Progress Illinois

Back in 2004, then-Illinois Inspector General Zaldwaynaka Scott completed a juicy investigation into former-Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s political hires at the Department of Employment Security (IDES). Four years and one subpoena later, the public learned about these legions of overpaid and underqualified state employees.  At the House impeachment committee meetings in early January -- where the information finally came to light -- lawmakers of both parties expressed outrage that such details were locked away in a filing cabinet for years. At the time, Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie offered this cool recommendation: “In the new session, introduce a bill.”

While not on the impeachment panel herself, Sen. Susan Garrett (D-Highwood) has risen to the challenge. Late last month, she introduced legislation for the second consecutive year that aims to make redacted versions of most inspector general’s reports public. Such proposals have been endorsed by the current Inspector General, James Wright, who said at a Tuesday's Joint Committee on Government Reform meeting that the state must assure residents that “matters aren’t being swept under the rug.” Also at the hearing was Executive Ethics Commissioner Scott Turow, who agreed with Wright's prescription.

But so far, not a single member of the impeachment committee has signed on as a co-sponsor to Garrett's bill.

Yesterday, we checked in with David Morrison of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform (ICPR) to get the back-story on why the reports were kept secret in the first place. His take? Lawmakers pulled a disclosure law from the 2003 ethics package because “they didn’t want false accusations going public.” Morrison added that he’s “too charitable” to believe ill intent played a role. That said, ICPR has been pushing for a version of Garrett’s legislation for years.

Back at that House impeachment hearing on Jan. 7, state Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock) explained exactly the sort of frustration that this legislation could eliminate for years to come. From the transcript (PDF):

FRANKS: [The Blagojevich administration] use[s] the Inspector General office as a shield rather than a sword. So instead of going after and letting us know if there is problems, they use it as a way to not give us information. So if we’re having a hearing, for instance, and, we say, hey what’s going on on the efficiency initiatives or we talk about the flu vaccine debacle or we talk about the issues when it comes to the Loop Lab School, what they say is well, we referred it to the Inspector General, so, we can’t tell you anything.

Indeed, excluding the IDES probe distributed to the impeachment panel, not a single one of these inspector general reports has seen the light of day in five years.

“The taxpayers who are footing the bill for these investigations have no idea what’s happening behind this shroud,” said Morrison. Let’s hope the lawmakers’ outrage wasn’t just for the cameras.