The former head of the state’s Veterans’ Affairs office used her political campaign fund to write two checks totaling $50,000 to her mother last month, a move state elections officials say could be a violation of state election laws.

Linda Chapa LaVia said the checks — logged as January expenditures in her required campaign filings — were to repay a loan her mother made to help her start her political career about two decades ago.

But records at the Illinois State Board of Elections show her campaign made no disclosure of a loan to her committee, launched ahead of her successful campaign to become a Democrat state representative from Aurora in 2003. It also does not show up in the original documents creating her political fundraising committee.

State elections officials said failure to report that income accurately is a violation of the state’s campaign disclosure laws. After communication with elections officials following the BGA’s inquiries, LaVia returned the $50,000 to her campaign account Feb. 18, records show.

LaVia described the campaign snafu as an oversight.

“A lot of paperwork got lost in translation from one account to another and working on a full-blown campaign,” said LaVia, who was appointed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker to head the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs in 2019.

“I’m trying to reconcile everything,” she said. “If mistakes were made in the past, a lot of it wasn’t my doing.”

LaVia said the logistics of her campaign at the time were run by the political operation of then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who resigned last year amid a federal corruption investigation. Madigan did not return requests for comment.

“Between me opening my account and the speaker going into the account and taking it all over, I don’t even know” how the loan was never reported, she said, adding Madigan operatives handled everything. “You’re the candidate, and that’s all you’re doing.”

LaVia resigned as head of Veterans’ Affairs in January 2021 following reports of dozens of veteran deaths at state nursing homes with lax COVID-19 protocols.

Officials at the board of elections, the state agency in charge of investigating campaign disclosure violations and issuing discipline, said they are in communication with LaVia in attempts to resolve the issue.

“We don’t know where this goes from here,” said Matt Dietrich of the state elections board. He said he cannot recall a time in which a former politician was fined or rebuked for improperly using funds in their campaign accounts.

“This is the first time, that we can recall, where we’ve had this circumstance of a loan made to a committee, it being repaid after the fact, but it was never accounted for throughout the committee’s history,” Dietrich said.

LaVia has filed a new document — called an A1 — to clear up what she said was a paperwork mistake.

Reformers Decry Lax Laws

Election reform groups have long advocated for disclosure laws with more teeth.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” said Jay Young, executive director of Common Cause Illinois, who has advocated for laws to mirror state’s such as California, where officials “go deep into all manner of contributions, loans and how those dollars are coming in and going out the door.

“We obviously didn’t get that here,” he said. “There’s not much risk of enforcement and kind of a slap on the wrist if you get caught.”

A review of board of elections records shows more than 150 campaign disclosure complaints filed since Jan. 1, 2017.

He said the board has issued fines to some officials who failed to file campaign disclosure reports or amendments within the statutory time frame required. Dietrich said in addition to investigating complaints, the board’s Division of Campaign Disclosure also conducts random audits of up to 3% of all campaign accounts every year.

Although enforcement against candidates for improperly spending their campaign funds is rare, one notable example came in 2016, when former Illinois State Rep. Frank Mautino — now Pritzker’s auditor general — used $250,000 in campaign funds for fuel and repairs to his personal cars. He said he and his associates were using the cars for campaign work.

After a process that bounced from the board to the courts to the Illinois Supreme Court and back to the board, state election officials decided not to pursue discipline against Mautino.

Under state law, former elected officials can keep their campaign accounts open indefinitely, Dietrich said.

A look at the campaign accounts of former elected officials amount to millions of dollars, and the law restricts use of all campaign funds to political activity. Notable examples of former officials with accounts still open include Madigan, former Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, former Gov. Jim Edgar — who now uses his fund to support candidates and policy ideas — as well as former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

“There are so many political committees, and it’s not realistic to go through all of them with a fine-tooth comb,” said Alisa Kaplan, executive director of Reform for Illinois. “But it needs to audit enough of them to deter wrongdoing. And in enforcement, the board needs to provide enough leeway for some honest or trivial mistakes, so as not to prevent good candidates from reaching  public office, while still sending a message that people have to follow the rules.”
 
Kaplan and Young pointed to laws elsewhere, such as those in New York City, with more proactive disclosure rules.
 
“We have to overhaul [and] replace what I would say is very weak and limited disclosure forms,” Young said. “There are other options; this isn’t rocket science; we can just duplicate what is being done — what is working well — in other states.”

‘My Political Days Are Over’

The $50,000 LaVia paid to her mother, Mary Lou Chapa, first showed up in a Jan. 17 campaign filing as two $25,000 “principal” payments. In her filing, LaVia said the payments were a reimbursement for a “startup loan for campaign from 04/01/2003. Previously reported as contributions.”

She said her accountant is working with the board of elections to try to document the loan, and she has provided bank records from 2001 through 2003 to help reconcile the problem.

When LaVia and her team opened her committee in 2001, it should’ve reported the $50,000 loan. But instead, the fund’s balance at its creation showed up as zero dollars, Dietrich said.

“At minimum, they’ll have to file a letter explaining all of this; then there are other possibilities that our disclosure division is looking into now as to how to handle this,” he said. “They may have to file 20-plus years of amended reports to account for this $50,000 that’s missing.

“If what they’re telling us is true, there should’ve been an extra $50,000 balance on all of those reports,” Dietrich said. “That money was never showed as being held by the committee.”

