A pair of longtime Illinois government reform advocates, whose lawsuits generated decades of federal court decrees forcing reforms in Springfield and Cook County, have agreed to pay $525,000 to end a court action against them by Gov. JB Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul, who demanded the pair pay for opposing Pritzker’s successful effort to end federal oversight of state hiring practices.
On Jan. 18, Federal Magistrate Judge Gabriel Fuentes in Chicago issued a statement, indicating the state and the reformers, Michael Shakman and Paul Lurie, had reached a deal to settle the dispute.
The judge said the settlement was the result of a conference held on Jan. 17. Judge Fuentes indicated more details about the settlement could be forthcoming in a written status report due March 31. But that report would be unnecessary if the funds are paid to the state before that date, the judge said.
The dispute erupted in Chicago federal court last fall, within days of an order issued by U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang, formally ending the so-called Shakman Decrees against the governor and the state offices he oversees.
In a motion, Pritzker and Raoul asked the court to order their opponents to pay more than $1.5 million. The state said that was the amount the state paid in attorney fees over nearly two years while they fought in court to back Pritzker’s motion to lift the court decrees.
The decrees had been in place since 1972, when Shakman and Lurie first prevailed in court on claims that politically-motivated hiring practices in Illinois state government and in Cook County had illegally favored the supporters of the party and elected officials in power.
Over the next 50 years, courts have consistently agreed that the so-called patronage hiring violated the First Amendment rights of government workers by forcing them to support those in power or risk losing jobs or promotions.
Such patronage hiring practices have been used for decades by Democratic Chicago power brokers like former House Speaker Michael Madigan and Chicago Alderman Ed Burke to bolster their power base and grab control of the levers of government, while allegedly enriching themselves. Madigan and Burke have both been indicted on federal corruption charges.
To combat such corruption, the court appointed monitors, known as special masters, and empowered them to review most state hiring decisions.
However, in 2020, Pritzker and Raoul challenged the decrees. They They argued the state had fixed its corrupt hiring practices, and the decrees had already been in place too long.
Those assertions, however, were fiercely disputed by Shakman and Lurie, as well as the court-appointed special master, attorney Noelle Brennan.
They asserted abuses of certain exemptions in the decree were ongoing, and continued oversight was needed.
Judge Chang agreed. In a ruling in 2021, denied Pritzker’s request, saying “the message” of the intent of the decrees still was “not getting across” to the managers in state agencies doing the hiring.
However, on appeal, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Pritzker’s position.
They said they were “not naïve” concerning Illinois’ infamous history of political corruption and patronage hiring. But they said the governor had “earned the right to make employment decisions for the state on his own” and they could not “let perfect be the enemy of the constitutionally adequate.”
They directed Chang to formally end the decrees against the governor.
In the motion for attorney fees that quickly followed, Pritzker and Raoul argued Shakman and Lurie should be forced to pay the state’s attorney fees, because they were the losing party in the dispute.
In the motion for fee demand, Pritzker and Raoul claim Shakman and Lurie should have recognized Pritzker was correct and immediately abandoned their opposition.
Shakman and Lurie had pushed back against the fee demand, asserting Pritzker was simply trying to punish them for opposing him, and taking the side of the court’s own special master.
Further, they argued Pritzker’s position was tenuous, as the governor and attorney general’s arguments misinterpreted the Seventh Circuit’s ruling.
At no point did any judge declare the orders were wrong or had been improperly sought or entered.
Ultimately, the state agreed to take about one-third of its demanded fees to bring the matter to an apparent end.
Shakman and Lurie have been represented in the case by attorneys Edward L. Feldman and Mary Eileen C. Wells, of the firm of Miller Shakman Levine & Feldman, of Chicago; and Brian I. Hays and Ernesto Palomo, of Locke Lord, of Chicago.