(The Center Square) – Illinois is set to have a new legislative inspector general. But Republicans say majority Democrats circumvented what should be a bipartisan process.
The office of legislative inspector general investigates unethical conduct and other allegations of wrongdoing against state lawmakers and their staff. The office has been around since shortly after the turn of the century. In the past 20 years, the office has been vacant several times, including a multi-year vacancy that left complaints going uninvestigated.
The most recent inspector general, Carol Pope, announced last summer she was leaving the job, calling the office a “paper tiger.” Her original departure date was Dec. 15, but lawmakers failed to find a replacement. Pope agreed to stay on until Jan. 6, the last week of session last month, but lawmakers canceled session days the rest of January and didn’t address the issue. There’s at least one complaint lawmakers confirm has gone unaddressed.
An independent search committee appointed by legislative leaders had several potential candidates to replace Pope, but the candidates hadn’t advanced out of the Legislative Ethics Commission. That’s the bipartisan group of lawmakers and a former lawmaker that oversees the inspector’s office.
“During the late afternoon of Monday, February 14, Democrat members of the LEC called an emergency meeting for 8:30 a.m. the next morning, Tuesday, February 15, to interview a candidate for the vacant LIG position, failing to comply with the 24-hour posting rule,” a Tuesday statement from state Sen. Jil Tracy, the chairwoman of the LEC, said. “Additionally, they would not provide the name or resume of the candidate to Republican members.”
“Not only are Democrat members not being transparent, but they are also trying to, again, go around the search committee to hand-pick their watchdog,” Tracy, R-Quincy, said.
As a member of the LEC, state Sen. Cristina Castro, D-Elgin, responded to Tracy Tuesday.
“Since former LIG Carol Pope announced she was stepping down, we have been diligently searching for a replacement, but I am dismayed to see, yet again, the politicization of the situation at hand,” Castro said. “Selecting a highly-qualified candidate to provide oversight of the General Assembly is everyone’s priority. Every day without a Legislative Inspector General leaves the possibility for potential corruption to go unchecked. We need to act as quickly as possible to address the vacancy by selecting a capable candidate.”
Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, on Wednesday advanced Senate Joint Resolution 48 appointing Judge Michael McCuskey as the LIG.
Harmon’s office says McCuskey was nominated to a federal judgeship by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by a Republican-controlled U.S. Senate. The judge later served 15 years on the Illinois Supreme Court’s Commission on Professionalism, Harmon’s office said.
Before a party line vote in the Senate, state Sen. Steve McClure, R-Springfield, asked whether there’s been a full background check and what kinds of campaign donations McCuskey has made to lawmakers.
“We have just seen members of the General Assembly convicted of bribery, I’m not making any allegations, I’m just trying to make sure that we have done everything that we can so that people of this state can rest assured that we have an independent inspector general,” McClure said.
Harmon said he couldn’t bite his tongue.
“You know what I find offensive, the Republican members of the Legislative Ethics Commission saying if we don’t get to pick our handpicked inspector general then nobody gets to pick an inspector general,” Harmon said.
Thursday, state Rep. Maurice West, D-Rockford, who sponsored the resolution for McCuskey to be a permanent LIG, said a political impasse on a bipartisan search committee has gone on too long and they must act.
“We’ve been at an impasse of who should be the next legislative inspector general for the past 91 days,” West said.
State Rep. Avery Bourne, R-Morrisonville, argued McCuskey could have been appointed as an acting inspector general to ensure a thorough bipartisan vetting process that Republicans say wasn’t followed.
“How’s the public going to take that? ‘Oh, we have a majority, we get to pick who will be the legislative watchdog for the next three years,’” Bourne said. “It’s nuts.”
The measure passed both chambers.
All previous inspectors have resigned, saying the job does not have the independence a true inspector general should have.
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