State Supreme Court rules against IG
The Illinois Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling Thursday that could tie the hands of Chicago’s corruption-fighting inspector general — and insulate Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his top aides from investigation.
The state’s highest court ruled that Inspector General Joe Ferguson does not have statutory authority to enforce his subpoenas of city documents. Instead, the IG has to rely on the corporation counsel to enforce its subpoenas.
When the corporation counsel chooses not to or has a conflict of interest, the inspec- tor general’s only recourse is to appeal to the mayor. That’s even when the IG’s investigation either targets or involves the mayor’s office.
The ruling followed an unprecedented 2009 lawsuit filed by the inspector general’s office demanding that then-Corporation Counsel Mara Georges turn over documents the inspector general considers vital to the investigation of how former top mayoral aide Charles Bowen was awarded a $100,000 sole-source contract with the Chicago Police Department “in apparent violation of the City’s ethics and contracting rules.”
Bowen was a former Cook County commissioner who spent more than 15 years as former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s chief liaison to black ministers.
The short-term implication of Thursday’s ruling is to short-circuit the Bowen investigation. The long-term impact is more sweeping. It means that, whenever the mayor’s office wants to stymie a high-level investigation, all it needs to do is put an attorney in the room.
Ferguson now must live with the consequences of the ruling. And he’s not happy.
“The public and City Council should now know that the [Inspector General’s office] has access only to the records and materials the mayor and his corporation counsel wishes to make available when they decide to make them available,” he said in a prepared statement.