Will the names Sanchez and Hardiman become more memorable in defeat?

Anybody who thinks that “The Law” is absolute, crystal clear and well-thought out in its intent need only look at some of the ballot challenges now taking place to realize the error of their ways.

SANCHEZ: Is he free yet?

In all honesty, I don’t know how the Cook County Elections Board will rule with regard to the challenge to the county board candidacy of Al Sanchez.

JUST AS I’M really curious to see if Gov. Pat Quinn becomes the luckiest politician on Planet Earth. After losing all of his potentially-serious challengers for the primary, he may also have his token Democrat challenger removed as well.

But none of it is so clear-cut that people can say it is a done deal that these people don’t have any business on the ballot for the March 18 primary elections.

Anybody who tries to claim that these candidates didn’t follow the rules, thereby bringing their fate upon themselves, is being disingenuous. They’re just lucky that the county and Illinois State Board of Elections both had officials whose interpretation of the law matchup up perfectly with their own partisan political leanings.

If anything, I’m inclined to think that Sanchez – the one-time city Streets & Sanitation commissioner who got into legal trouble for the way in which he tried to make himself a Latino political powerbroker – is doomed. Although his attorneys would argue otherwise about his campaign against incumbent Commissioner Stanley Moore, D-Chicago.

SANCHEZ DID JUST over two years in federal prison facilities for the way in which he used his part of the city payroll to reward his political workers. People like Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, also have their allied political workers in government jobs, but they are subtle than was Sanchez.

He’s now free, but he remains on probation.

Which is what has the people who don’t want Sanchez on the ballot arguing that he hasn’t completed the sentence for his felony conviction. As though they’d think any higher of him once his probation is complete.

HARDIMAN: No running mate?

Not likely!

IT ALWAYS WAS my understanding that a sentence includes the probationary period – because in theory he could be found in violation and returned to prison.

But it’s going to be up to the county Elections Board to figure this one out, because there isn’t much in the way of precedent in terms of a political candidate having to figure out when his prison time is complete.

Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the name “Al Sanchez” wound up going into the political history books more for determining when felons could resume trying to have a political life – rather than for his stint as head of the now-defunct Hispanic Democratic Organization.

The campaign of Tio Hardiman – who’s putting up the token Democratic primary bid against Quinn – is more bizarre. His lieutenant governor running mate is Brunell Donald, an attorney in Chicago.

IT SEEMS SHE’S not registered to vote at her current address (she recently moved). Which means the address she gave for herself on her nominating petitions does not match up to where she really lives.

Does this make her vulnerable to attack? Can she be booted from the ballot? Or is this excessive nitpicking?

It may be. But the real question is what this does to Hardiman, since the elections process was changed beginning this election cycle to require gubernatorial candidates to name a running mate to run with them in the primary portion of the election cycle.

There is NO precedent for what happens if a candidate for governor does not have a running mate in place on the ballot. The courts are definitely going to wind up having to resolve this case.

WHICH WILL BE rather ironic, since the name “Tio Hardiman” was supposed to be ultimately forgettable and irrelevant to this election cycle.

Instead, his case could wind up will definitely become a first, even bigger than that of Sanchez. They could matter more in defeat than if they had actually been capable of getting themselves elected to office.

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From prison to electoral politics?

The upcoming election cycle may wind up showing just how sympathetic the electorate is to the idea of someone with a criminal record being able to get back into the game of government.

SANCHEZ: Wants back in to politics

The process of people getting themselves on the ballot for the March 18 primary elections ended Monday. Nominating petitions were required by the close of business that day.

LOOKING THROUGH THE list of people with political dreams, at least three people with criminal records and stints in prison want to get back into politics.

Two of them – Al Sanchez and Isaac “Ike” Carothers – want to serve on the Cook County Board. While Kenneth Williams (not the one-time Chicago White Sox general manager) wants to serve in the Illinois House of Representatives.

