Campaign cash at heart of Kane Co. ethics fight

As the final showdown over Kane County’s pending ethics law revisions nears, the heart of the debate may center on exactly how willing county board members, and the board chairman, are to publicly advertise their campaign contributions.

Board member Jim Mitchell pushed for the creation of a revamped ethics law. But he became the leading voice against the pending version of the law after other board members stripped out the provisions he believes are the real teeth in any ethics code.

Fellow board member Phil Lewis recently called for every board member who has a problem with the pending version to put it in writing. Mitchell’s letter calls on his fellow elected officials to divulge their campaign contributions with every contract vote via an amendment to the final version of the new ethics code.

“Prior to a vote by the board on any contract, any hiring, the promotion of someone, or a pay raise given to an employee (nonunion), any county board member, or the county board chairman, who has solicited or received a political contribution from that entity or person must so state,” reads Mitchell’s amendment.

“This is the ultimate in transparency,” Mitchell states in his letter. “If there is nothing wrong with people contributing, how could anyone object to this amendment? Let’s stop all the political rhetoric about transparency and put our vote where our mouth is. Some people have already said they see nothing wrong with the new toothless ordinance, I hope they are willing to stand up and tell the voters that.”

In an interview, Mitchell also called on elected officials to stop dragging their feet on implementing the portions of the existing ordinance the board approved that weren’t ruled unenforceable by the state’s attorney.

Those two points of debate will be at the center of the split that exists on the board regarding passing the ethics revisions as is, or striving for something more stringent as Mitchell and several other board members have called for.

The final point of debate will be how much money to give to the state’s attorney’s office to proactively examine campaign contribution records to spot any possible conflicts of interest.

Kane County State’s Attorney Joe McMahon has volunteered to undertake that task as long as he’s given the resources to do it properly. The question is what happens in the future when another state’s attorney takes over the office. County board members already have agreed they lack the authority to force the state’s attorney to perform a review of campaign donations.

“If a future state’s attorney doesn’t want to do it, then he or she can tell that to the voters and see what they think about them,” Mitchell said.

The county board’s Human Services Committee will take up the ethics debate on Feb. 8.