Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s priorities are clear: Improving schools, lowering crime and handling the budget deficit. But there’s also his promise to alter the culture of Chicago government. And that may get a tidy fish-or-cut bait test via a recent federal court ruling.
U.S. Magistrate Sidney Schenkier’s previously-undisclosed ruling, issued on April 29, grants Noelle Brennan, the court-appointed hiring monitor, the authority to investigate the city’s tortoise-like compliance with the two key court-approved decrees in the 42-year-old Shakman case.
If the ruling represents the final defeat in the unceasing mess for Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration, it offers an opportunity for the new mayor. Will the Emanuel administration, as Daley did so often with adverse Shakman rulings, run to court and appeal? Or has a new day of reflexive compliance, or at least compromise, actually come? And will there thus be a dramatic fall in the depressing amount of legal fees generated by the dispute, which total around $25 million since 2005?
Led by attorney Michael Shakman, the case was filed in 1969 against the city, then-Mayor Richard J. Daley and others, including Cook County and various related agencies. Ultimately, it prompted rulings in 1972 and 1983, each banning hiring based on political reasons for the large majority of government jobs and also banning political work during regular government hours.
There are multiple theories as to why the case has dragged on but somewhere in the mix is Mayor Richard M. Daley’s frustrations with the rulings, what he deemed their lack of flexibility and his basic personal chagrin over being told by a federal court how to run his government.
And while his father’s old patronage system was dying a not-so-slow death, a new one essentially arose and mirrored new ethnic power blocs, most vividly the Daley-partial Hispanic Democratic Organization. The reality of illegal hiring under Daley was underscored with the federal convictions of Al Sanchez, the former head of the Streets and Sanitation Department, and Robert Sorich, the head of Daley’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Brennan was named monitor by a federal judge in 2005 and the mutual frustration between her and the city was highlighted in the recent legal duel prompting Schenkier’s decision.
She alleged that the city was thwarting her efforts and not acting on her findings. In pleading her case, Brennan included this claim:
“Currently, there are approximately 80 high-ranking or mid-level current city employees with significant responsibilities who are directly implicated in illegal employment practices.â€
Can Brennan investigate them and recommend disciplinary actions? She said yes, the Daley administration essentially said no. Now, the magistrate sides with her.
In doing such investigations, Schenkier wrote, Brennan “may also interview present or former City employees under oath, cause stenographic records to be made of such interviews, and—to the extent information cannot be obtained voluntarily—-cause subpoenas for documents and testimony to be issued.â€
She can thus make recommendations for discipline, with the city then having 30 days to respond, “stating whether and to what extent it will implement the Monitor’s recommendations, implement an alternative corrective plan or action, and/or dispute the Monitor’s conclusion and/or recommendations.â€
So, for example, what should the Emanuel administration do when it comes to those supposed 80 employees targeted by Brennan? Is the evidence against them really that strong or might it be ambiguous enough to give pause to the mayor and his new Human Resources and Law Department chiefs?
How a new administration responds to the latest legal setback will be a marker of how it wishes to proceed with litigation commenced the year the Cubs were famously blowing the pennant to the “Miracle Mets.â€
by JAMES WARREN | May 19, 2011
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s priorities are clear: Improving schools, lowering crime and handling the budget deficit. But there’s also his promise to alter the culture of Chicago government. And that may get a tidy fish-or-cut bait test via a recent federal court ruling.
U.S. Magistrate Sidney Schenkier’s previously-undisclosed ruling, issued on April 29, grants Noelle Brennan, the court-appointed hiring monitor, the authority to investigate the city’s tortoise-like compliance with the two key court-approved decrees in the 42-year-old Shakman case.
If the ruling represents the final defeat in the unceasing mess for Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration, it offers an opportunity for the new mayor. Will the Emanuel administration, as Daley did so often with adverse Shakman rulings, run to court and appeal? Or has a new day of reflexive compliance, or at least compromise, actually come? And will there thus be a dramatic fall in the depressing amount of legal fees generated by the dispute, which total around $25 million since 2005?
Led by attorney Michael Shakman, the case was filed in 1969 against the city, then-Mayor Richard J. Daley and others, including Cook County and various related agencies. Ultimately, it prompted rulings in 1972 and 1983, each banning hiring based on political reasons for the large majority of government jobs and also banning political work during regular government hours.
There are multiple theories as to why the case has dragged on but somewhere in the mix is Mayor Richard M. Daley’s frustrations with the rulings, what he deemed their lack of flexibility and his basic personal chagrin over being told by a federal court how to run his government.
And while his father’s old patronage system was dying a not-so-slow death, a new one essentially arose and mirrored new ethnic power blocs, most vividly the Daley-partial Hispanic Democratic Organization. The reality of illegal hiring under Daley was underscored with the federal convictions of Al Sanchez, the former head of the Streets and Sanitation Department, and Robert Sorich, the head of Daley’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Brennan was named monitor by a federal judge in 2005 and the mutual frustration between her and the city was highlighted in the recent legal duel prompting Schenkier’s decision.
She alleged that the city was thwarting her efforts and not acting on her findings. In pleading her case, Brennan included this claim:
“Currently, there are approximately 80 high-ranking or mid-level current city employees with significant responsibilities who are directly implicated in illegal employment practices.â€
Can Brennan investigate them and recommend disciplinary actions? She said yes, the Daley administration essentially said no. Now, the magistrate sides with her.
In doing such investigations, Schenkier wrote, Brennan “may also interview present or former City employees under oath, cause stenographic records to be made of such interviews, and—to the extent information cannot be obtained voluntarily—-cause subpoenas for documents and testimony to be issued.â€
She can thus make recommendations for discipline, with the city then having 30 days to respond, “stating whether and to what extent it will implement the Monitor’s recommendations, implement an alternative corrective plan or action, and/or dispute the Monitor’s conclusion and/or recommendations.â€
So, for example, what should the Emanuel administration do when it comes to those supposed 80 employees targeted by Brennan? Is the evidence against them really that strong or might it be ambiguous enough to give pause to the mayor and his new Human Resources and Law Department chiefs?
How a new administration responds to the latest legal setback will be a marker of how it wishes to proceed with litigation commenced the year the Cubs were famously blowing the pennant to the “Miracle Mets.â€