The board of elections has recommended LaVia do two things: Get an accountant, and do as thorough an audit of the committee’s finances as possible; and amend the committee’s quarterly reports as far back as they can be amended.

The former state representative’s campaign committee could face a fine for the late filing of its statement of organization, said Dietrich, adding the board has not yet received a formal complaint on the matter.

“Every business day between when they received the loan and when they formed the committee would be a $50 fine up to $5,000,” Dietrich said. “Did she give it in October of 2001, in which case 60 days before the committee was organized? We just don’t know. … If there’s no paperwork, then I’m not quite sure how we could calculate that fine.”

Loaning a committee money isn’t prohibited under state law, nor is it prohibited to give a loan to a family member’s campaign fund — but not reporting it is.

A review of campaign finance records shows LaVia did report two other campaign loans in 2002 totaling $35,000 from her mother and her mother’s realty company. Her campaign records indicate those loans were repaid within months. 

LaVia said she plans to close the fund and make sure “all paperwork is submitted properly.”

“You may wish you’d done X, Y or Z or had more insight into what was going on, but you don’t because you’re told to be a candidate,” she said. “We’re trying to make sure that we’re working with the board and only close the account properly once this is figured out.”

LaVia said she has no further need for a campaign fund: “My political days are over.”
 

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Our Weekend Watch shines a spotlight on government activity.

A Better Government Association investigation claimed a blind trust connected to Governor JB Pritzker bought stock in one of the state’s biggest Medicaid contractors.

The purchase of stock in health insurance giant Centene Corp. was made on behalf of the billionaire governor by trustees at Northern Trust, appointed by Pritzker to independently manage his portfolio to separate those investment decisions from his role as the state’s most powerful elected official.

The investment in Centene, which collected more than $2.6 billion from state Medicaid contracts in the first half of 2021, demonstrated the pitfalls of a blind-trust arrangement that still leaves the nation’s richest governor open to potential conflicts of interest, according to the Better Government Association investigation.

The communications director for Pritzker’s campaign said the governor has no involvement in investment decisions. In a statement to ABC7, Natalie Edelstein said “Governor Pritzker did divest his personal portfolio of companies holding state contracts and then removed himself from all investment decisions.” Edelstein added that “to suggest he broke his campaign pledge is false” and “the trustees provide Governor Pritzker only with an annual report of his assets, which contains no values, in order to sign his Statement of Economic Interests pursuant to the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act.”

The issue of stock purchases by elected officials has been debated in Congress, which is considering an array of strengthened stock disclosure laws aimed at stopping lawmakers from profiting from their access to insider information.

“This effort is being undertaken because members of Congress are personally engaged in trading stock, which Governor Pritzker is not. Governor Pritzker does not personally make any investments, nor has he been involved in any discussions at any time regarding any investments since taking office,” Pritzker’s campaign said.

Experts interviewed by the Better Government Association said the governor could have avoided potential conflict by instructing his trust managers to refrain from investing in state contractors. Pritzker’s spokespeople declined to say whether he ever considered doing so.

“I don’t see why a trustee couldn’t operate within those bounds, especially given that he seems to have acknowledged the potential of a conflict with his pledge to divest of companies that hold state contracts,” said Eleanor Eagan of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Neither Pritzker representatives nor the managers of his trust would say how much the investment in Centene is worth to Pritzker’s bottom line. They also declined to say specifically when the stock purchase was made, the BGA said.

When asked whether the governor, after learning he became invested in one of the state’s largest contractors sometime during 2020, took steps to recuse himself from decisions that directly affected the company’s finances, his spokeswoman told the BGA he has not.

“The governor is not involved in the contracting process related to Centene,” said Jordan Abudayyeh, Pritzker’s communication director. “There is nothing he would have to recuse himself from.”

On July 1, 2021, Chicago Inspector General Joe Ferguson sent a letter to Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Budget Committee Chair Ald. Patricia Dowell and Ethics Committee Chair Ald. Michelle Smith, announcing his intention to step down at the end of his term on Oct. 15, 2021. 

It marked the end of a 12-year career that oversaw some of the highest-profile investigations in recent memory. As Ferguson noted in his resignation letter, it also meant that for the first time, the city would select a new inspector general using a search process established in a 2016 ordinance.

Four months have now passed, and the inspector general’s position still is vacant. The position of public safety deputy in the IG’s office, mandated by the court-monitored police consent decree, also remains vacant. There are no publicly posted notices, agendas or minutes for the selection committee that leads the replacement search. This leaves the public with no indication what work, if any, is being done to fill the vacancy. The 2016 ordinance, while an improvement over what preceded it, nevertheless contains no deadlines or provisions to speed the process, and the ordinance does not even contemplate the naming of an acting IG. 

The paradox, in this particular instance, is that Ferguson announced his intent to stand down in July for the specific purpose of offering the mayor time to fill the position without a gap in performing this important public function. Mayor Lightfoot has named William Marback as acting IG, but that process would benefit from more effective guidance, too.

The law should be strengthened to ensure that vacancies to this critical post are filled promptly, transparently and judiciously.

What’s Supposed to Happen?

