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Daley sees no problem with Sorich's fundraiser
By Fran Spielman, City Hall Reporter - Chicago Sun-Times
August 22, 2006
Unlike his brother, Mayor Daley did not attend the weekend fundraiser at a Bridgeport church to help defray the legal fees of his convicted patronage chief.
But the mayor was apparently there in spirit.
He has no problem with the $100-a-head event for a man convicted last month of rigging city hiring to benefit pro-Daley armies of political workers.
“They’re all friends.…They can have a party for him. There’s nothing wrong with that….You help your friends…You’re in a [media] industry. Each one of these reporters help friends. You know that. You have friends in your own industry. There’s nothing wrong with that. They have it every day,” Daley said.
The mayor did not waver one bit when asked whether the Sorich fundraiser had sent a “mixed message” to government employees — and offered “tacit approval that those in power” think Sorich did nothing wrong.
“They’re still friends of his. Do you think when someone makes one mistake that you would kick them all the way down the street? I doubt it. Your profession would never do that,” he said.
Dan Sprehe, chief investigator for the Better Government Association, said the Sorich fundraiser “sends a good message about friendship,” but a bad one about government reform.
“If you stand in unwavering support of someone who was convicted of [rigging city hiring], I don’t think that lends much credibility when the mayor talks about being committed to rooting out patronage, corruption and the old way of doing business,” Sprehe said.
“The mayor says he’s committed to uphold legal hiring practices. Never mind that we’re in court every single day trying get Shakman thrown out. It’s the same kind of thing.”
The Chicago Sun-Times reported earlier this week that hundreds of people had packed Daley’s family church to raise tens of thousands of dollars to pay the legal bills of Sorich.
Among those attending the fundraiser that spilled out into the parking lot of Nativity of Our Lord church were Cook County Cmsr. John Daley; Mayor Daley’s former political enforcer Tim Degnan; former union boss and reputed Outfit member Bruno Caruso; and Bridgeport Ald. James Balcer (11th).
Nativity of Our Lord is the parish church of the Daley family. It’s the church where Richard J. and Eleanor Daley were married and eulogized and where they baptized their seven children.
Sorich and his family have decades-long ties to both Bridgeport in general and the Daley family in particular.
Sorich’s father served as the official photographer for former Mayor Richard J. Daley, the current mayor’s father. Robert Sorich was an aide to Balcer’s predecessor, former Ald.Pat Huels (11th), before joining the Mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Sorich continued to drive John Daley to work, even after he became the mayor’s patronage chief.
At City Hall, Sorich was viewed as a likable man — and as a pawn in a much larger scheme to rig city hiring. The trial that ended last month has been “devastating” to the Sorich family and left Robert Sorich in dire financial straits, Balcer said.
Since the day he was arrested and charged, Mayor Daley has defended Sorich as a hard-working employee. Like Sorich’s attorney, the mayor has accused federal prosecutors of criminalizing violations of the Shakman decree banning political hiring and firing that, until now, were a civil matter.
Copyright 2006 - Chicago Sun-Times
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