Payoffs and Patronage Chicago Style

In early 2009, former Alderman Arenda Troutman (20th) was sentenced to 4 years in prison for mail and tax fraud. For several years, she had taken money from developers in exchange for backing their projects in her South Side ward. The woman who was famously captured on tape saying, "What do I get out of it?" became, depending on how one keeps score, the 27th alderman convicted of wrongdoing since 1972 19 and/or one of 30 aldermen who have been indicted and convicted of federal crimes including bribery, extortion, and embezzlement in the past 35 years.20

Along with Troutman's sentencing came a report by city hiring monitor Noelle Brennan saying that hiring abuses at City Hall were continuing, including in the Department of Streets and Sanitation. In the wake of the Hired Truck Scandal, which exposed an army of workers doing nothing or little to earn their pay, the city had failed to demote 11 clouted workers into lower-paying jobs, as required. 21 "The city's recent actions have substantially slowed its movement toward substantial compliance with this court's orders," Brennan said in her report to U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen.22

A few weeks later, when Mayor Daley's highest ranking aide was tried in a federal corruption crackdown in Chicago, former Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Al Sanchez was found guilty of rigging city hiring and promotions to benefit political groups in exchange for jobs, including the Hispanic Democratic Organization , which raises money for the Mayor. Among the hires included the unqualified truck driver who pinned a coworker, Earceen Alexander, in a vehicular accident resulting in her death. Sanchez's conviction came three years after Daley's former patronage chief, Robert Sorich, was convicted on similar charges. 23

In Brennan's subsequent report in July 2009 - issued two days after Daley's top human resources aide Homero Tristan resigned - Brennan credited the city with making progress in cleaning up the hiring system. She praised the city for creating the Office of Compliance, which would take over her monitoring duties after her oversight period ended, while noting that the authority and role of the office needed to be "more explicitly documented and detailed." 24

However, Brennan criticized the city for continuing to violate the Shakman Decree by hiring 290 city contractors as city employees. Her report found that the city clerk hired nine summer interns who were relatives of city workers, including three in the city clerk's office, and that several politically connected truck drivers in Streets and Sanitation received "disproportionate overtime distribution," ranging from $22,500 to $27,500, while other truckers were paid little or nothing extra.25

Even as the city took steps to initiate reforms in its hiring practices, Mayor Daley and city officials refused to acknowledge the role of political influence in hirings, characterizing violations as "errors" or "mistakes." Their intent in doing so, wrote Brennan, was "to minimize intentional or negligent failures to follow the hiring plan. To deem such instances 'mistakes,' is not only inaccurate; it trivializes instances where [the Department of Human Resources] deviated from the standard hiring process."26

"For several years, the monitor has been asking the city to take action with regard to disciplining past violators of the Shakman Decree," Brennan said in the report. "To date, the City has failed to take any global (and in most cases any individual) action against violators. As noted in previous reports, discipline for past violations of the Shakman Decree is necessary if the City wants to send the message that patronage practices will no longer be tolerated."27

Twenty five years after the installment of the Shakman Decree, and in the wake of numerous attempts by Mayor Daley to have it vacated, the Mayor was not likely to change his tactics and acknowledge widespread violations of the patronage law. Following Sanchez's conviction, the mayor characteristically dodged the question of his involvement in the formation of the Hispanic Democratic Organization.28 But in convicting political players like Sorich and Sanchez, the legal system was increasingly underlining the violations for the Mayor. With each missing cog, the once roaring Democratic machine has become a bit quieter, if not yet less efficient.