Like most department heads, the city inspector general is appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council. Inspectors general serve a four-year term, after which the mayor has two options: 

• No later than 45 days before the end of an inspector general’s term, the mayor can send a notice of reappointment to the City Council for approval.
• If the mayor does not reappoint the incumbent:

  • A selection committee is named, with two members appointed by the City Council and three by the mayor with City Council approval.
  • Within 15 days after the vacancy, the committee picks a national search firm to produce a pool of 20 qualified candidates.
  • The committee recommends at least one candidate to the mayor.
  • The mayor either selects a nominee from the committee’s list and sends it to City Council for approval, or the mayor rejects the recommendations and instructs the committee to restart the search. 

What’s Not Working?

The law as written leaves ambiguity that can prolong the search process indefinitely, while shielding it from public attention or oversight. 

Specifically, it: 

• Lacks deadlines or public meetings for nearly every step in the process
• Lacks specifics regarding the bid process and funding source for the search firm, or regarding departmental oversight of the search committee
• Does not provide for an “interim” or “acting” inspector general, or process for appointing one
• Creates a second vacancy by terminating the public safety deputy’s term at the same time as the inspector general’s, then prolongs that vacancy by making the inspector general responsible for heading the search for a new deputy.

Deadlines & Public Meetings

There are only two explicit deadlines in the ordinance: the requirement that the mayor reappoint an incumbent inspector general no less than 45 days before the term is up, and the requirement that the selection committee for a new inspector general name a search firm within 15 days after a vacancy.

There are no deadlines for the search firm to finalize its candidate pool, for the selection committee to make recommendations to the mayor or for the mayor to make a nomination to City Council or reject the recommendations and restart the process.

None of the steps trigger public meetings of the City Council or its committees, so there is little public input or oversight of the selection process. As an advisory body that does not make a final appointment, the selection committee is governed by the Open Meetings Act, but currently no notices, agendas or minutes have been posted in the search for Ferguson’s replacement. 

In response to a FOIA request from the BGA policy team for documentation of selection committee meetings, the mayor’s office provided copies of Zoom invitations for the following:

• Kickoff meeting on Oct. 15, 2021
• Meeting to review interview protocols, select candidates for interview and discuss and decide on interview questions on Nov. 30, 2021 
• Candidate interviews (two per day) on Dec. 9 and 10, 2021
• Candidate interviews on Feb. 11, 2022.

Because the meetings were not held in compliance with the state Open Meetings Act, or otherwise publicly announced, that FOIA response is the first public record showing any progress in the IG search. 

Managerial and Bid Oversight Issues

The inspector general ordinance outlines the appointment process for a selection committee, but it does not assign oversight of the committee to any city department. Since appointment of the inspector general is a mayoral duty, it makes sense for the selection committee to fall under the Office of the Mayor for budgetary and oversight purposes, but the statute does not make this explicit.

Direct departmental oversight is relevant for a number of issues, including Freedom of Information Act, Open Meetings Act and Local Records Act compliance. The selection committee is a public body doing public work, with records and meetings governed accordingly by state law. It needs a public point of contact and trained compliance staff to meet its obligations.

Also unclear from existing ordinance is what budget the selection committee can tap to hire its search firm or how that contract is to be bid out. (In response to a FOIA request, the mayor’s office provided an undated request-for-quote document seeking a search firm contractor; it states that invoices will be sent to the city’s Department of Human Resources.)

Interim or Acting Inspector General Provision

After Ferguson left office, Lightfoot named William Marback as acting inspector general, and the Office of the Inspector General website identifies him as such. But there is no clear statutory authority for the mayor to have made this appointment. 

City law gives the mayor authority to appoint officers and fill vacancies “not otherwise provided by the laws of this state or the provisions of this code.” But because the inspector general ordinance does provide otherwise, by laying out a specific nomination process that goes above and beyond transmission of a nominee to City Council for approval, the mayor is required to handle the vacancy in accordance with those specific provisions. No part of the process laid out in the inspector general ordinance provides for the appointment of a temporary, acting or interim inspector general. 

The work of the Office of the Inspector General faces serious challenges in the absence of a legally appointed chief officer.  Since the role of acting inspector general does not legally exist, any actions taken in its name are on dubious grounds. The lack of statutory mandate for the position of acting IG makes appointment and confirmation of a fully-empowered inspector general even more time sensitive and critical. 

Coterminous Inspector General and Public Safety Deputy Terms

One of the statutory duties of an inspector general is to lead the search to fill any vacancy for public safety deputy. The inspector general ordinance complicates matters by making the public safety deputy’s term “coterminous with the term of the appointing Inspector General.” That means that when Ferguson’s term expired on Oct. 15, 2021, Public Safety Deputy Deborah Witzburg’s term also was up–although she continued her duties for several weeks before submitting a resignation letter with an effective date of Nov. 12, 2021. 

Since there is no legal authority for an acting inspector general, the search for a public safety deputy is on hold until a new inspector general is named. The law as written creates two vacancies at once and also ensures that one will remain vacant until the other is filled. This compounds the impact of a prolonged vacancy in the inspector general’s role.

Any leadership vacancy hinders an office’s ability to execute its duties, but the public safety deputy position specifically is mandated by the Illinois v. Chicago consent decree. The vacancy puts a city with an already dismal compliance rating even further behind on the court-ordered reforms of its police department. The public safety deputy also has a statutory duty to publish all final reports publicly, in contrast to the inspector general’s limited power of release, making the position one of the city’s strongest transparency and oversight tools.  