Sanchez is the former Streets and Sanitation commissioner whose simultaneous control of the old Hispanic Democratic Organization resulted in him committing acts (that were supposedly done in the name of advancing Latino political empowerment) that wound up putting him in federal prison for a stint.

Carothers is a former alderman who lost his City Council seat when he pleaded guilty to bribery and tax fraud charges. He, too, wound up doing prison time.

WHILE WILLIAMS WAS the school board president with Thornton Township High School District 205 in suburban South Holland who was removed by a Cook County judge earlier this year because of his 28-year-old criminal conviction in Indiana for aiding in the commission of a forgery.

Williams, who has never done anything to hide his criminal record and has not been convicted of any felony since then, was twice elected to the school board post. But the judge ruled that he was never eligible to hold the post – and that the voter support he got was irrelevant.

WILLIAMS: Booted from old post

The appeals courts have not been sympathetic to his case thus far. Which caused Williams, a suburban South Holland resident, to decide to run for the Illinois House instead.

Particularly since that legislative body has a history of members (Rep. Coy Pugh of the West Side back in the 1990s) who had done prison time.

WILLIAMS WILL HAVE to take on state Rep. Thaddeus Jones, D-Calumet City, a two-term House member who has the strong support of Thornton Township Democratic Party operatives. But he is developing a slew of supporters in his community who think he’s being singled out for abuse because of his race (he’s African-American).

CAROTHERS: Filling a vacancy?

Whether that would be enough to defeat Jones is uncertain. But he’s determined not to make the 22 months he did in prison back in his early 20s define the rest of his life. Particularly since the breakdown that seems to have developed is that someone with a felony record cannot serve on a school board or the City Council (aldermen specifically approved that change a few years ago), but can serve in state, county or local government.

As for Sanchez and Carothers, both of them are hoping to take advantage of special circumstances on the Cook County Board.

Carothers is going for a county board seat that was held by Earlean Collins, who has decided to retire from politics. She’s not seeking re-election.

WHICH MEANS AN open seat. No one has the benefit of incumbency. It may well be that Carothers will have enough name recognition amongst his old ward constituents to win – particularly since he’s one of six people running for the post.

He won’t exactly have to win a majority to win the election. A 30 percent support level could be more than enough for him to get a political comeback.

As for Sanchez, the seat he’s going for currently is filled by Stanley Moore, who was appointed to fill the vacancy created when William Beavers was found guilty of the tax-related charges that sent him off to prison for a six-month sentence beginning Monday.

Sanchez hopes that Moore, who has less than a year in office thus far and keeps a low profile amongst the county board members, is beatable. As though he hasn’t been around long enough to gain the benefits of incumbency!

HE MAY EVEN try to claim that he’s benefitting the cause of Latino empowerment by adding to the number of Latinos now on (Jesus Garcia and Edwin Reyes) the Cook County Board.

Whether anyone buys that argument is questionable.

Although the idea that Sanchez wants back in to the game of electoral politics is so predictable. Political retirement, particularly when it is imposed on someone, is deadly dull.

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Blagojevich the 2-ton gorilla in the room that crushes out real corruption cases

I know I’m in the minority for thinking this way – but I actually believe that the criminal case against Rod Blagojevich is, at best, the third most interesting one to come up this summer at the Dirksen Building courthouse.

To me, much of what has been heard in testimony is merely evidence that Blagojevich was a goof, and more capable of talking trash than committing crimes. If anything, he was an amateur incapable of pulling off any schemes – which is what U.S. District Judge James Zagel alluded to when he was heard making a remark saying Blagojevich was a “.110 (hitter) in the D-minor leagues.”

ALTHOUGH I WONDER how many baseball fans under the age of 50 realize that the minor leagues ever extended down to the Class D level?

Personally, I take more interest in the other two court cases that have made the Summer of ’10 at the Dirksen Building a bizarre place to be.

