Is it proper to pardon the “criminal” amongst our political people?

Back when I covered the General Assembly on a full-time basis, there was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives named Coy Pugh.

PUGH: No better, or worse, than colleagues

He served about a decade representing assorted West Side neighborhoods in the Legislature, and probably wouldn’t have stood out in my mind at all except for one fact.

PUGH HAS A criminal record. He served stints in both federal and state prisons, and also knows what the inside of the Cook County Jail is like. But in his early 30s, he “found religion” and managed to clean up his act, getting himself an education and getting off the drugs that had led him into many improper acts.

Now I’m not trying to offer up any apologies for Pugh – whom I haven’t seen since the day that then-Gov. George Ryan commuted all those death row sentences and Pugh happened to be in attendance for the announcement at Northwestern University.

But the memories I have of Pugh as a legislator are that he wasn’t any more, or less, competent than anyone else who served in the General Assembly at the time.

There were those who had hang-ups about his presence at the Statehouse. But it always seemed motivated more by partisan politics and ideological concerns than anything legitimate.

PERHAPS IT IS because of this factor that I don’t get as worked up over a set of stories that have cropped up in recent weeks concerning people with criminal records who have managed to get themselves elected to office. I wouldn’t want a Legislature or City Council full of felons (insert your tacky joke here about the politicos being felons-in-training).

But there may be a few who have learned from their experience and are capable of serving in the representative bodies of government. Particularly if the voters in their respective districts are willing to put them there.

QUINN: Complaints about pardons

Just on Monday, the Chicago Sun-Times published a recent study by the Better Government Association concerning Juan Elias. He works for 1^st Ward Alderman Proco “Joe” Moreno, had criminal convictions and was less-than-upfront about them when he first applied for a city payroll job.

There are those who’d like to see him fired just for that factor. But Gov. Pat Quinn threw a wrench into those works when he approved a pardon for Elias. Which means his criminal convictions aren’t supposed to be held against him any longer.

THIS ISN’T EVEN a new move.

For in suburban Harvey, there is District 152 school board President Janet Rogers with a pair of felony convictions – which has the Illinois attorney general’s office trying to figure out how she can be removed from office. But Quinn gave her a pardon as well.

In her case, one of her convictions related to her providing false information about her finances when her son tried to get a financial aid package to go to college.

But she was able to get into political office (school boards are as political an animal as any other) first through appointment, then through election. Part of what allowed her to slip through is that her conviction was done under her maiden name.

SO SOMEWHERE ALONG the line, people didn’t realize at first that she had a record. Although considering that she keeps getting re-elected, they don’t seem to care (although it should be acknowledged that in many suburban boards, there are barely enough candidates to fill them. People often run un-opposed).

At the time of the pardon for Rogers, Quinn aides did not offer specific explanations for her case – preferring to talk in generalities about the pardon process.

ROGERS: Keeping her school board post

It may well be that Quinn believes in a second chance, or saw that these officials weren’t any less inept than the non-felons who got elected to office. Or that it is questionable to dump someone from office whom the voters put there – which is Rogers’ case. Or in the case of Elias, not forcing someone out just because the critics might be offended at his superior (Moreno is the alderman who previously got into the public spat with the Chick-fil-A people when they wanted to locate in his ward over his objections).

Or maybe he just saw how ridiculously absurd the pardon and clemency process had become in Illinois.

BECAUSE QUINN HAS a backlog of cases from the days of Rod Blagojevich – who appeared to want to NOT grant pardons, but also wasn’t terribly interested in rejecting them either.

Which will make any future apathy with regards to his own legal appeals or pardon requests all the more ironic.

He preferred to ignore the cases. I’ll credit Quinn for at least having the nerve to address the issue. Or for realizing that dumping these people from office just because of decades-old criminal cases would seem like a technicality that goes against the will of the people.

Get the courts to dump them, on account of the fact that they couldn’t be beat at the ballot box.

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Can we end this “controversy” now?!?

We got the encore this week to what may well be the ‘stupid’ scandal of the summer. Anybody else remember Chick-fil-A?

MORENO: Back in the news because of pollo



All across the country, government officials have been expressing their opposition to the chicken chain, which is an Atlanta-based company whose owners like to claim they believe in morals, decency and respect – but go out of their way to express hateful attitudes toward gay people.

THEY MAY HAVE the right to think such thoughts. But what arouses the ire of many people is the way this particularly company’s management likes to use its financial muscle to push for politicians who will promote their warped ideals.

So naturally, when the company decided it was going to start trying to set up their franchises in Chicago, it was all too likely that one of our local officials would take offense.

That came in the form of 1^st Ward Alderman Proco “Joe” Moreno, who decided that he didn’t want the company locating a store in the portion of the Logan Square neighborhood that lies within his ward.

He went after the Chick-fil-A people, claiming their views didn’t represent those of Chicagoans. For a short while, he even had Mayor Rahm Emanuel on his side.

BUT THEN, THE ideologues came crawling out of the woodwork, and this whole issue seriously devolved to the level of stupidity.

The same people who made a point of deliberately eating at Chick-fil-A franchises because the food is “delicious, and non-gay” (their words, not mine) took up the cause of “freedom of expression.”

They wanted someone to be permitted to express such nonsense-talk. Which may well be within their right – we do have the right to be wrong.

But what I never understood about the way this turned into a crusade to shut Moreno up was the idea that, somehow, Chick-fil-A was entitled to the “last” word.

AS THOUGH THE company could not be challenged on their beliefs. That is pure nonsense. Freedom of expression really means that we can devolve into a batch of whiners with everybody expressing their thoughts equally.

