Ethics test will be reforming legislative inspector general

Feb. 9--*Last week gave us a look at the litmus test that will be used to determine just how serious Illinois lawmakers are about beefing up ethics standards in the state.

The event was testimony by all three people who have held the title of legislative inspector general. That's the office within the legislature that has the power and responsibility to investigate allegations of wrong doing by lawmakers. Well, it kind of has all of that which we'll discussion in a moment.

This testimony came before the Joint Commission on Ethics and Lobbying Reform, the special panel set up to at least make it look like the legislature is taking ethics reform oh so seriously. There wasn't much choice following the string of indictments, office raids, and other ethical embarrassments involving legislators and other public officials in the last few months.

So far, the task force has been foraging on the proverbial low-hanging fruit. It was probably never a good idea to allow state lawmakers to also lobby local governments. That can be prohibited while still allowing legislators to do their state jobs.

The economic disclosure forms for public officials were always considered a joke, so requiring some actual disclosure out of them shouldn't strain anyone.

Fixing the lobbying and disclosure forms issue is easy. But with the Legislative Inspector General's office, we're talking about an office that can cause some uncomfortable squirming among some sorts of legislators. Which is probably why the office was handcuffed from the start. The inspector general is overseen by the Legislative Ethics Commission which is made up of, surprise, surprise, state lawmakers.

That commission has to give its permission to the inspector general to open investigations, issue subpoenas and publish reports. Read that again and let it sink in -- lawmakers had to give permission to an inspector general to launch an investigation of a lawmaker. Here's how former legislative inspector general JULIE PORTER described her experience in the office.

"I tried very hard to do meaningful investigations to get to the bottom of things," she said. "It was a waste of time."

Porter once prepared a report that concluded a sitting lawmaker did something improper. Just what, we don't know. The ethics commission has blocked the report from being made public.

Porter, former legislative inspector general TOM HOMER and current LIG CAROL POPE all testified last week that the office has to have more independence to be effective. But do you think there's a bunch of people who like it just fine as being ineffective. That way the legislature can look like it's serious about ethics without getting too carried away with, like, real results.

It seems like if the General Assembly wants people to take its ethics reform efforts seriously, it's going to have to fix the process in place for policing itself.

*"This is the first time I've ever heard from a state agency that containing costs is not a goal." Sen. ANDY MANAR, D-Bunker Hill, after state officials said the controversial decision to move foster kids into managed health care isn't being done to save money.

*Gov. JB PRITZKER shared his thoughts after the U.S. Senate failed to convicted President DONALD TRUMP on his impeachment charges.

"Today we saw Republicans in the United States Senate thwart the intentions of the framers of our Constitution and capitulate to this corrupt and untruthful president," he said in a statement.

For some reason, Trump always seems to bring out the best in Pritzker. Here's the governor's conclusion.

"As governor of the nation's fifth-largest economy, I'm going to continue to make Illinois a firewall against Donald Trump's assaults on our democracy and hold him accountable on behalf of all the working families he has harmed."

Contact Doug Finke: doug.finke@sj-r.com, 788-1527, twitter.com/dougfinkesjr

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