We had the trial of Jon Burge, the one-time police commander on the far South Side who was found guilty of not telling the truth about his use of physical force during interrogations. Of course, had he told the truth, he would have been in significant amounts of trouble – since his idea of force is what many of us consider to be torture.

Then, we got the sequel to the criminal trial of Al Sanchez, the one-time head of the Hispanic Democratic Organization (which was supposed to be the part of the Democratic Party that locally pushed for Latino political empowerment).

SANCHEZ WAS FOUND guilty this week of using the oldest trick in the political handbook to achieve and maintain political influence. Sanchez also was head of the city Streets and Sanitation department, which means that people who did tasks that helped him maintain his poltiical influence were rewarded with city jobs – nearly 4,000 people worked for Sanchez’ department when he was a city commissioner.

The idea of driving around in a smelly truck and picking up peoples’ trash may sound unappealing to some, but I have known many people who get over the fact that the stink of trash will stick to them after work by looking at the financial rewards and job security.

You can’t very well outsource trash pickup to a firm in India, can you?

So people were getting city jobs for doing work for campaigns favored by Sanchez and the HDO leadership (which gained the rightful reputation as an organization devoted more to picking Latinos who would be loyal to Daley, than trying to get Latinos elected to office in general). The degree to which they engaged in such activity became so blatant that the U.S. Attorney’s office got involved.

THAT IS WHY Sanchez was found guilty in 2009, and was again found guilty on Wednesday (that original conviction was tossed out by an appeals court because prosecutors did not let it be known that at least one key witness against Sanchez had a criminal record that could be seen as tainting his testimony).

The fact that this trial was a do-over, so to speak, is what caused it to get much less attention this time around, which is why I got a giggle over reading a commentary I wrote about a year ago, wondering if Sanchez had the potential to steal public attention away from Blagojevich.

I thought the fact that he was city government would have some sort of attention-grabbing appeal. It didn’t. It shows you how much I know.

But I really can’t help but wonder if this has become an instance where the more significant cases are getting less attention because of Milorod. Is it just that Blagojevich’s behavior is so comical at times that we can laugh at it, unlike the behavior of Burge (where people were beaten, then locked away in prison for many years – if not decades) or Sanchez (who was using his city government position to bolster his political position, and trying to disguise it under the noble concept of promoting Latino political empowerment).

I’M NOT KIDDING when I say that the behavior of Sanchez offends me, and Burge’s conduct is nauseating, whereas Blagojevich is more buffoonish than anything else. How else to think of the fact that Blagojevich may have been delusional enough to think he could force some sort of reward for himself in exchange for his appointment to the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois?

That seat was never actually sold, and it seems from some of the testimony that even Blagojevich eventually came to realize it wasn’t going to happen, that he wasn’t going to get anything.

Yet Sanchez turned his Hispanic Democratic Organization into a group that influenced city politics (and has several aldermen currently sitting who owe their initial elections to HDO), while Burge put people in prison who shouldn’t have had to endure such a fate.

Burge and Sanchez, however, have their defenders, while Blagojevich is the man whom many people these days want to believe is somehow the political Public Enemy Number One. That logic is just twisted.

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Did Blagojevich get a perception break?

A part of me wonders if Rod Blagojevich should feel blessed today, what with a federal judge deciding that the trial on corruption-related charges of a one-time city government official will take place this summer.

U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman ruled Tuesday that the new trial for Al Sanchez, the one-time Streets and Sanitation commissioner, will begin in July – the Tuesday after Independence Day, to be exact.

SANCHEZ IS THE one-time head of the Hispanic Democratic Organization whom federal prosecutors claim was using his city government post to be able to give city jobs to those members of his Daley-supporting Latino organization who were particularly good at their campaign work.

As it turns out, Sanchez already has been found guilty once of federal charges and faced prison time, only to have his conviction overturned on the grounds that federal prosecutors were not completely honest about the criminal arrest records of some of their key witnesses.