Any other belief is just downright un-American – which is what I think of the people who are going to be determined to believe that Moreno “lost” this brawl, which hopefully is now resolved on account of the fact that the company has come up with some sort of statement that will be interpreted by some as a shift in their attitudes on the issue of gay marriage and homosexuality.

The statement, supposedly sent to all franchises from the corporate headquarters, tells the managers that they’re not to disrespect anyone based on sexual orientation. It also says the company’s not-for-profit foundation will stop giving financial contributions to groups that oppose gay couples being able to marry.

In exchange for that, Moreno says he’ll now stand back and do nothing to thwart a Chick-fil-A franchise from setting up in his neighborhood. Although one of the "golden" rules of the "Chicago Way" of doing things is that aldermen reign supreme over what goes on in their wards.

PERSONALLY, I THINK the statement is cheap talk. I read the rhetoric and wonder what the loophole is that will still allow for hostility toward gay people and support for those who act against them.

Will it literally be just the company’s executives making private contributions to the politicians of their choice? This may not change anything. Which would make the whole summer’s worth of flare-ups a whole lot of rants about nothing!

Personally, I was glad when this story withered away in the news cycle during the summer. Having it crop up again this week is kind of annoying. Because I don’t think of a Chick-fil-A store as a place worth much attention either way. The one time I ate there (a store in Springfield, Ill., that no longer exists), I was distinctly unimpressed with my sandwich.

The one good thing I can think of coming out of all this is that we can quit thinking of Chick-fil-A as being a place to make a political statement, and can go back to thinking of it as merely a franchise that serves mediocre food.

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Holding a finger into the wind before taking that ‘bold’ stance on an issue

Political people are inherently similar, regardless of what level of government they happen to work in.

MORENO: Backing the marchers



Whether urban or rural, progressive or conservative, ethnic or as boringly Anglo as one can get, it seems that any public official who happens to take a stance on an issue usually winds up siding with the types of people who he thinks will vote for him.

POLITICIANS HAVE A knack for “boldly going” wherever their desired constituents lead them.

At least that’s what I can’t help but perceive from watching the recent actions of Kyle McCarter and Proco “Joe” Moreno.

The latter is a Chicago alderman – the boss of the no-longer-mob-influenced First Ward, while the former is a state Senator from a rural town that views Decatur, Ill., as its “big” city. One is a Democrat from the Wicker Park neighborhood that isn’t as trendy anymore as it likes to think it is, while the other is a Republican who likely has no use for any of those “trendy” types from select Chicago neighborhoods.

Yet both of them are inherently animals of the political species. (Homo politicus?) Which is why I get my chuckles from their “bold” stands that are about as predictable as one can get.

IN THE CASE of Moreno, he came out on Friday and told WBEZ-FM during an interview that he is supportive of all these protesters who have been marching in cities across the nation, including Chicago (going so far as to get arrested Saturday night when they wouldn’t leave Grant Park at its official closing time).

Which is a bit of a shock, since he may be the first government official to say much of anything about these people. Other officials who have been asked have managed to come up with solid streams of gobbledygook on the subject.



McCARTER: Backing the church

But Moreno says nice things about the people, even saying that he thinks their message will become sharper and more to the point as they continue to march and picket.

“It just shows the rage and the inequity where you’ve got our population going,  spreading out more towards the bottom and fewer towards the top and the middle is shrinking,” Moreno told Chicago's NPR affiliate radio station. “That’s what you’re seeing that rage and that disgust.”

THEN AGAIN, MORENO is a product of Wicker Park, which isn’t the youthful trendsetter neighborhood any longer, but still has certain types of people living there.

It may well be Moreno’s neighbors comprising a large share of the protest marchers in the events in Chicago.

Which means that Moreno is simply trying to tell his constituents he’s not going to bad-mouth them for their actions, because he wants their votes come the next citywide election cycle in 2015.

The last thing he needs to do is say something silly that could escalate, linger around for a few years and bite him in the nalgas when he runs for re-election just over three years from now.

THAT ALSO IS what likely motivates McCarter of the Illinois state Senate, which is likely what caused him to sponsor a bill that will be considered during the spring of 2012.

His issue is adoption, particularly the fact that changes in state law that respect gay people as individuals have had the effect of cutting out of the process religious-based groups that used to be used by the state to actually place orphaned and abused children into adoptive and foster homes respectively.

Catholic Charities still has a legal battle pending on behalf of rural Illinois dioceses, although the courts thus far have ruled that the church doesn’t have a right to state contracts – and must follow the state’s rules if they want to receive them.

So McCarter’s bill, according to the State Journal-Register newspaper of Springfield, Ill., essentially would create an exception to the rules for religious-based organizations that want to be in the child-welfare basis. They can still be involved, even if they don't want to acknowledge gay couples as legitimate possibilities for children in need of a home.

IN SHORT, McCARTER wants to change the rules – which will be perceived well by those people who have a hang-up about the fact that the state is not siding with them on this issue.

It’s very likely that this bill will get killed off somewhere in the process. McCarter’s introduction of it may well be its highlight. It probably will NOT become law.

But I doubt that McCarter cares. Because what something like this is about is appealing to certain potential voters and trying to get them to be, if not supportive, then not openly hostile towards his political existence.

This is about McCarter trying to get himself re-elected by claiming he’s standing up to “those” people. And as for the gay rights activists who are calling this particular bill “homophobic,” he probably figures those people would never have voted for him anyway.

SO HE DOESN’T lose much of anything. In fact, it might even bolster his profile just enough that he gets a bit more statewide support from the organizations that have their pet issues and are willing to dole out some campaign cash to their potential allies.

Which may also be Moreno’s reasoning. Being one of the few to publicly back the Wall Street protests makes him stand out. At the very least, McCarter and Moreno aren’t just anonymous political schmoes.

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