What’s the Best Path Forward?

There are some clear and easy steps Chicago should take to clean up its inspector general appointment process.

At minimum, the selection committee must promptly begin complying with the Open Meetings Act by posting meeting notices, agendas and minutes in a timely fashion. If the committee elects to perform parts of its work in closed session, as allowed under the Act for delineated purposes, it must vote during a properly convened public meeting to do so. That would provide the public with a clear record of progress in the search process. 

City Council also has the power to amend the ordinance governing the inspector general’s replacement. The Better Government Association’s policy team recommends amendatory language to:

• Enforce deadlines for significant stages of the replacement process, including the appointment of a search committee, the selection of a search firm, the presentation of candidates by the search firm, the recommendation of candidates to the mayor by the search committee and the selection of a nominee—or rejection of all nominees and restart of the process—by the mayor.
• Require a transparent, public bid process for selection of the search firm and provide clear departmental oversight and budgetary responsibility for the search committee.
• Authorize the appointment of an interim inspector general with limited power during the search process.
• Separate the terms of the inspector general and the public safety deputy, allowing each to serve a full four-year term after their appointment.

The unequal authority of the IG and the public safety IG to publish findings, which is brought into public view by the renomination process, also should be attended to. The BGA urgently recommends updating the inspector general’s duty and authority to publish reports without needing approval, a change that would create independence that matches that of the public safety deputy. In addition to improving transparency, this would provide consistency for an office where, under current law, a deputy has more authority over the release of their reports than the chief officer.

All of the above changes can be made via ordinance, which any alderperson could introduce and would likely be assigned to the Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight. BGA supports and encourages the introduction of changes to strengthen oversight, provide clear and enforceable deadlines for the inspector general replacement process, and empower the IG to release findings independently and directly to the public.

The blind trust set up to manage Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s vast wealth bought stock in one of the state’s biggest Medicaid contractors in 2020, the same year his administration made several decisions that benefited the company’s bottom line.

The purchase of stock in health insurance giant Centene Corp. was made on behalf of the billionaire governor by trustees at Northern Trust, appointed by Pritzker to independently manage his portfolio to separate those investment decisions from his role as the state’s most powerful elected official.

The investment in Centene — which collected more than $2.6 billion from state Medicaid contracts in the first half of 2021 alone — demonstrates the pitfalls of a blind-trust arrangement that still leaves the nation’s richest governor open to potential conflicts of interest.

The acquisition by Pritzker’s trust came despite his campaign pledge to purge his personal portfolio of companies holding state contracts. He also promised, as governor-elect, to make charitable contributions matching gains in his trust’s holdings from entities that hold state contracts.

The issue of stock purchases by elected officials is now being debated in Congress, which is considering an array of strengthened stock disclosure laws aimed at stopping lawmakers from profiting from their access to insider information. The stock holdings of judges and federal banking officials also have come under scrutiny.

Experts interviewed by the Better Government Association say the governor could have avoided the potential conflict by instructing his trust managers to refrain from investing in state contractors. Pritzker’s spokespeople declined to say whether he ever considered doing so.

“I don’t see why a trustee couldn’t operate within those bounds — especially given that he seems to have acknowledged the potential of a conflict with his pledge” to divest of companies that hold state contracts, said Eleanor Eagan of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, based in Washington, D.C.

Neither Pritzker representatives nor the managers of his trust would say how much the investment in Centene is worth to Pritzker’s bottom line. They also declined to say specifically when the stock purchase was made.

Asked whether the governor — after learning he became invested in one of the state’s largest contractors sometime during 2020 — took steps to recuse himself from decisions that directly affected the company’s finances, his spokeswoman said he has not.

“The governor is not involved in the contracting process related to Centene,” said Jordan Abudayyeh, Pritzker’s communication director. “There is nothing he would have to recuse himself from.”

She referred all other questions about the trust investment in Centene to Pritzker’s campaign officials.

Experts interviewed by the BGA said there is a conflict of interest if the state has contracts with a company in which the governor’s trust holds stock.

“Absolutely,” said Eagan. “I don’t really see how one can argue otherwise.”

The stock purchase was first disclosed May 3, 2021, four days after Pritzker signed his annual economic disclosure statement — a document detailing real and potential financial conflicts of interest that all state elected officials must fill out — listing Centene among more than 300 investments in 2020, each with a value of more than $5,000.

Pritzker, who is running for re-election this year, declined to be interviewed about the blind trust or the decisions he or his administration made that benefited Centene at a time when his personal wealth may have been affected by those decisions.

However, both his lawyer and a campaign spokesman said it would be unfair to suggest any connection between the decisions the governor has made as a public office holder and any boost to his personal fortune.

“Gov. Pritzker’s trust is blind,” said campaign spokeswoman Natalie Edelstein. “This means he is not a part of any decisions, nor does he have any information regarding any investments.

“He receives no regular reporting on what the trustees and investment advisors decide to purchase and plays no role in any investment decisions. Period,” she said. “Any reporting that would suggest otherwise ignores critical facts and would be grossly inaccurate.”

Pritzker’s attorney, Marc Elias, echoed that claim with an even stronger rebuke.

“The only information he received is a ready-to-file Statement of Economic Interest, which contains no values,” said Elias in a written statement to the BGA. “To suggest otherwise is not only inaccurate but potentially libelous.”

