If It Weren’t for Malfeasance They’d Have No Feasance At All

Sexual harassment charges are being levied against figures other than show biz and media stars. They’ve spread to teh political world. The Chicago Tribune reports:

Fallout from the sexual harassment scandal at the Illinois Capitol continued Wednesday, as a state senator lost his leadership position and top Democrats scrambled to find a leader for the agency tasked with investigating such complaints after letting the job remain vacant for years.

Democratic Sen. Ira Silverstein of Chicago “will no longer serve” as Senate Democratic majority caucus chair, according to Senate President John Cullerton. The move came a day after Denise Rotheimer, an activist for victims of violent crime, told lawmakers at a public hearing that Silverstein made unwanted comments about her appearance, sent her hundreds of Facebook messages and placed midnight phone calls as she was working with him to pass legislation for nearly 18 months.

Silverstein has disputed the allegations and said he apologized “if I made her uncomfortable.” Losing his leadership spot will cost him an $20,649 annual stipend on top of the $67,836 base salary lawmakers get for what’s considered a part-time job. Reached by phone Wednesday evening, Silverstein said he was in the middle of grocery shopping at Mariano’s and would have to call back.

I could make all sorts of wisecracks but I’ll refrain other than to say that a) I’d think a victims’ rights activist is the last person you’d want to harass; b) Ira Silverstein represents the senatorial district in which I live; and c) $90K ain’t bad for a part-time sinecure. How hard is it to vote however Cullerton wants you to?

Also, lest you think that the Illinois legislature is only a do-nothing legislature in passing budgets, solving the state’s economic problems, there are any number of areas in which they also do nothing:

That announcement came as a Republican senator questioned why no one has acted on more than two dozen ethics complaints filed at the legislative inspector general’s office since 2015. Sen. Karen McConnaughay, who sits on the panel of lawmakers that oversees such complaints, also wanted to know why she was only just now learning that those unresolved complaints existed.

Democratic lawmakers cited two technical reasons. One is that there’s no legislative inspector general, so there’s no one with the power to turn complaints of any nature into an actual investigation. The other is that sexual harassment is not currently included as a specific violation of the state’s ethics act, meaning that the Legislative Ethics Commission can’t hold a hearing or issue punishments on such complaints.

The General Assembly has been without a permanent chief watchdog for more than three years. Three of the four legislative leaders have to agree on a nominee before the commission can consider installing the person in the role, said Democratic Sen. Terry Link, who is chairman of the legislative ethics panel.

Cullerton attempted to assign blame to himself on Wednesday. “It’s our duty to fill that post. I take responsibility for my role in that lapse, and I apologize for it,” he said in a statement.

But legislative leaders have failed to hire a permanent legislative inspector general since Tom Homer left at the end of June 2014. The following week, the Chicago Tribune published details of a secret report put together by Homer in the wake of a 2013 Metra scandal that offered new insight into how Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan navigated the intersection of public business and ward-style patronage through his Southwest Side office and Illinois Capitol suite.

Just sticking with what they’re good at.

Update

The editors of the Trib remark:

The current uproar reflects badly on Cullerton, whose reliance on protocol is no excuse: He referred Rotheimer’s complaint to an office that he knows full well is rudderless and ineffectual. “It is our understanding that there is an open investigation” — spoken Tuesday by a Cullerton spokesman — is a pretty hollow assurance.

This reflects badly, too, on Madigan, who sprang into action only after a groundswell of protest about a culture of creepiness in the Capitol. Madigan desperately wants to avoid looking like he hasn’t taken sexual harassment seriously. Too late.

which provides a little context for the complaints I’ve made about the Illinois legislature over the years.