Cook board ready for only so much reform
The Cook County Board declared itself ready for reform Monday, but only to a point, as it rejected a full ban on campaign contributions by county vendors and employees.
In a Finance Committee meeting dedicated to reform measures in advance of Wednesday's regularly scheduled county-board session, the Cook board put some enforcement teeth into ordinances on campaign finance and tweaked definitions of what constitutes a "lobbyist" and a "lobbying enterprise" in what Orland Park Republican Commissioner Liz Gorman labeled "a housekeeping device that should have been in effect a long time ago." Yet, the board pulled up short of a full ban on contributions by anyone doing business with or employed by the county.
The full ban was dismissed by Chicago Democratic commissioners who pleaded that they represented poorer districts without access to general public campaign contributions. "Let's be real," Commissioner Earlean Collins said, suggesting no one would contribute money without a personal interest in board business.
"I think this is really prohibitive," said Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno, calling it "elitist" and echoing Collins that it would create an environment where only those who could afford to finance their own campaigns would be able to run.
They argued that the current contribution limit of $750 an election on individual county vendors was sufficient to avoid any suggestions of bribery, with Crestwood Democratic Commissioner Joan Patricia Murphy calling the ban "a play for press," after she had earlier criticized reports of county corruption by saying, "I think this is being blown way out of proportion to give Cook County a black eye."
"I'm really entertained by the spin that's been put on this issue," replied Bartlett Republican Commissioner Timothy Schneider. "The public does believe $750 can influence the people on this board. ... This makes total sense. It's what the public wants."
"People who do business with this county, people employed by this county should not contribute to the members of this body," said Riverside Republican Commissioner Tony Peraica.
Yet suburban Republican Commissioners Schneider, Peraica, Gregg Goslin of Glenview and Peter Silvestri of Elmwood Park were joined by only Chicago Democrats Forrest Claypool and Finance Committee Chairman John Daley as the ban failed by a vote of 9-6.
The ban had been tacked on to an ordinance sponsored by Claypool, who then succeeded in pushing through reforms he said were meant to "close loopholes" and "put teeth into compliance."
Claypool, who is running as an independent for assessor against Chicago Democratic Board of Review Commissioner Joseph Berrios, aimed some of his reforms specifically at the assessor's office and the Board of Review, but then extended them to all county employees over objections the original amendments were too narrow.
The Cook County Board was expected to formally pass the approved reforms at its meeting Wednesday.
The board deferred until mid-October a number of other competing reform measures that were more ambitious, with Daley saying they would strive for consensus in combining them into coherent ordinances to go into effect before the Nov. 2 election.
"Getting there is the problem," he added.