Monitor: Patronage Not Punished Under Daley

Despite years of pressure from a court-appointed hiring monitor, retiring Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration has resisted disciplining many high-ranking city officials who were implicated in the massive patronage scheme at City Hall, the monitor alleged in documents filed in federal court last week.

The monitor, Noelle Brennan, has asked a federal judge to grant her the power to investigate and recommend discipline against administration officials who allegedly were involved in rigging city hiring and promotions to favor “pre-selected candidates” – a reference to job applicants with clout.

Lawyers for the Daley administration have opposed the proposed court order, saying in a recent filing that they “must object” because the monitor’s plan “seeks to expand her duties beyond her role to superintend the city’s compliance” with anti-patronage restrictions.

Brennan was appointed to monitor city hiring in 2005, after federal authorities raided Daley’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Several Daley aides, including former patronage chief Robert Sorich and ex-Streets and Sanitation commissioner Al Sanchez, were convicted in what prosecutors called a “massive scheme” to make sure that pro-Daley campaign workers were rewarded for their loyalty with plum spots on the public payroll.

In the past five years, Brennan has asked the city to investigate and possibly discipline more than 20 officials who were identified as participants in the hiring fraud during the Sorich and Sanchez trials, court records show.

“Many of the employees who engaged in these acts continue to hold high-ranking, high-paying city jobs and were never disciplined,” Brennan wrote in a court filing issued Friday. “Only a handful of the employees at issue have been disciplined … The city refuses to discipline certain people.”

In the case of an unnamed senior official in the Fleet Management Department, the monitor said the official admitted misconduct in hiring but the administration took no action and “repeatedly sought to (and ultimately did) promote him.”

Brennan concluded with a strongly worded rebuke suggesting that many city workers continue to question the Daley administration’s commitment to reform.

“Since the Sorich trial, city employees have frequently called the monitor’s office to voice frustration and incredulity that employees who were directly implicated in the unlawful patronage practices were never reprimanded by the city,” she wrote. “Some of the complainants continue to be supervised by the same supervisors who passed them over for promotions in favor of politically clouted and less qualified candidates.”

For almost 30 years, city leaders have promised to abide by federal civil court decrees that prohibit them from allowing political considerations to affect personnel decisions for all but a selected group of policy-making positions. But court testimony showed that the Daley administration secretly violated the decrees, fueling a political machine that was deployed for the mayor and his allies. Daley has never been charged with any wrongdoing, although prosecutors said the patronage hiring scheme was designed to enhance his power.

Michael Shakman, the lawyer who has fought for decades for anti-patronage measures, said he supported allowing the monitor to take a more aggressive role in determining what discipline should be meted out to officials who were active in the fraud scheme.

Shakman added that he was interested in seeing how Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel approaches the case after taking office. Daley will leave office after 22 years as mayor and Emanuel will be sworn in on May 16.

Witnesses in the Sorich and Sanchez trials said Daley aides directed patronage workers to help Emanuel’s first run for Congress in 2002, when he won a hotly contested Democratic primary in a North Side district. Emanuel has said he was not aware of the hiring fraud. And during his campaign for mayor, he vowed that his administration would base City Hall hiring on merit rather than clout.