Chicago City Wire

The husband of a state legislator allegedly received special consideration when the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) hired him in what appears to be an illegal patronage hire.

According to a report from the Governor’s Office of the Executive Inspector General, Mary Person, the CTA’s diversity director, was told to hire Eric McKennie as a diversity consultant in 2017 instead of another candidate selected from a pool of applicants.

In an issue of the newsletter for Illinois Ethics Matters that has since been taken down, the agency said McKennie was hired in October 2016 for a job that “had essentially the same duties as an open position, but without the required hiring procedures and with a significantly higher salary.”

Citing an anonymous tip, the OEIG report said, “It was rumored he was given the job because of his wife’s position as a state legislator. The complaint stated that Mr. McKennie had bragged about being at the inauguration of his wife in Springfield.”

The complaint also said McKennie “seemed to come and go as he pleased, so his hire did not decrease the workload within the Department of Diversity at all.”

An article in the Chicago Sun-Times traces the misconduct to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s efforts to remove federal oversight of “political hiring and firing of city workers.”

After Emanuel successfully lobbied a federal judge to remove hiring restrictions, McKennie was reportedly hired at an $80,000 annual salary, though the OEIG report said he rarely showed up for work.

The Illinois Ethics Matters newsletter said a vice president of legislative affairs sent McKennie’s credentials to CTA senior management. The vice president was allegedly aware of McKennie’s connections, and “McKennie also held himself out as being married to that state legislator during the hiring process.”

By hiring McKennie, the CTA Diversity Office may also have committed illegal discrimination “against qualified individuals who did not have such political connections,” the newsletter stated.

McKennie sought work after he was let go from the Illinois Department of Transportation when another OEIG investigation uncovered hiring irregularities.