McHenry Times

State Rep. Dan Ugaste (R-Geneva) argues you don’t have to look far to find examples of why this isn’t the time to do away with restrictions banning patronage hiring in Illinois state government.

“What you’re now seeing with House Speaker Mike Madigan screams for the need for even more ethical reforms,” Ugaste told the Kane County Reporter. “If we want people to trust government, we have to have solid ethics legislation. Right now, all they’re hearing about is one scandal after another, yet nothing is being done to strengthen our ethics laws.”

None of that has stopped Gov. J.B. Pritzker from recently moving to seek to vacate court decrees outlawing patronage hiring. In his court filing, Pritzker argues the state is no longer in need of the nearly half-century old Shakman decrees that were enacted to prevent both politically motivated hirings and firings.

“I don’t believe it’s the right time to be doing this,” Ugaste added. “There are issues with people being hired, put on payrolls for political purposes where they may or may not actually be working. People that have oversight aren’t completely convinced that we’re being compliant. If there are no problems, let’s just allow monitors to be in place, at least until we get some real ethics reforms on the books.”

Despite a never-ending flood of calls coming from Republicans, Ugaste said no one can be sure when the legislature may be back in session to deal with all the problems.

“We’ve asked the governor more times than any of us care to remember to with the scandal involving the speaker and ethics reforms altogether,” he said. “He seems to think we should wait until we get back in session, whenever that may be.”