* Press release…

In a recent court filing, Governor Pritzker is seeking to vacate a set of court decrees that seek to prevent politically motivated hiring, as well as politically motivated firings or other punishments against public employees known as the Shakman decrees. Against the backdrop of one of the largest patronage scandals in the history of the state involving House Speaker Michael Madigan and ComEd, State Representatives Tim Butler (R-Springfield), Deanne Mazzochi (R-Elmhurst) and Grant Wehrli (R-Naperville) held a press conference questioning Pritzker’s move.

“This year we’ve seen federal authorities indict and secure guilty pleas from Democratic members of the General Assembly for bribery and fraud,” said Rep. Mazzochi. “ComEd admitted to multiple pay-to-play schemes to bribe the most powerful politician in the state, Mike Madigan, and his cabal of loyal minions. I caught Pritzker’s administration using state funds to hire his campaign worker through a no-bid vendor contract. And now Pritzker demands that the courts get rid of prohibitions designed to stop government employee political machines? Now is not the time to make corrupt government easier.”

The Shakman decrees consist of three federal court orders issued as a result of a class-action lawsuit filed by Michael Shakman against the Democratic Organization of Cook County. The decrees, issued in 1972, 1979 and 1983, prohibit politically motivated firings, demotions, transfers or other punishments of government employees. It is also unlawful to take any political factor into account when hiring public employees, except for positions such as policymaking. These decrees are binding on more than 40 offices statewide, including the Governor’s office.

“While Speaker Madigan is embroiled in one of the worst patronage hiring schemes in the history of our state, why is Gov. Pritzker trying to remove a system that prevents patronage hiring and firing in government? It makes no sense,” said Rep. Butler. “We should be taking steps to strengthen the law against patronage. If the Governor would stop trying to go it alone and work with the General Assembly, we could be doing that right now.”

Despite the Governor’s push to vacate the decrees, the court-appointed monitor for the state’s hiring practices, Noelle Brennan, reported earlier this year that Pritzker’s administration still has not completed a comprehensive employment plan to address the issues protected by the decrees. In fact, she said the administration began restricting communication between her staff and state agencies.

“This is a step in the wrong direction taking place at the wrong time,” said Rep. Wehrli. “We are continually hearing of new instances where people in high positions of public trust are abusing that trust and providing their friends with jobs. If Governor Pritzker is truly interested in raising the ethical bar for public officials in Illinois, rather than trying to vacate the decree he should be seeking to expand it.”

During the press conference, the representatives noted that this latest revelation gives even more credence to Republican calls for a special session to address the state’s ethics laws and the scandal surrounding Speaker Madigan and ComEd.

Um, what does the Shakman decree have to do with a private company’s hiring?

I mean, this move by the governor doesn’t sit 100 percent well with me, but that’s kind of a stretch.

Then again, voters don’t do nuance.

* This is from the governor’s filing…

First, the State has reformed its employment practices to unquestionably pass constitutional muster. The State has instituted a durable solution to prevent future patronage employment practices. It has a comprehensive “exempt list” – approved by the Plaintiffs, the Special Master, and the Court – which the Court identified as the central infirmity of the State’s prior employment practices when Plaintiffs sought supplemental relief in 2014 and 2016. addition, the State, by statute, has instituted an independent oversight structure in the Office of Executive Inspector General, which has within it a dedicated Hiring and Employment Monitoring Division – comprised of ten professionals with expertise and experience in monitoring the State’s employment practices to prevent and uncover political and other forms of discrimination, misconduct, and inefficiency.

In addition, the Special Master exhaustively has monitored the State’s employment policies and practices for the past six years, and has filed 350 pages of detailed reports describing her work and her findings. Those reports acknowledge the State’s “significant progress,” e.g., Dkt. 6565 at 1, and do not identify a single patronage violation during that timeframe – let alone the kind of widespread illegal policies or practices to justify continued systemic intervention.

Second, during the protracted life of the decree, this case has become unmoored from the Constitution. Article III confines courts to cases and controversies involving individual federal rights. To ensure the presence of a case and controversy, Article III requires, as an irreducible constitutional minimum, an injury that is fairly traceable to the defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct, and that is likely to be redressed by the requested relief. E.g., Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992). Plaintiffs are two private lawyers who, regardless of how they came to be litigants in 1969, now in no respects satisfy this constitutional minimum. They simply are not affected, let alone injured, by the State’s employment policies – they are not State employees and have no desire to become State employees.

*** UPDATE 1 *** Jordan Abudayyeh at the governor’s office…

During six years of oversight by the Special Master, the State has not been subject to even one finding of a violation of the consent decree. Additionally, the State has instituted effective safeguards to ensure ongoing compliance. The case should not continue to be litigated just because these legislators do not understand the basic facts. It’s clear the House GOP never bothered to read the court filing that they are criticizing or learn anything about the Shakman case. When it comes to the State, the Shakman case is not “a set of court decrees that seek to prevent politically motivated hiring” as the GOP erroneously claims. The State is a party to only the 1972 decree, which does not apply at all to State hiring or private hiring. The State moved to vacate because it has achieved the specific requirements of the decree and taken the steps required by the Court.

Background…

Even if there was a shred of truth to any one of the allegations in the House GOP release, what they are claiming has absolutely nothing to do with the Shakman case. It is nonsense to try to link these allegations to the Shakman case.

Political hiring is governed by the Rutan case, which is separate from the 1972 Shakman consent decree. The State, like all governments, must continue to comply fully with the requirements of Rutan.

As one of many clear examples of how little the House GOP members understand this case, the State is not, and has never been, subject to 1979 and 1983 decrees.

*** UPDATE 2 *** Eleni Demertzis with the House Republicans…

While Shakman and Rutan are two separate cases, they are intertwined in that both cases involve political influence in employment decisions. One involved seeking donations for keeping their jobs or avoiding disciplinary while the other dealt with hiring and firings due to political affiliation. In both instances, politics come into play when deciding what course of action to take. To remove one protection against political influence in state employment decisions at a time when a state-regulated company admitted in an official federal court document to hiring associates of an extremely high level legislative official in return for legislative action that has an estimated value of at least $150 million, is extremely short-sighted and ignores the unethical actions of Democratic state officials. It is naïve to think that just because ComEd was a private entity hiring associates of a state official, that it does not or would not happen with a governmental entity. If the Governor wants to call for the special session on ethics that we have been calling for, we can work together in a bipartisan nature to clean up the state and restore faith in our government. Otherwise, removing a protection from political influence in state employment decision-making will just further re-enforce to our constituents that it’s business as usual in spite of all the federal indictments.