That means Sanchez and aide Aaron del Valle will have to go on trial again. Gettleman is eager to get the process going, so he chose the July 6 date to start the process, which makes it likely that some time around August and early September we political observers are going to have to once again relive the tales of corruption and political hiring emanating from City Hall.

But let’s not forget that in a courtroom just eight floors higher in the Dirksen Federal Building, U.S. District Judge James Zagel is going to be presiding over the trial of Blagojevich, which has its own tentative start date in June.

THAT IS LIKELY to be a complex jury selection process (I seem to recall it took nearly two months to pick a jury to preside over the trial of former Gov. George Ryan) that will take time. I won’t be surprised if that case doesn’t start getting into some serious testimony until about August or early September.

As I see it, Rod Blagojevich is not going to be the only corrupt politico (or should I say alleged corrupt politico?) on trial. For those people who like to watch the activity coming from the federal courts for northern Illinois, there are going to be dueling trials.

Blagojevich’s case is going to have to compete with Sanchez for public attention. It has me wondering how the news judgment is going to be made on days when both cases literally go head-to-head (and reporter-type people are having to use the stairs to go up and down from the 17th to the 25th floor on days when the elevators are on the fritz).

Personally, I’d lean toward the Blagojevich trial only because we’ve already been through the Sanchez trial. But if things start picking up momentum in Sanchez’ favor, then it could wind up becoming the bigger deal since Sanchez’ conviction was a significant part of what is considered to be one of the biggest scams out of City Hall during the past decade.

IF SANCHEZ WINDS up getting acquitted, that could be a bigger deal than anything happening to Milorod – unless Blagojevich himself gets acquitted, in which case we will have mobs of angry people descending upon the Ravenswood neighborhood to express their disgust at the man they want in prison regardless of the truth.

But I also understand the reality of many local residents when it comes to politics. Anything happening out of City Hall is of much greater significance than something happening in, or related to, Springfield.

A city official allied with Mayor Richard M. Daley who gets caught doing something bad is going to be considered more important than any goofball governor – even if his wife literally does eat bugs on national television.

Sanchez literally could steal the local thunder from Blagojevich when it comes to criminal corruption trials for the year 2010, particularly since both men claim they’re not guilty and that they intend to fight their cases through the legal procedure.

I DOUBT EITHER one of these guys would seriously consider a plea bargain. They both believe in themselves way too much.

Now I know there are political people of the Republican persuasion who are counting on Milorod being in the news on a regular basis this summer so as to bolster their rhetoric – which will consist of little more than screaming the name “Blagojevich!” and claiming that Democrats are all associated with him.

That will happen despite the reality that Democrats in Springfield didn’t get along with the now-former governor and were more eager than Republicans to get rid of him back during the Legislature’s impeachment and trial proceedings early last year.

They’re probably going to claim that voters will look at the combination of the two and dismiss all people from Chicago when they vote in the November general election.

I DON’T DOUBT that some people will think that. But I think those residents of Anna, Dixon and likeminded places likely would have felt that way regardless of the circumstances. And I’m not convinced there are enough of them to swing an election.

So now we can see what Blagojevich might seriously be hoping for. What if we got both verdicts on the same day? Could Milorod wind up becoming an afterthought?

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We ought to hold courts to high ideal

I can already hear in my mind all the complaints from courthouse types who will be upset that a federal judge dared to overturn the conviction of the former Streets and Sanitation commissioner.

Al Sanchez was the former high-ranking Latino politico who got caught up in the petty graft that takes place at City Hall, which was the reason he went from being a noble public servant to just another corrupt official.

ON TUESDAY, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman issued a ruling that struck down Sanchez’ conviction.

His reasoning?

One of the primary witnesses to Sanchez’ behavior crossing over the line from political to criminal was someone who, to put it politely, sells illicit narcotics to earn a living.