The purchase of Centene stock highlights potential problems with the inadequacy of blind-trust arrangements to completely shield elected officials from receiving information about investments made on their behalf. In the case of Pritzker’s blind trust, wealth management trustees at Northern Trust provide Pritzker a list of his investments each year — a list to which he must attest as a requirement of state conflict of interest and disclosure laws.

“It’s a blind trust in the way of — put your hand over one eye,” said Jay Young, executive director of Common Cause, an organization that advocates for government transparency.

The Pritzker camp declined to provide a copy of the trust agreement and would not disclose the name of the trust. Edelstein said under the rules of the blind trust, Pritzker cannot communicate with the managers of his wealth, order them to buy or sell assets, or inquire about potential conflicts of interest between his wealth and his public actions.

Centene officials issued a brief emailed statement stating the company “was not aware of Gov. Pritzker being a record holder of its stock.”

Centene contracts overseen by governor’s office

A BGA review of public records shows the purchase of Centene stock could have been made any time between Jan. 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2020. While the blind trust is designed to guard Pritzker from knowing when the investment in Centene was made, actions taken by his administration nevertheless benefitted the big health care company.

Starting in 2019 and continuing into 2020, Centene faced antitrust concerns during its $17 billion acquisition of Medicaid insurer Wellcare. The Pritzker administration helped Centene overcome federal antitrust scrutiny by reassigning thousands of Centene patients into other plans.

The state of Illinois also oversaw Centene’s June 2020 acquisition of state Medicaid contractor NextLevelHealth Partners. The transfer gave Centene a toehold in the lucrative Cook County Medicaid market.

And in September 2020, the state enrolled 36,000 juvenile state wards to a Centene subsidiary named YouthCare amid concerns from foster parents and child welfare advocates about Centene’s performance.

While all those decisions by the Pritzker administration affected Centene’s operations in Illinois and nationally, it is unclear from public records whether they significantly altered the company’s stock prices. However, Centene referenced these developments in the highlights of its annual statements to stockholders or in press releases.

In a written response to BGA questions, Centene officials said they worked with multiple state agencies over a year. “To imply that this approval was the decision of an individual elected official is completely inaccurate,” the statement said.

Centene has become a dominant player in the lucrative world of low-income health care as increasing numbers of states turn their Medicaid programs over to for-profit insurance contractors.

Since 2019, Centene has reported nationwide annual profits of more than $1 billion. Its stock price increased from $60 per share at the beginning of 2020 to $83 on Feb. 11, 2022, amid an upward trend for the U.S. stock market, including health care stocks.

A glimpse of Centene’s prominence as an Illinois contractor came in the first six months of 2021, when Illinois paid $2.6 billion to Centene subsidiary Meridian Health Plan of Illinois to serve Medicaid patients, and Centene reported profits of $99 million from that portion of its contract alone. It is not clear from public records whether Pritzker’s blind trust continued to hold Centene stock during this period.

Since 2019, Centene has contributed more than $186,000 to Illinois political campaigns of both parties and more than $1 million to numerous federal politicians of both parties. None of those contributions went to Pritzker’s campaigns.

Pritzker’s promises

In 2019, Pritzker took office assuring voters he would divest his portfolio of companies with state contracts, and also promised to make charitable contributions equal to any trust investment that made money from a state contract during his term.

It is not clear how and when Pritzker might learn of such a profit and how he would publicly calculate the personal investment gain, given the secrecy requirements of a blind trust.

His promises went a step further than the typical blind-trust arrangement many wealthy elected officials employ. During his campaign, Pritzker called prior Gov. Bruce Rauner’s investment arrangement a “charade” because Rauner placed his holdings under the control of a private equity company in which Rauner had invested.

Pritzker’s representatives say the blind trust prohibits the governor from knowing the amount, status or timing of any of his investments — with state contractors or not. They say he is also restricted from communicating with the trustees on any matters, even to ask them to divest.

“A blind trust is an imperfect solution to dealing with conflicts of interest,” said Eagan, who researches stock investments by lawmakers. “Public officials know what goes into the blind trust, and they also then get an update every year of what’s in there.”

“If the beneficiary can easily know what assets are in the trust, that takes care of just how ‘blind’ this trust is — not very,” Columbia Law School professor Richard Briffault told the BGA.

Illinois is not among the 10 states with rules governing how public officials should set up blind trusts to avoid conflicts, according to research by the National Council of State Legislatures. Alaska, for instance, stipulates that trust managers should avoid investments in companies subject to the official’s oversight.

“Generally speaking, the best way in our view to manage conflicts of interest is to divest into broadly held mutual funds or other sorts of instruments where you can’t really affect the broad movements of those financial interests,” said Eagan of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Another state contractor among investments

Besides the Centene stock investment, the BGA found Pritzker’s trust in 2020 made at least one additional stock acquisition in a company with state business, according to Pritzker’s disclosures and the Illinois Comptroller’s office.

The trust acquired stock in the CSX Corp., the rail services giant, which has held about $13.4 million in state business with the transportation department dating back to 2009.

Pritzker’s Centene stock ownership is also notable given Pritzker’s 2018 criticism of Rauner for being slow to recoup millions of dollars in profits taken by Illinois Medicaid contractors.

