk of the House/Senate, and make them public.
A couple of loopholes to watch for:
The “Hood Vote” grant leaves open the door for a group to hire a lawmaker’s family with discretionary funds in exchange for a grant. Basically just move money around. Not saying thats what happened here, but a good reporter should ask whether “Hood Vote” was required to repay the portion of the grant that was used for unallowable expenses.
Secondly, lawmakers tried to hide conflicts of interest with the legislative scholarship funds by having a colleague sponsor the scholarships for their donors and then returning the favor to their colleagues donors. That was impossible to police. With state grants, its more manageable, and it gives the organizations who desperately need the money the tools they need to say no to lawmaker.
I want to add that the member initiatives should be preserved, if possible, and I think imposing metrics to determine who is worthy is a terrible idea. We should find great groups doing great work and give them the money to do what they best know how to do, just like the MacArthur Genius Grants.
We should also insist that all of the lawmakers serving on the investigative committee sign an affidavit that they never used their position as a legislator to benefit personally or politically from a state grant, nor has a member of their family. We absolutely cannot have lawmakers who have done the same adjudicating her case, its a clear conflict of interest.
- Bagger Vance - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 12:18 pm:
Sorry, should have said “during the period of the grant” not “during the period of employment.”
- Faithful Reader - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 12:51 pm:
I use to work for a State Agency that had some of these “special appropration” grants. Some I’m sure are legit agencies that need the funds but some are defintely not going where it needs to be. The administrative costs of their grants far out weighs the costs used for its participants. There is not really alot of checks and balances for these types of approprations.
- wayward - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 2:39 pm:
Assuming that Welch is slow walking this to avoid a repeat of the Derrick Smith situation.
- My Two Sense - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 4:00 pm:
The Ammons have been an accident (or corruption indictment) waiting to happen for years. You put a stop to this by not putting them in office in the first place.