It was the opinion of Sanchez’ attorneys that they should have been informed of that aspect of the witness’ character so they could use it against him during the trial, doing everything they could to besmirch his reputation in the eyes of the jury.

NOT THAT THAT alone would have guaranteed an acquittal for Sanchez. Anyone who has ever covered criminal proceedings realizes that the people who usually know the most about criminal behavior and activity are criminals themselves.

The idea of Jane Q. Citizen being an eyewitness and testifying as her way of serving her public duty occurs so rarely. Most of the witnesses in criminal cases are people who have something to gain by seeing the defendant receive a criminal conviction.

Prosecutors in this case admit they didn’t disclose all the information about their primary witness, although they claim it doesn’t matter. Even if he is not an ideal human being, this should not (in their opinion) be enough of an excuse to toss out the conviction that they worked so many years to obtain.

That is where I would have to disagree.

I REALIZE WE don’t live in the ideal world and that all witnesses have some sort of taint to them.

But something like this should have been made public. Let the defense do their best to try to “take down” the witness.

Because if the overall totality of the evidence is such that it persuades the jury to vote “guilty,” then it can be overcome.

How many organized crime figures are currently serving prison time because their one-time associates decided it was in their best interest (less prison time for themselves) to “give up” their former colleagues?

MY POINT IS that this factor can be overcome by prosecutors. Trying to downplay it by taking the attitude that the prosecution is somehow entitled to a bit of favoritism (seriously, I have heard prosecutors argue that judges are naïve when they use this type of logic to toss out evidence) is a sad case.

For the reality of every criminal case I have ever seen is that the prosecution has so many built-in advantages that there are times I wonder how any defendant ever gets an acquittal.

They shouldn’t have had to try to cut corners such as this.

For now we’re going to have to go through another trial, which will cost the federal taxpayers yet more dollars.

I DON’T ENVISION Sanchez being suddenly willing to plead guilty to lesser charges. He told the Chicago Tribune, “I’ve always maintained I’ve done nothing wrong.”

But then again, I don’t envision the prosecution wanting to give Sanchez any sort of deal that would let him plead guilty to a lesser charge – even though that would be the practical way to try to resolve this case at this stage in time.

For Sanchez is one of the former Hispanic Democratic Organization officials (even the group itself no longer exists) who got caught up in what prosecutors say was a scam to get around the rules that are supposed to govern hiring of employees for city government.

(Yes, there really are rules about how to get a job at City Hall, even though most people don’t have a clue what those rules really are).

NOW, WE GET to relive the whole hiring scam, and probably will get to hear a few stories about the venal way in which HDO attempted to bolster the political interests of Richard M. Daley by working on behalf of Latinos who were sympathetic to Hizzoner Jr.

By this point, it ought to be old news.

But that is what happens when prosecutors think they ought to have more advantages, rather than remembering that – in theory – defendants are innocent until proven otherwise.

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Sanchez not lying when he says he merely did government business the city way

The only aspect of the verdict against former Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Al Sanchez is that he wasn’t found guilty of all seven counts of mail fraud (the vague, all-purpose charge that says something improper was sent through the U.S. mail) pending against him.

He actually beat the rap on three charges. But Sanchez was still found guilty of four others, and that’s more than enough for federal prosecutors to crow about how much safer the streets of Chicago are now that another corrupt politico will be sent to prison.

THE JURY SPENT the past few days deciding they didn’t buy Sanchez’ claims that he merely was following the hiring practices of city government of the past. And if it turns out that his superiors hired people who did campaign work in order to get jobs picking up trash and spreading salt (at high union wages), then he should not be blamed.

“I just did my job the way I was supposed to do it,” Sanchez told reporter-types after the verdict against him was read.

Now this isn’t a defense of Sanchez’ conduct on the job. He probably did do things and engage in actions that prosecutors once looked the other way at. The true offense is that more political people decades ago were not prosecuted, not that Sanchez is now.

