Who lobbies Cook County? More importantly: who does Cook County lobby?

We give Cook County in Illinois a B- on the information it discloses on its website. Which is a decent grade. One of the check marks the county misses on our checklist is for “Lobbying.” The county does not disclose on its website what lobbying organizations it pays dues to, or what lobbyists it hires to represent the county before the Illinois State Legislature or the federal government.

Most local governments have lobbyists. And because these lobbyists are a part of public affairs, they should be disclosed.

Cook County is now posting lobbying reports online of those who lobby them. Which is great! The section of Cook County’s website is called “Lobbyist Online. The county is the largest of Illinois’s 102 counties and it contains the largest city in the state, Chicago. Naturally, this is interesting information:

The site, proposed by County Clerk David Orr and a bi-partisan group of commissioners, also lists how much lobbyists were paid.

Orr said 188 lobbyists representing 89 businesses reported on time. They contacted about 60 government officials and were paid a total of $1.12 million.
“You can track who they were lobbying and, for the most part, why,” Orr said. “They made 576 contacts with those roughly 60 people, and that’s just in the first half of 2010.”

Still, while this is great information, it still doesn’t make up for the fact that Cook County still does not disclose what lobbyists it contracts. Cook County as a whole has at least one lobbyist, as reported to the state of Illinois, and its departments and subsidiaries have more. Not to mention the dues paid to organizations like the Metro Counties of Illinois.

The county’s efforts in increasing transparency are laudable, but it can still take the next step forward. Lobbying by counties isn’t rare. Especially because of its prevalent nature, local governments should take the initiative to making that information available to its taxpayers. If anything, they should do it to get an extra point on our checklist and upgrade their B- to a B. Or, you know. For its citizens.

School forced to return $740,000 after audit

Illinois East St. Louis School District 189 will have to return over $740,000 of federal funds. The school district will return $650,000 for failing to file paperwork on time and $81,360 for noncompliance with federal regulations prohibiting large cash surpluses in district bank accounts.

This is not entirely surprising, as the school has not been transparent in its spending efforts and earned a “D-” transparency grade from Sunshine Review. The school board has refused to comment on the situation, and has even hung up on local reporters.

Simply calling the board must have taken some sleuthing, as their contact information is not posted on the website. The same reporters have alleged the school spent $3.1 million on consultants (some who are relatives of politicians), as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel.

These situations make it clear that citizens need timely access to government spending. School districts like 189 should be posting their checkbook registers online to reassure parents that the district is practicing good government.

FOIA and text messages

Perhaps the immediately obvious effect of government transparency is transparency as a tool to battle corruption and to uncover unethical behavior.

Social media, the internet, and technology in general consistently change the scope of public records. So it makes sense that most people don’t consider text messages when using open records laws, since it is a relatively recent technological development.

Of course, many government officials use government-issued phones to fulfill their daily duties. And because of the casual nature of text messages, they can be particularly revealing as to the nature of relationships.

In Illinois, the Daily Herald was able to confirm suspicions that two Elgin police officers were breaking ethics rules by having a romantic relationship. They did this by requesting text messages exchanged between the officers’ phones. Being able to FOIA for those text messages, and the city’s ability to fulfil that request, was crucial to uncovering that scandal.

But not every city is able to provide those records. In Des Plaines, Illinois, the city mayor had to bar text messages between city employees after the city was unable to fulfill a FOIA request asking for text message records. Until the city figures out how to resolve that issue, communication must be in an archivable format. It makes sense for the mayor to take the issue seriously, because when questions of openness aren’t resolved locally, they will be resolved in other ways. In Pennsylvania, the Wind Gap requested text messages from police Chief Craig Armitage and in March of this year, Pennsylvania Office of Open Records has ruled that the borough must get a copy from its cell phone provider of a record with the text messages. Kudos to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records for making the city accountable to its citizens. The borough originally responded that it did not keep such records. If no such text message record exists, the open records office ruled, the borough is required to provide an affidavit saying that.

There seems to be much that isn’t decided yet on the matter of open government and text messages, and it seems many governments aren’t prepared to make such records available. Please share any experiences or information you have regarding text messages and open records requests.

(I began researching the matter after joining today’s #FOIAchat, a live chat on Twitter every Friday from 2-3 pm EST. I’ve found it to be a thought-provoking, and it’s a great resource for speaking with open government advocates and FOIA experts.)

Illinois Counties responding to SR information requests

I’m currently in the middle of requesting lobbying information from all Illinois counties, including membership and dues information for taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. I wrote yesterday about the fogginess involved in taxpayer-funded lobbying, and I’m hoping that this next step of getting counties’ information will help clear up that fog—add some sunshine, if you will.

As I told some of the county officials I spoke with, this isn’t a “gotcha!” operation. Sunshine Review believes in affirmative disclosure and we recognize that transparency is the best way to keep government accountable to its citizens. We see it more as a preventative step rather than a sting operation.

