7 weeks out, damage control in mayoral race
Preckwinkle trying to address ties to Burke corruption scandal
Nearly seven weeks from the election for Chicago’s next mayor, Toni Preckwinkle finds herself in a familiar position: playing defense against a high-profile problem that could threaten to derail her status as a frontrunner in the race.
The Cook County board president is facing the revelation that federal authorities have accused one of Chicago’s most entrenched old-school politicians, Ald. Edward Burke, of shaking down a restaurant magnate for a financial contribution to her campaign.
That comes after the Cook County Democratic Party chairwoman fired her security chief in November following an investigation that found a government SUV assigned to her executive detail was illegally used to carry political materials.
And when Preckwinkle announced her candidacy four months ago, she misled the public about when she knew about sexual misconduct allegations against her chief of staff.
In Preckwinkle’s first interview since federal prosecutors charged Burke with a crime that has left her mayoral campaign as collateral damage, the pragmatic politician revealed her strategy to minimize the political fallout: go on the offensive touting her decades as a progressive force in
Preckwinkle and her top campaign aides found themselves in full damage control Thursday, when federal authorities unsealed a criminal complaint against Burke that charged the longest-serving alderman in Chicago history with attempted extortion.
Authorities accused Burke of trying to steer tax business to his private law firm from a company seeking permits to renovate a fast-food restaurant in his Southwest Side ward. Prosecutors also alleged Burke illegally solicited a $10,000 campaign contribution for an unnamed politician from restaurant company executives in December 2017.
Sources familiar with the investigation said the campaign contribution was intended for Preckwinkle, and the executives owned a Burger King at 4060 S. Pulaski Road, the Tribune reported. According to the criminal complaint, the politician since identified as Preckwinkle kept $5,600 of the donation and did not report the contribution to state election officials. State law requires all political contributions to be reported by candidates.
Preckwinkle’s campaign confirmed the donor was Shoukat Dhanani, the CEO of Tri City Foods, which owns the Burger King franchise in Burke’s ward in addition to hundreds of other fast-food locations across the country. The campaign said it received a $10,000 contribution from Dhanani but returned the entire amount because it was over the state contribution limit of $5,600 for an individual. On Thursday, the campaign said records from its bank, software company and internal database all showed the entire $10,000 had been returned but declined to make the records public.
On Friday, Preckwinkle’s campaign released a screen shot of a credit card transaction from its financial software, showing a $10,000 donation from Dhanani being deposited and a credit back to the same account six days later. Preckwinkle amended her campaign report with state officials late Thursday to reflect the yearold contribution and refund, as required by law.
In a phone interview Friday, Preckwinkle insisted her campaign kept no money from the donor and that she was not aware of Burke’s solicitation.
“I had no knowledge of this incident. None whatsoever,” she said. “I had no idea what he was doing. The fundraiser was held at the Burke home. Most of the contributions came from people who had already had a contribution history with us.”
The Tribune previously reported that Burke hosted a fundraiser for Preckwinkle at his Gage Park home on Jan. 19, 2018, as she sought a third term as county board president. That’s just weeks after federal authorities say Burke shook down the restaurant executive for the campaign contribution.
A copy of the fundraiser invitation reads, “Chairman Edward M. Burke would like to invite you to a fundraiser in support of Hon. Toni Preckwinkle.” But Preckwinkle says it was Burke’s wife, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, who arranged the fundraiser.
“Anne offered to help,” she said. Asked why the justice’s name wasn’t on the invite instead of the alderman’s, Preckwinkle replied, “She was a candidate at the time, so the invitation came from Ed.” Anne Burke was seeking retention to a second 10-year term as a justice, and such high-level jurists often try to maintain an appearance of being above the political fray.
Preckwinkle sought to distance herself from Edward Burke by noting her history as a progressive reformer as the 4th Ward alderman from 1991 until 2010.
“During almost 20 years that I served with Ed Burke in the City Council, let me tell you, I was never invited to his home. We butted heads,” Preckwinkle said. “It was only after I became county board president and began to work with Justice Anne Burke on criminal justice reform that I became connected to the family, really.”
Asked if her relationship with the powerful alderman improved because of her friendship with Justice Burke, Preckwinkle replied, “I consider Anne Burke an ally and a friend. She has been invaluable on criminal justice reform.”
Asked what she considered Edward Burke, Preckwinkle paused and then repeated, “I’ll just stick to Anne Burke has been an ally and a friend.”
Running toward a record
The Burke saga is the latest controversy facing Preckwinkle. On the day she announced her run for mayor, she said she had fired her chief of staff John Keller the day before for “inappropriate behavior,” and twice said she did not know about sexual harassment allegations against her top staffer before mid-September. The Tribune, however, reported she knew of concerns about Keller six months before she took action.
She also ended up firing her security chief after a county inspector general report found the SUV he mainly drove had been improperly used to transport political materials supporting Preckwinkle. It’s illegal to use government property for such political purposes. The security chief has maintained he does not know who put the materials in the vehicle, but that he was fired to protect Preckwinkle’s poltical ambitions.
Preckwinkle said the controversies won’t define her candidacy and she will remain focused on her long track record of public service.
She stressed her support for living-wage ordinances, affordable housing and her status as a founder of the City Council’s progressive caucus. Preckwinkle noted that she was one of just five votes against former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s loathed deal to privatize the city’s parking meters. And she highlighted her efforts to reduce the county jail’s average population from more than 10,000 inmates to fewer than 6,000 by making sure nonviolent criminals weren’t held in jail just because they couldn’t afford to make bond.
Preckwinkle, though, saved her most impassioned argument for the handling of the Laquan McDonald police shooting, in which white Officer Jason Van Dyke shot the black teenager 16 times as he walked away on a Southwest Side street. Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder last year for the shooting, which led to a Justice Department investigation of Chicago police and a subsequent federal consent decree to reform the department.
At a time when Emanuel, then-State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez and then-police Superintendent Garry McCarthy didn’t publicly discuss
Other candidates’ Burke ties
Preckwinkle isn’t the only candidate who will be talking up their record to avoid talk of Burke.
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza got her political start with Burke’s help and is a close friend. City Hall veteran Gery Chico considers Burke, his former boss, a close friend and mentor. And former U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley’s family, his mayoral brother included, for decades has cut political deals with Burke.
That dynamic could make it harder for those other top candidates to attack Preckwinkle on the Burke issue. As far as former CPS CEO Paul Vallas is concerned, “all four of them are tainted.”
“The bottom line is they’re all connected to Burke. They’re part of the same cabal, the same political industrial complex,” Vallas said. “The cumulative effect of these scandals and these controversies hurts them all.”
Amara Enyia, a public policy consultant and mayoral candidate, also has been quick to point out the trend. “Every candidate running away from Ed Burke should never have been that close to corruption in the first place. Every candidate trying to launch political attacks is just trying to score points,” Enyia tweeted Friday. “We can’t bring more baggage into the mayor’s office, and we can’t keep blowing hot air.”
Asked if the other candidates’ close ties to Burke is any political consolation, Preckwinkle demurred.
“They can speak for themselves. I’ve spent my life in the political arena fighting for change. I think the city’s at a crossroads, and I’m ready to lead the city in a new direction,” she said before offering her political elevator pitch: “I’m a teacher and a grandmother. I’m committed to strengthening our schools, bringing good paying jobs to our neighborhoods, working to end the violence that’s plagued our city. This doesn’t change my record or my determination to fight for Chicago.”
Preckwinkle now faces the revelation that the feds accused Burke of shaking down a restaurant magnate for a financial contribution to her campaign.