[EL] Chicago Patronage

[Robert Wechsler]

Despite what Jacob Weisberg says in his /Slate/ article, Chicago's 
patronage system did /not/ end decades ago. There was some serious 
prosecution in the oughts, which I discussed in my July 2006 City Ethics 
blog post <http://www.cityethics.org/node/117> entitled, "A City Where 
'We Don't Want Nobody Nobody Sent'" (yes, that quote again). Here's a 
short excerpt:

    The patronage game, once played openly on the els of Chicago, went
    underground. A lot of work went into covering the game up:  sham job
    interviews, falsified job ratings, the rigging of test scores, and
    the destruction of files (the shredding business thrives on identity
    theft and ethics laws). And, as always, it was the fraudulent
    covering up that enabled the feds to go after the patronage managers.

Of course, no one is saying that Obama has a secret patronage system 
based on fraud, nor that he learned from the way aldermen handle local 
development projects. It's just the usual innuendo that is spread like 
guano and can be learned from any number of bats.


Robert Wechsler
Director of Research
City Ethics, Inc.
16 Windsor Road
North Haven, CT 06473
rwechsler at cityethics.org
203-859-1959


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