(Incidentally, one thing I didn’t mention in my blog post yesterday about the Pacific Research Institute’s new study on taxpayer-funded lobbying is that transparency prevents corruption, and transparency is the mark of a non-corrupt government. Regardless of what comes first, it’s good transparency comes with good things.)

As a result of the new FOIA law in Illinois currently being contested, I’ve actually received most counties’ replies and am working on sorting through them. One county has actually found it “too burdensome.” I’ll hold off posting the guilty party’s name until I follow up with them and see if we can’t work something out, but generally speaking, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how responsive and helpful Illinois county officials have been in getting me information. This is truly in the spirit of collaboration.

It’s Sunshine Week!

We’ll get Sunshine Week started right, with our very own executive director writing in the Washington Examiner about how transparency gives people power to make government work for them, and how Sunshine Week is the time to get started:

State and local governments today face unprecedented fiscal challenges and unprecedented opportunities for fundamental reforms. In the coming weeks and months, citizens can forge truly historic change in state and local government by reforming the budget process, privatizing services, and returning professional full-time legislatures and councils to more traditional part-time bodies, among many other worthy initiatives.

Read about that here.

What is Sunshine Week? As Kansas Watchdog notes, Sunshine Week marks an annual effort to focus attention on the importance of government transparency, with print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, school and other open government advocates participating. For example, Open Secrets is participating.

Sunshine Week is already proving worthwhile. For example, the Sunshine Project announced late last week attempts a statewide transparency effort.

We look forward to seeing what other government efforts to be open pop up this week. Spring is the perfect time for sun.

Should Illinois be worried about new FOIA proposals?

In January, Illinois passed a law that improved its FOIA, which needed improvements after allegations that secrecy was the rule in Illinois, openness the exception. The most conspicuous case was the University of Illinois not releasing information to the Chicago Tribune, making the Tribune sue the university for the information. Supported by the Attorney General, the law made it so that governments had 5 days to respond to a request and would penalize those that failed to do so.

But the improvements did not come without a fight with some law makers creating a weaker alternative to the new law. That effort has begun again: State Senator John Millner is sponsoring a plan that would significantly weaken the new FOIA in Illinois, according to critics. His proposal would:

-Broaden protections against disclosing personnel and disciplinary information.
-Cut down public access to law enforcement records if the information could hurt another department’s investigation
-Relieve government bodies from having to pay legal fees for successful lawsuits against them.

A proposal introduced by another state senator, Senator William Haine, would exempt law enforcement personnel’s performance evaluations from disclosure, as well. Lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn have already approved exempting teacher evaluations from disclosure.

The Illinois attorney general’s office, which was was strongly vocal about its support for the new law, said it’s too soon to change it.

But the new FOIA has critics on the House side, too. State Representative Sidney Mathias is working with the Illinois Municipal League, which opposed last year’s changes to access laws and is a taxpayer-funded lobbying association, to change requirements that may be “too burdensome,” especially requiring government bodies to reply to requests within five business days. He also would consider doing away with a provision that requires local governments to pay attorney fees if someone sues to get information and a court rules that information should be turned over, a similarity to Millner’s proposed changes.

According to Representative Mathias, its in citizens’ interest to place limits on the requirements of government to meet this law. “Who ultimately pays that? It’s the residents. So there’s got to be reasonable limitations on these requests, also.”

Still, it’s one thing to have frivolous spending going on in Illinois, and another thing to have spending that is justifiable. As far as protecting investigation and police officers, this is also an important priority. However, the presumption should be openness, and a denial of information must be justified. While a realistic law that doesn’t overly burden officials is important, the emphasis should be on the citizens and on providing information in a way that is beneficial to them, not on making life easy for public officials.

Transparency claims victim in primary race

Todd Stroger, former Cook County Board President in Illinois, lost his seat in the state primary elections on Tuesday. There are probably several reasons why, but one thing is for sure: his transparency record was spotty.

On January 28, a week before the primaries, Todd Stroger’s focus on transparency took the form of a promise to release his tax returns for the last two years on Thursday. He called on his opponents in Democratic Primary to do the same.

But most people were unmoved, calling that move a “publicity stunt.” Regardless, it came too late, and Stroger finished last in the four-person primary for the county board presidency.

Perhaps an earlier, more sincere commitment to transparency could have helped the former board president. During Sunshine Review’s and the Illinois Policy Institute’s collaboration on Open Illinois Week last year, Stroger returned IPI’s transparency pledged signed. Curiously, however, he inserted the word “responsibly” into the pledge twice, changing the phrases “Support any and all efforts to implement greater transparency at all levels of government” and “Support any and all efforts to implement a full, comprehensive transparency program” to:

Support any and all responsible efforts to implement greater transparency at all levels of government [...] Support any and all responsible efforts to implement a full, comprehensive transparency program.

A few moths later in July 2009, the Better Government Association filed suit in the Cook County Circuit Court saying the Stroger administration is in violation of the state’s freedom of information law for “stonewalling” the organization’s cellphone records request. The BGA had requested the cellphone records of Stroger and key staff connected with a scandal involving the hiring of an ex-convict to see how much taxpayer money was involved in resolving the scandal. The county has argued against releasing the documents saying it would be “burdensome” and interfere with an ongoing criminal investigations related to the cases.

