Chicago City Wire

The League of Women Voters of Illinois recently hosted a webinar on ethics reform with the hope of restoring faith in Illinois politics.

State Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) and Alisa Kaplan, the executive director of Reform for Illinois, spoke on the webinar.

Cassidy said lobbying reform is needed because even during her time in the General Assembly there were individuals whose roles were unclear because they were juggling positions as lobbyists and lawmakers.

“There is the perception and then, in many cases, the reality, there is a constant revolving door,” Cassidy said during the webinar.

Cassidy said proposals have been made to create a space between the roles.

“For example, if I were to lobby the City of Chicago, I bring with it my reputation and my influence as a legislator, so prohibiting legislator lobbyists is pretty critical,” Cassidy said.

Cassidy said there also needs to be fuller disclosure of outside income.

“We need to make sure we’re getting meaningful disclosure without crossing into unintended consequences,” Cassidy said. “We have a very limited way to censure folks.”

Kaplan said ethics is all about the fundamentals of making the government work for the people it’s supposed to work for.

“It’s about putting the public’s interest first and it’s about making people’s lives better,” Kaplan said during the webinar. “I want to repeat that. Ethics is about making people’s lives better. It’s about making sure the scarce resources we have in Illinois go where they’re supposed to go — to go to the people that need them the most.”

Kaplan said Reform Illinois supports allowing the legislative inspector general an expanded role.

“They should be able to publish reports when they find there has been wrongdoing,” Kaplan said. “We saw problems with the existing system — it’s basically the fox watching the hen house. You’ve got a group of legislators policing themselves.”

Kaplan said the previous legislative inspector general said she had found many violations by sitting legislators and when she asked the Legislative Ethics Commission to publish her report, they refused to do so.

“There are findings of serious ethical violations that the public still doesn’t know about and we think that’s wrong,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan said when the legislative inspector general makes these findings, they should be allowed to share them.

“We’d really like to see some motion on incoming ethics movements,” Kaplan said.