“While costs skyrocket for his secret Medicaid overhaul, Bruce Rauner is negligent in recouping tens of millions of dollars in overpayments to insurers,” Pritzker said in a March 2018 statement during his run to unseat Rauner. “Incredible sums of taxpayer dollars are falling through the cracks, and there’s no one in charge to stand up for hardworking Illinoisans.”

The Pritzker administration in 2020 and 2021 worked with the association of for-profit Medicaid insurance contractors, which includes Centene, to scuttle a proposed bill by Democratic state Sen. David Koehler of Peoria to “claw back” COVID-19-era profits from Medicaid contractors, including Centene, according to government emails obtained by the BGA.

Pritzker’s administration says Koehler’s clawback bill would have put federal funding at risk and raised costs for taxpayers and it added that Illinois expects to recoup $220 million from Medicaid managed care organizations, including Centene, once an analysis of 2020 bills is completed later this year.

The heir to a sprawling business fortune, Pritzker has a net worth of $3.6 billion and is among the richest politicians in the U.S. His extensive offshore holdings and his decision to release only summary tax reports have made it difficult for the public to understand whether his personal investments might influence his administration’s policy decisions. In addition to the trust investments Pritzker publicly discloses, he also benefits from family trusts held in offshore accounts.

BGA investigative reporter Jared Rutecki contributed to this article.

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Several states across the nation are announcing the end of mask mandates for most public places. But in some states, the debate continues over the need for masks in schools.

Downstate Illinois Republican lawmakers earlier this month criticized Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s decision to exclude schools from his plan to end indoor mask mandates for most public places by the end of the month. 

GOP state Rep. Blaine Wilhour of downstate Beecher City joined state Sen. Darren Bailey of Xenia, who is running for governor, and state Rep. Adam Niemerg of Dietrich for a news conference in mid-February in which they called on Pritzker to drop mask mandates in public schools. 

“For the last year at least, I contend two years, the observed science, scores of studies, real world observations have told us there is absolutely no observed or clinical data that indicates any benefit whatsoever to masking K-12 students in schools,” Wilhour said.

The claim follows a downstate judge’s recent order that said Pritzker’s school mask requirements and other restrictions went too far. Pritkzer’s appeal of the ruling was dismissed Thursday by an Illinois appellate court.

We decided to investigate Wilhour’s claim that “there is absolutely no observed or clinical data that indicates any benefit whatsoever to masking K-12 students in schools.”

CDC reports include observational studies 

Asked for evidence underpinning his claim, Wilhour provided various links to studies and articles and said there are over 150 studies that have found no benefit of masks in schools.

“Studies have never found school related transmission to be a significant factor in community spread,” Wilhour said in an email.

One link Wilhour sent us was for a May 2021 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, where the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states, “To date, there have been no U.S. studies comparing COVID-19 incidence in schools that varied in implementing recommended prevention strategies, including mask requirements and ventilation improvements.”

But in that same report, the CDC also summarized a 2020 study conducted in K-5 Georgia schools showing the incidence of COVID-19 was 37% lower in schools with mask requirements for teachers and staff.

In the most recently updated version of the “Science Brief: Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in K-12 Schools and Early Care and Education Programs” the agency concluded: “When a combination of effective prevention strategies is implemented and strictly adhered to in the K-12 in-person learning environment, the risk of transmission in the school setting appears to be lower than or equivalent to the transmission risk in other community settings.”

The CDC brief included observations conducted in cities throughout the U.S., including Chicago. For instance, a study of private schools’ masking policies and limited class sizes found minimal in-school transmission, according to the CDC.

Additional CDC mask studies demonstrating the observed benefit of masks include:

• A 2020 study of 11 North Carolina school districts where students practiced social distancing and wore masks for at least nine weeks in the fall semester reported minimal school-related transmission.

• A Utah study of elementary schools implementing multiple prevention strategies, including wearing masks, found low transmission from December 2020 through January 2021.

• An Arizona study in two counties during the delta variant surge found outbreaks were three and a half times more likely in schools without mask mandates.

The CDC did not respond to requests for comment.

Clinical vs. Observational Data

There is plenty of observational evidence that masks work, so we turned to Wilhour’s assertion about a lack of clinical data.

One epidemiology expert we talked to said such an assertion ignores the fact that clinical trials exposing unprotected children to COVID-19 would be patently wrong. A clinical trial would involve exposing a control group of unprotected children to the deadly virus, the expert said.

“We will not get clinical trials on this because it is unethical to randomize kids to not use masks given overwhelming evidence of the risks based on observational studies,” said Dr. Mercedes Carnethon of Northwestern University.

She said public health decisions are often made without clinical trials for the same reasons.

“There are also no clinical data to support the use of seatbelts in cars to reduce automobile fatalities,” Carnethon said. “Those decisions and policies are based on observational data collected over years to show that the rates of death are lower for passengers who wear seatbelts.”

Our ruling

Wilhour said there is absolutely no observed or clinical data that indicates any benefit whatsoever to masking K-12 students in schools.

Clinical studies cannot be conducted on this issue because of the risk they would pose to unprotected children, but observational data shows masks are beneficial in reducing transmissions in schools.

We rate this claim Mostly False.

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MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.