That may have been true. Regardless, the frequent hits at the legitimacy of Stroger’s work would have benefit from a little sunshine. In the information age, public figures cannot afford to keep taxpayers in the dark: we won’t stand for it.

Transparency goes big-time

A google news search for “transparency” in the past week gets more than 24,500 results. About 5000 of these are comprised of “transparency obama,” probably spurred by his recent (re)focusing on earlier transparency promises. This accounts almost 20% of the hits for ‘transparency’ alone.

But the existence of the other 80% shows that transparency is a topic on the minds of many outside of the current news cycle.

This may be due largely in part to the fact that information is so easily accessible today, so candidates are forced the face the question: you can provide the voters information and make it available online—will you?

In state and local Illinois campaigns, this couldn’t be clearer. The state comptroller race, for example, has transparency as a common theme with one candidate being focused on a favorite of Sunshine Review staff, usability:

For the GOP, Dodge wants to make the comptroller’s Web site more user friendly, citing the difficulty of trying to find out how much a company earns from the state.

You can have all of the documents in the world on your website, but it doesn’t mean a thing if they can’t be found.

The races for the open U.S. Senate seat and for the Illinois governorship have also had the discussion turn to transparency.

Those who have been losing popularity points know to jump on the bandwagon. Todd Stroger has been asking his opponents to follow in his footsteps by releasing their tax returns. For Stroger, it may be too little too late, with opponents calling this a “publicity stunt.” Still, others should learn from his lesson, and deliver on their promises of transparency, or be prepared to pay the price on polling day. Transparency as an important issue for candidates for public office is here to stay.

Keeping Up With The Madigans

***EDITOR’S NOTE: Sam Adams Alliance interns have recently taken some immersion classes in blogging, and will be testing their skills here in the next few weeks. This post comes from our Judgepedia.org intern, Mark Szczuka.***

Of the many beneficiaries of roughly $9 billion in Illinois taxes is the Illinois Arts Council (IAC), which is set to receive approximately $18 million for its various projects intended for the public. While every state has some kind of artistic initiative, what’s curious in Illinois is that the chairman of the IAC is Shirley Madigan, the wife of House Speaker Michael Madigan, and mother of Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

The extent of power of this family is extraordinary. Michael Madigan has presided as House Speaker for more than thirty years. Shirley Madigan has presided as chairman of the IAC for more than twenty years. And Lisa has presided as Attorney General for over six years. Furthermore, Shirley Madigan sits on the board of directors for Loyola University Chicago, the alma matter of both Michael and Lisa.

Also, Michael Madigan is the principal attorney at his firm, Madigan & Getzendanner, whose clients are comprised mostly of construction, development, and housing corporations. His firm has nearly 100 big name clients, yet only six attorneys, one of which is often preoccupied with presiding over the Illinois House of Representatives.    

In 2006, Speaker Madigan authorized payment of $8 million to Loyola for various construction projects; a move that angered taxpayers whose public schools were simultaneously going broke.

Any speculation regarding self-dealing here is not surprising. In keeping up with the Madigans, I direct your attention to two websites. The first is Muckety, a database tracking the interconnections of the power players. The second is a list of all the clients represented by Michael Madigan’s half-dozen attorneys at Madigan & Getzendanner. Together, these two resources make connecting the dots much easier—and interesting.

SJ-R covers Open IL Week

The Springfield, IL State-Journal Register printed an op-ed from Paul Miller, the Sam Adams Alliance communications director, on Open IL Week. Open IL Week was actually last week, but any recognition of efforts to hold elected officials accountable on transparency is timely, especially at the end of the state legislative session.

In March, the government transparency Web site Sunshine Review completed transparency evaluations for all 3,140 counties in the country. Each county Web site was evaluated against a 10-point transparency checklist that consists of information Sunshine Review and its sponsor, the Sam Adams Alliance, believe should be easily accessible by the public: budgets, taxes, contracts and lobbying efforts are a few examples. Unfortunately, the level of transparency found in most Illinois counties confirmed what most citizens already know. Open and honest government in Illinois is the exception, not the rule.
…
This week is Open Illinois Week. A project of the Illinois Policy Institute and Sunshine Review, Open Illinois was created to empower everyday citizens to demand transparency from their county government and at the same time give people the tools to hold their county officials accountable.

Concerned citizens throughout Illinois are being urged to get involved in the political process and contact their county commissioner (board members, council, executives) and ask them to sign the Open Illinois transparency pledge and commit to meeting the criteria of the Sunshine Review transparency checklist.

After contacting your county official, report back to the public what he or she said and did. Sunshine Review is a wiki-based Web site, which means everyday citizens can create a log in and go to the Open Illinois Counties Project and make certain their elected officials are accountable to their constituents.

Check out the Open Illinois Week project on Sunshine Review and do your part to ensure our government is responsive and accountable to its citizens.

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