Former Inspector General Helps Draft Emanuel Ethics Plan

By Chuck Sudo in News on Dec 2, 2010 10:00PM

Remember in those halcyon and Cuba libre days following May Day's announcement he wouldn't seek another term as Mayor and some of us thought that maybe, just maybe, former Inspector General David Hoffman might have made a good candidate? It seemed plausible: Hoffman fell short to Alexi Giannoulias in the Democratic Senate primary as a late entry, and his strong showing indicated that Hoffman's arrow was pointing up for future political campaigns.

Then Rahm Emanuel came back home and Hoffman, showing more astute political intuition, announced he didn't have his eye on the Fifth Floor. But Hoffman did say that Emanuel said he should join him and help "him on issues important to the city."

Now cut back to today. Take a wild guess as to who helped Emanuel draft an ethics package for City Hall? The proposal Hoffman helped Emanuel with, unveiled today during an appearance at the Union League Club, pledges to bring increased transparency and accountability to city government; expand the oversight authority of the Inspector General's office to root out corruption and waste; strengthen the city Board of Ethics by overhauling the Ethics ordinance in the first six months of his term; ensure city contracts go to the most competitive bidder and crack down on the abuse of women and minority-owned business statuses; make the zoning and business license process more transparent; overhaul the city hiring process; enhance the compliance of the Freedom of Information Act; and "close the revolving door between government service and lobbying."

That last one is the doozy. Emanuel has pledge not to accept donations from lobbyists or those who are registered to lobby city government; create a database of lobbyist activity; and create a website of lobbyists that allows users to track lobbyists, who and what they lobbied for; and the government officials they lobbied. If Emanuel is elected and moves forward with this, there's a lot of aldermen with skeletons that will be unearthed.

The package has Hoffman's fingerprints all over it. Many of these points were agenda items he tried to implement while he was IG, but found resistance by either City Council or Daley himself.