Report: Blagojevich hired well-connected applicants
SPRINGFIELD -- Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's office maintained a list of 5,700 state job applicants with politically connected sponsors, and hired or promoted 2,500 of them, according to a published report.
Many of the jobs were low-level positions supposedly shielded by law from political considerations, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday.
The database, obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, suggests that a patronage machine was operating after Blagojevich froze hiring amid a budget crisis on his first day in office.
Sponsors on Blagojevich's list ranged from convicted political fixers Tony Rezko and the late Christopher Kelly to President Barack Obama -- who was then a state senator -- and current Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The Sun-Times reported that tops on the list is Chicago Alderman Richard Mell -- Blagojevich's father-in-law -- with 110 of his 293 suggested jobseekers getting state jobs.
A lawyer representing former state employees who filed a lawsuit alleging they were improperly fired by the Blagojevich administration says the list proves that influence tipped the scales in hiring.
"The path to get a job was not based on qualifications," Springfield lawyer Carl Draper said.
Blagojevich faces federal corruption charges for allegedly scheming to sell or trade President Barack Obama's former U.S. Senate seat for campaign money or a high-paying job for his wife or himself. He has pleaded not guilty.
None of the charges involves state hiring, although U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald announced in June 2006 that his investigators had witnesses to "endemic hiring fraud" under the Democratic governor, who was impeached and removed from office in January.
Blagojevich, who took office in 2003, denies wrongdoing. His lawyer in the criminal case, Samuel E. Adam, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday.
Some of the 386 politicians or other influential people listed as sponsors denied involvement.
"I don't know who came up with the list, but it's not factual," said U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, a Chicago Democrat credited with sponsoring 23 candidates, including three members of his family. Six got jobs.
Others, including Obama, who was a state senator until winning a U.S. Senate seat in 2004 and the White House in 2008, have said they recommended qualified people for jobs when Blagojevich, the first Democratic governor in 26 years, asked for suggestions.
Among the sponsors named is Cheryle Jackson, a Democratic 2010 candidate for Obama's old U.S. Senate seat, who is listed as having gotten her husband, Charles Jackson, an administrative post with the Department of Public Health in April 2003.
Cheryle Jackson, who was Blagojevich's deputy chief of staff for communications from 2003 to 2006, said earlier this week that she had no connection to her husband's hiring.
"Just look at his resume: (He's) very qualified and competed for the job in the same manner as everyone else," Jackson said.
Obama is listed as vouching for 16 people, five of whom got hired. There's no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of Obama, who has distanced himself from Blagojevich.
Clinton is on the list as speaking for a transfer for a Park Ridge childhood friend who was later a top fundraiser for Clinton's presidential campaign against Obama. The Illinois Department of Human Rights defended Voda "Betsy" Ebeling's work and said Clinton was not involved in the transfer, something with which a Clinton spokesman agreed.
"She played no role whatsoever in Betsy's hiring or transfer," said Philippe Reines, a senior Clinton adviser. "So this is simply another delusion from the impeached, indicted and soon-to-be-incarcerated former governor."
Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, then an Illinois congressman, is listed as having gotten four of seven suggested applicants jobs. Emanuel's office did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.