Former Legislative Inspector General Julie Porter on Thursday planned to testify in front of a newly formed ethics commission that legislators quashed — and hid from the public — an investigation into another sitting lawmaker, which Porter said involved “serious wrongdoing.”
Porter is scheduled to speak before the Joint Commission on Ethics and Lobbying Reform on Thursday morning but provided reporters with her prepared testimony.
The former inspector general, too, planned to push for a more independent Legislative Ethics Commission, arguing legislators on the commission have “the power to kill” investigations. She writes the commission could call a complaint “insufficient simply because they regard it as politically embarrassing.”
“That is precisely the system we have now in Illinois: the fox is guarding the henhouse,” Porter wrote in her remarks.
This isn’t the first time Porter has publicly criticized the way the Illinois General Assembly has handled investigations. Last March, Porter penned an op-ed calling the system of investigating ethical complaints “broken” — and she warned a complaint against a lawmaker wasn’t made public.
Porter wrote there was one pending case when she filed her last report in late February 2019, which she called “unusual.” Porter said she requested the Illinois Attorney General file a formal complaint against the commission about that case.
Porter wrote she later learned the commission “did not agree to publish” a founded case, which she believed to the one she took to the attorney general.
“What happened to that matter? I cannot tell you, both because I left office while it was still pending and because of my confidentiality obligations,” Porter said.
“Because I am bound to confidentiality, I cannot share with you what this investigation was or detail for you the many hours spent to get to the bottom of what I concluded was serious wrongdoing, warranting a founded summary report and even a formal complaint brought by the Attorney General,” Porter wrote in her testimony. “But my report and the Attorney General’s complaint should not be secret. They remain so only because the Legislative Ethics Commission quashed them so that the public could not see what the supposedly independent Inspector General determined to be wrongdoing by a sitting legislator.”
Porter writes the Illinois State Officials and Employees Ethics Act has “fundamental flaws that undermine any true effort to have an independent watchdog with real authority to investigate and expose misconduct.”
She also called the Legislative Inspector General’s role a “waste of resources” and offered up some corrections to the state law that governs ethical standards for lawmakers, including that it should not be staffed by legislators appointed by House and Senate leaders.
“I am not aware of any other Inspector General in Illinois who is required to jump through the hoops and be subject to the control that Illinois legislators have bestowed upon the Legislative Ethics Commission,” Porter wrote. “All one needs to do is pick up a newspaper to see how important it is to have a truly independent and empowered Legislative Inspector General in Illinois. I call upon this Joint Commission to take this issue seriously and begin the process of bringing true independence to the LIG role.”
State Rep. Avery Bourne, R-Raymond, the chairwoman of the Legislative Ethics Commission last year said the commission voted unanimously in February 2019 not to publish one case with allegations deemed founded. The state’s new legislative inspector general, Carol Pope, chose to close another case.
As for the accusation about potential conflicts of interest with lawmakers serving on the commission, Bourne last year said any commission members accused in reports would have to recuse themselves.
Months after whistleblowers unveiled a #MeToo problem in Springfield, the Legislative Ethics Commission in December 2018 named Pope, a former prosecutor and appellate court judge to the post of permanent legislative inspector general — the first time the spot had been permanently filled since June 2014.
That’s when former appellate court justice Tom Homer stepped down after serving a decade in that role.
That left a giant backlog. Between December 2014 and Nov. 3, 2017, the legislative inspector general’s office had received 27 written requests for investigation.
Last week, the Sun-Times revealed Illinois State Police are investigating allegations including sexual misconduct and stalking against Jack Franks, a former state representative, now McHenry County Board chairman. The allegations date back to 2016, according to Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan’s office. Franks denies any wrongdoing.
The victim met with state police, and the speaker’s office also informed Legislative Inspector General Carol Pope and Maggie Hickey, the former inspector general who was hired by Madigan to conduct an independent investigation into the speaker’s office in 2018.
Porter, who was appointed as a temporary inspector general in November 2017, handled some high-profile cases — including accusations lobbed against former state Sen. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago, and state Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie. Porter concluded Silverstein did not engage in sexual harassment “or other unlawful conduct,” but “he did behave in a manner unbecoming a legislator in violation of the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act.” Porter cleared Lang of harassment allegations — ruling there wasn’t enough evidence to prove such harassment occurred, in part, because the woman who accused him would not be interviewed for the investigation.
Lawmakers passed legislation to form the ethics commission during the fall veto session in the wake of federal investigations of elected officials and lobbyists in the state. The commission is required to come up with recommendations for the Legislature by March 31.