But there is one aspect of Sanchez that truly does fit into the idea of a guy just trying to do his job within city government in a way that makes him fit in.

THERE ARE THOSE who make a big deal about Sanchez’ political title, head of the now-defunct Hispanic Democratic Organization, which in theory was no different than a group such as Illinois Democratic Women or the Indo-American Democratic Organization.

It was a group that tried to increase political involvement of a group that didn’t fit into the traditional Irish-American demographic that for decades has dominated activity at City Hall.

Those people with a nativist streak in them like to imply that this shows Latinos are somehow inherently corrupt that the group trying to promote their political involvement would somehow get so tainted by allegations of political hiring.

Sanchez himself tried to play off such sentiment, saying sarcastically that his efforts to hire Latinos for city government jobs was being turned into “a federal crime” by the prosecutorial crew for the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago.

BUT ANYONE WHO watched the Hispanic Democratic Organization at work would realize how ridiculous such claims were.

Because in some respects, the Hispanic Democratic Organization was the biggest obstacle faced by some Latinos who wanted to be involved in Chicago’s public affairs.

Sanchez used his political influence to promote the interests of Latinos who were willing to accept the idea of Richard M. Daley as the “sun” upon which all of the Chicago government “universe” rotated around.

Hispanic Democratic Organization political workers would do their bidding and turn out the vote for candidates willing to back Daley. If it happened that a Latino candidate fell into that category, then it would work.

BUT THERE WERE cases where Latinos wishing to run for office had to fight against the Hispanic Democratic Organization, which smart alecks always claimed really stood for Hispanic Daley Organization.

In some cases, the group went so far as to back Anglo candidates against Latinos, if it were told to do so to promote the Daley interests.

Of course, this really follows the general trend of electoral politics in the city wards where a predominantly Spanish-speaking population exists. It is all too typical for the local elections that too many political observers think of as being between two anonymous Latinos to actually be between a Daley-allied Latino and (in the eyes of the Democratic organization) some Spanish-speaking smart aleck who dares to speak out against Hizzoner.

This trend was enhanced by the Hispanic Democratic Organization, which gave political muscle to one side. But it is by no means brought to an end by the conviction of Sanchez.

MY POINT IS to say that in certain aspects, it is true that Sanchez and the Hispanic Democratic Organization (which has withered away in recent years and become irrelevant) was merely reflecting the general attitude of the Daley administration.

Sanchez isn’t exaggerating when he says he was merely doing things the way they are done at “the Hall.”

Does this mean that I believe Richard M. Daley ought to be facing criminal indictment himself? I’m not willing to go that far.

But the idea that a major segment of Chicago political corruption has been brought to a close by the conviction of 61-year-old Al Sanchez (who could now be looking at up to two decades in a federal prison) is ridiculous.

THE GENERAL CONCEPTS espoused by Sanchez exist in other officials currently on the city payroll, and likely also the Cook County and Illinois government payrolls as well. So the actual effect of the Sanchez verdict could be minimal, unless federal prosecutors are determined to continue their efforts throughout the City Hall culture.

Actually, there is one other potential affect of the verdict. The streets of Chicago during the winter seasons could get very sloppy.

To many Chicagoans, Sanchez was the guy from “Streets & San” who got interviewed on television newscasts whenever it snowed. He was the guy who decided how much salt got dumped on city streets, and which side streets got plowed first.

Because to many city residents, so long as he did that job competently, they were more than willing to ignore all this other political talk that came up during the trial. If anything, the willingness of city residents to tolerate such activity in exchange for a clean street or two may be the real crime.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: A crook or a victim? Al Sanchez was hardly the only person behaving (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/03/al-sanchez-corruption-trial.html) the way he did while doing “the people’s business” at City Hall.

Certain Latinos benefited from the creation of the Hispanic Democratic Organization (http://www.ipsn.org/hired_truck_scandal/hdo_grows_into_political_powerho.htm), while others had their political aspirations squashed.