The Better Government Association and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation today announced the hiring of veteran newsroom leader Reinaldo “Ronnie” Ramos as editor in chief of the BGA and the Illinois Solutions Partnership, an ambitious new collaboration to address the state’s urgent challenges through investigative reporting and solutions-focused journalism. 

Ramos will serve as the first editor in chief in the BGA’s nearly 100-year history. He will report to David Greising, president and CEO of both the BGA and the ISP. He will start his new role in mid-March.

Ramos currently serves as executive editor of the Daily Memphian, a nonprofit news site founded in 2018 in response to the shrinking of local newspaper coverage in the Tennessee city. Its paid subscriptions and newsroom size now exceeds that of the legacy local newspaper. 

Prior to the Daily Memphian, Ramos, 58, was the executive editor at the Indianapolis Star, where he also held the positions of sports director and managing editor. He has held senior leadership positions at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he was executive sports editor; Fort Myers News-Press, where he was managing editor; Shreveport Times, where he was executive editor; and the Miami Herald.

A Cuban-American, Ramos was born and raised in Miami. He is fluent in Spanish. 

Ramos was part of a team at the Herald that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for its coverage of Hurricane Andrew. Under Ramos’ editorial leadership the Indianapolis Star published its landmark investigation of sexual abuse allegations against USA Gymnastics and former team doctor Larry Nassar. 

“We’re looking for new solutions to chronic problems, and we felt that requires a fresh perspective,” said Greising. “In Ronnie, we’ve found a seasoned and skeptical journalist, with deep digital and startup experience – one who knows both how to uncover what is wrong and also find solutions to the old Chicago way.”

Launched with $10 million in McCormick Foundation grants over the next five years, and substantial support from the BGA, the Illinois Solutions Partnership will produce investigative reporting that provides the public with information about how breakdowns in government contribute to inequities, corruption and waste, combined with solutions-focused reporting that identifies ways to address them. 

Both the Daily Memphian as well as the Illinois Solutions Partnership are part of a nationwide pursuit of sustainable business models for nonprofit journalism.

“For the last two years I’ve helped build a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to local, serious news coverage,” Ramos said. “Among the things I’ve learned is that this doesn’t work without the community behind it. So that’s what we’re going to build – an online community of readers passionate about making Chicago and Illinois better run and more equitable places to live. We’re going to expose what goes wrong here, and inspire people to find ways to fix Chicago and Illinois.” 

To contact BGA’s David Greising for interviews: 312-404-8678

About the Better Government Association: A 99-year-old nonprofit based in Chicago, the BGA is Illinois’ only nonpartisan, full-service watchdog organization. It uncovers waste and wrongdoing in government, holds elected officials accountable, litigates for open records and meetings, advocates for good government, and empowers residents to engage and act.

About the Robert R. McCormick Foundation: For more than 65 years, the McCormick Foundation has invested in people and organizations across Chicago and Illinois to develop educated, informed, and engaged communities. The foundation, with more than $2 billion in assets, focuses its grant investments supporting Chicago’s South and West Side communities in the areas of economic opportunity, early education, public safety, veterans and journalism.

At the meeting of the Chicago City Council Committee on Public Safety held Wednesday, Feb. 9, committe chair Ald. Chris Taliaferro displayed on screen a proposed ordinance that would give Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) Chief Administrators special powers outside of state law to redact names from the agency’s published reports. According to Ald. Taliaferro and the publicly posted agenda on the City Clerk’s website, the language is intended to be presented and voted on as a direct introduction at the next Public Safety Committee meeting, currently scheduled for Feb. 17 at 2:00pm.

The Better Government Association strongly opposes any language giving government officers discretionary power to retroactively edit or redact public records. Any such ordinance would be a clear danger to the reliability of public records and a violation of the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. Moreover, altering a public record would likely put the individual officer doing so at risk of criminal liability under the Local Records Act.

The ordinance as shown on Wednesday would amend the duty of the Chief Administrator specified in MCC 2-78-145 to make Final Summary Reports of COPA investigations available for public inspection. Currently the reports must be made public “except to the extent that information contained therein has been redacted because it is exempted from disclosure by the Illinois Freedom of Information Act or any other applicable law.”

The language presented Wednesday would add a second exception if “the Chief Administrator determines, in his or her discretion, that redacting the identity of one or more sworn Police Department personnel is appropriate because the relevant person(s) died with honor in the line of duty and after consideration of both the dignity and respect for those person(s) and the public interest of the information.”

This proposed language would directly contradict the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, which provides no such exemption. Except where exempted by FOIA, disciplinary records and records of investigation are public records, and cannot be redacted or revised after the fact, nor can local ordinance overrule state provisions to do so (as the City itself successfully argued in City of Chicago v. Janssen Pharmaceuticals.)

Discretionary power of an appointed administrator to retroactively alter public records in any way is a clear danger to transparency, accountability, and open government. Regardless of the circumstances of an individual’s death, the record of their work as a public employee is of public and historic interest. After-the-fact revisions of public records undermine their reliability and their accuracy as a record of the time at which they were generated.

The Better Government Association strongly opposes this proposed language and urges members of City Council to oppose any ordinance granting City officials discretionary authority to alter public records. Any such ordinance invites inevitable legal challenge (including on precedents set by the City’s own legal actions), puts individual officers attempting to comply with the law at risk of criminal prosecution, attacks the Freedom of Information Act that is the bedrock of government transparency in our state, and creates a dangerous precedent of allowing unelected administrators, however well-intentioned in theory, to alter official records.

