A group of Chicago lawyers, who have helped establish federal court review of allegedly corrupt Illinois state hiring practices, have told a federal judge an attempt by the state to block the court’s monitors from accessing reports from the state’s own hiring monitor, proves that Gov. JB Pritzker is wrong to argue the state has fully addressed the patronage and corruption that for decades has kept them and other local governments under federal oversight.
On Dec. 7, attorneys Michael Shakman and Paul Lurie waded into a fight between the Illinois Office of the Executive Inspector General and a court-appointed hiring monitor over whether the OEIG must turn over documents from the state’s Hiring and Employment Monitor office concerning potential state hiring irregularities.
That dispute landed in Chicago federal court in late November, when the OEIG filed a motion asking a judge to quash a subpoena issued by court-appointed special master, attorney Noelle Brennan.
Michael Shakman
| Miller Shakman Levine & Feldman
In that subpoena, Brennan has demanded the OEIG turn over reports from the state HEM office for reviews conducted by the office in response to 10 “advisories” issued by the OEIG for “hiring errors” in eight state agencies, including the Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology; the Department of Human Services; Department of Children and Family Services; Department of Human Rights; Department on Aging; Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity; Department of Financial and Professional Regulation; and Illinois Gaming Board.
All of those departments and agencies answer to the governor’s office.
A judge had explicitly given Brennan authority to review hiring practices at the Illinois Department of Transportation. However, Brennan and Pritzker have in recent months sparred over the reach of Brennan’s review abilities.
Brennan has asked the judge to grant her authority to review hiring practices at other agencies under Pritzker’s purview.
Pritzker, however, responded this summer by asking the judge to not only deny Brennan’s request, but to remove federal court oversight of state government hiring practices altogether.
The federal court has monitored government hiring practices in Illinois and Chicago for decades, since issuing a series of decrees. Those decrees – the first of which was issued in 1972 - were the result of litigation launched against Illinois governments by Shakman and Lurie, leading the courts and others to refer to the decrees as “Shakman Decrees.”
The decrees bar Illinois government from allowing politics to improperly control government jobs, and allows for federal oversight of hiring practices in Springfield and Cook County.
In requesting the court lift oversight of state hiring, Pritzker asserted the state has “reformed its employment practices to unquestionably pass constitutional muster” and has put in place a “durable solution to prevent future patronage employment practices.”
Pritzker’s motion to remove federal court oversight has been opposed by Brennan and the Shakman lawyers, who argued Pritzker is too hasty, at best.
While the court has weighed Pritzker’s request, Brennan moved ahead with her subpoena to the Inspector General.
In a brief filed Nov. 20, the state argued Brennan is improperly attempting to expand her oversight to other state agencies, while also asserting the HEM office’s reports are shielded from disclosure by state law.
In response, Brennan said the state law’s disclosure prohibitions don’t apply to review ordered by the federal court.
“… While the Special Master recognizes the importance of maintaining a certain level of confidentiality in OEIG investigations, that interest does not outweigh the need for production of information relevant to the Special Master’s court-appointed duties,” Brennan wrote in a reply filed Dec. 4. “This case involves Constitutional claims of significant public importance.
The requested records relate to employment practices that the Special Master has previously noted as problematic and at risk for improper patronage abuse.”
Brennan’s reply was followed three days later by a brief filed by the Shakman lawyers.
They not only sided with Brennan, but also noted the OEIG’s opposition underscores how far the state still needs to go to live up to the terms of the federal court decree.
“A key aspect of the Governor’s motion to vacate the 1972 Decree is the argument that OEIG and HEM are part of the State’s durable remedy,” Shakman and Lurie said in their Dec. 7 filing. “The Special Master’s Reports make clear that OEIG and HEM are not yet providing sufficient oversight and enforcement to confirm substantial compliance or a durable remedy.”
Further, they said, the OEIG’s opposition creates a “serious, and frankly, frustrating obstacle” to allowing the court to even know if the state was living up to its obligations under the court decrees.
“Effective monitoring requires transparency to the monitor,” Shakman and Lurie wrote. “A blinded monitor is an ineffective monitor.
“The Governor touts the HEM process as evidence that a durable remedy is in place and that the State can police political discrimination without judicial scrutiny. Yet the OEIG seeks to block scrutiny regarding this process, which is a critical path to sunset.”
In addition to their firm of Miller Shakman Levine & Feldman, Shakman and Lurie are also represented in the action by attorney Brian Hays and others with the firm of Locke Lord LLP, of Chicago.