Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough has renewed her efforts to throw off the oversight of employment decisions in her office.
In a new court filing, Yarbrough claims the oversight has run its course and lawyers appointed by the federal court to oversee the clerk’s office’s employment actions at this point are finding reasons to protect their jobs, as she claims her office no longer engages in illegal “political discrimination” when hiring or promoting workers.
Yarbrough, through attorney Adam R. Vaught, of the firm of Kilbride and Vaught, of LaGrange, filed a motion in Chicago federal court on June 17 to vacate court decrees which gave federal courts special supervisory review powers over the county clerk’s offices employment actions.
“In more than two years of active monitoring, there have been no findings of UPD (unlawful political discrimination) at the Clerk’s Office by either the CA (court-appointed compliance administrator) or the (county’s Office of the Inspector General), and the tasks assigned to the CA in the Appointment Order have been fulfilled,” Yarbrough and Vaught wrote in the motion to vacate.
“Further, the past two years have been unprecedented. The Clerk’s Office, along with the rest of the world, navigated through a global pandemic. In December 2020, the Clerk’s Office assumed the duties of the Recorder of Deeds Office. The Office also conducted two elections under unprecedented circumstances arising from the pandemic. And now the Clerk’s Office, like all employers, is facing what has been deemed the ‘Great Resignation.’
“It is now time to return control of the Clerk’s Office to the Clerk.”
The filing comes in response to a motion by longtime political reform advocates to extend federal oversight over Yarbrough’s office by at least another year.
That motion, by Michael Shakman and Paul Lurie, with the political organization, the Independent Voters of Illinois – Independent Precinct Organization, was filed on June 10.
“… Simply having written policies governing employment actions is not enough to justify vacating the Decrees because ‘the devil is not just in the details, but in the implementation,’” the Shakman co-plaintiffs wrote in their motion.
They accuse the clerk’s office of repeatedly violating written hiring policies and procedures, and ignoring compliance deadlines, in the two years since federal Magistrate Judge Sidney Schenkier sided with the Shakman co-plaintiffs and ordered Yarbrough’s office to submit to active monitoring to ensure they comply with longstanding court decrees.
The new arguments mark the second time Yarbrough has sought to remove the court decrees.
Collectively known as the Shakman Decrees, the orders represent the outcome of efforts first launched in 1969 by Shakman and Lurie to use the federal courts to force reforms on the infamous political patronage hiring practices in Illinois, Chicago and Cook County governments, that has stood as one of the leading examples and drivers of political corruption in the state.
The decrees have forbidden governments in Illinois from basing most hiring and promotion decisions on workers’ political allegiances. The decrees also empowered the courts to appoint so-called “special masters” and compliance administrators to ensure compliance.
In 2019, Yarbrough first asked the federal court to remove the decrees from her office, asserting at that time that enough time had passed since the decrees were imposed, and her office had been sufficiently reformed.
That filing had also come in response to a request from Shakman and his co-plaintiffs to tighten oversight over Yarbrough’s office. They accused Yarbrough of running “an illegal patronage employment system” and showing “pervasive disregard” for the court decrees.
Yarbrough has also been targeted in recent years by other court actions from current and former clerk's office employees, accusing her of political discrimination in hiring and promotion decisions.
After Judge Schenkier sided with Shakman, Yarbrough appealed to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
The appeals court refused to lift oversight, but the judges said they also believed the time for federal oversight of local and state government hiring practices was running short.
In her new filing, Yarbrough cited that Seventh Circuit decision in calling on U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang to end the oversight now.
The dispute between Yarbrough and the reformers centers on the definition of the term “durable remedy.” The courts have said the clerk’s office and other state and local government offices now under the supervision of federal courts must establish a so-called “durable remedy” to end political employment discrimination before the oversight can end.
In this case, Shakman said a durable remedy remains elusive.
Yarbrough, however, said a durable remedy is already in place, as evidenced by a lack of findings of political discrimination in the past two years.
Rather, she said, the compliance administrator has chosen to focus on her office’s implementation of the policies and procedures spelled out in her office’s new policy manual.
Yarbrough said differences over the manual should not be enough to allow the federal courts to continue to require her office to submit to federal oversight.
She claimed employees in her office are already well protected from the policies in the manual, as well as a county ordinance forbidding such discrimination in hiring. Further, she said, her office is subject to oversight and audit from the Inspector General. And employees who believe they have suffered discrimination can always file lawsuits in federal court, Yarbrough said.
“While the Clerk’s Policy Manual is important for the Office operations, it is not a more durable remedy than the County’s ordinances, the OIIG, and individual federal lawsuits,” Yarbrough wrote. “The Clerk (the current or successor) can change policies and procedures. But the Clerk (the current or successor) cannot change County Ordinances, cannot eliminate the OIIG, and cannot reverse the Supreme Court’s patronage rulings.
“Thus, it is erroneous to focus on the Clerk’s Policy Manual as a reason to justify continuing this Court’s oversight. The durable remedies already exist.”
The compliance administrator’s focus on the policy manual, Yarbrough said, stands as an attempt by the compliance administrator to merely continue their work, and keep the money flowing from the county to the compliance administrator’s five person team.
Yarbrough noted the county, under the court order, pays the compliance administrator as much as $41,000 per month, and has paid the compliance administrator about $1 million in fees, to date.
Yarbrough noted: “Monitoring is their job and source of income.”
“The CA (compliance administrator) does not operate through a law firm, but is a stand-alone entity,” Yarbrough wrote. “The CA’s staff are paid for the time they personally bill that is either agreed to by the Clerk or approved by the Court. Monitoring the Clerk Office is the CA’s staff’s job. If the appointment is terminated, then the CA’s five member staff no longer have these jobs.
“… Simply put, the CA has a financial interest in the outcome of this matter.”
The Shakman plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Brian I. Hays and Ernesto R. Palomo, of the firm of Locke Lord LLP, of Chicago; and Edward W. Feldman and Mary Eileen Wells, of Shakman's law firm, Miller Shakman Levine & Feldman, also of Chicago.