Members of the Public Safety Committee are urged to vote “Do Not Pass” if a measure authorizing retroactive redaction of public records is called for a vote.

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Our Weekend Watch shines a spotlight on government activity.

During his State of the State Address earlier this month, Gov. JB Pritzker stated that more Illinoisans have been vaccinated than any other Midwest state population.

Vaccine data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed that Illinois does have more people vaccinated than some neighboring states.

But, the question around the statement are due to the Midwest being much larger than our neighboring states.

The Better Government Association did a fact-check and found that the governor’s statements are “mostly true.” Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh pointed out that Illinois has vaccinated more people than Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky and Michigan.

When asked for clarification, Abudayyeh said Illinois is ahead of neighboring states and the entire Midwest in terms of vaccinated residents and drew a distinction between total residents who had received at least one vaccination shot versus those who are fully vaccinated with two shots, or even those who have gotten an additional “booster” shot.

According to the CDC data, Illinois does have the highest Midwest percentage of people who have received at least one shot. On Feb. 2, 75.6% of Illinoisans reported having at least one dose. The nearest Midwestern states are South Dakota with 74% and Minnesota at 73.6%.

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Our Weekend Watch shines a spotlight on government activity.

Ken Griffin made a $20 million donation to the campaign of Republican gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin.

In a statement, Irvin said he appreciates Griffin’s support.

Releasing his own statement, the Citadel Founder said, quote, “I firmly believe Richard Irvin has the character and leadership needed to make Illinois a place where people can feel safe to live, raise a family and pursue their dreams.”

In his only interview on the subject, Griffin sat down with Better Government Association President David Greising. David joined ABC7 with more on that conversation.

He talked about what this endorsement means for the Illinois governor’s race and for Gov. JB Pritzker’s campaign. He also discussed the governor’s response to Griffin’s endorsement and where other candidates rank with the two contenders.

Greising also spoke about what this election means for voters and what voters should be paying attention to as this all plays out.

As Gov. J.B. Pritzker last week delivered his annual State of the State address in Springfield, he highlighted the challenges COVID-19 presented, but bolstered his administration’s response to the pandemic by claiming Illinois leads the way in vaccination rates compared to the rest of the Midwest.

“One thing we can all do right now is continue rising to the challenge of combating the pandemic head on. And we are,” he said. “A larger percentage of Illinoisans have been vaccinated than in any other Midwestern state.”

The statement reminded us of one Pritzker made last year when he said Illinois was the “vaccine leader among the 10 most populous states in the country.” We rated that claim Half True.

So we thought we’d see exactly what the governor meant when he made this most recent claim.

Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh referred us to the Centers for Disease Control’s vaccination data tracker. She first pointed out that Illinois has vaccinated more people than its neighboring states: Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky and Michigan.

But the Midwest is bigger than just those states contiguous to Illinois. It also includes Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Ohio, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which doesn’t include Kentucky as a Midwest state.

When asked for clarification, Abudayyeh said Illinois is ahead of neighboring states and the entire Midwest in terms of vaccinated residents and drew a distinction between total residents who had received at least one vaccination shot versus those who are fully vaccinated with two shots or even those who have gotten an additional “booster” shot.

“The Governor never said among fully vaccinated,” Abudayyeh said in an email. “He said we are leading the Midwest in vaccinations, which is true. More Illinoisans have received a vaccination than anywhere else in the Midwest.”

As we were checking Pritzker’s claim from Feb. 2, the governor echoed the sentiment during a press conference when he announced plans to end the indoor mask mandate by the end of February.

“More Illinoisans have gotten a COVID-19 shot than anywhere else in the Midwest,” Pritzker said on Feb. 9.

After the press conference, Abudayyeh clarified in an email to the BGA that by saying the state is leading in vaccinations, the governor is referring specifically to the percentage of the population that has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The Data

So we checked the stats with an eye toward comparing Illinois’ vaccination rates to those in all 12 Midwestern states.

The CDC Data Tracker separates data into three categories: people who are fully vaccinated, people who have received at least one dose and people who have received a booster shot.

According to the CDC data, Illinois does have the highest Midwest percentage of people who have received at least one shot. On Feb. 2, 75.6% of Illinoisans reported having at least one dose. The nearest Midwestern states are South Dakota with 74% and Minnesota at 73.6%.

But in his Feb. 2 claim, Pritzker did not specify whether he counted only those with one dose, so we checked the data on those who have been fully vaccinated, and here is where his claim falls a bit short.

According to the CDC Data Tracker, one Midwestern state has had a consistently higher rate of people fully vaccinated: Minnesota.

On Feb. 2, 67.1% of residents in that state were fully vaccinated, compared to 66.4% in Illinois.

Our ruling

Pritzker said that “a larger percentage of Illinoisans have been vaccinated than in any other Midwestern state.”

There are many ways to measure vaccination rates — by single doses, people who have been fully vaccinated and those administered booster shots.

While his spokeswoman later clarified he meant the percentage of Illinoisans who had received a single dose of a COVID-19 shot, Pritzker’s initial statement could be interpreted as Illinois being the Midwest leader in those who are fully vaccinated. It is not.

We rate this claim Mostly True.

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MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.