Shocker: Stroger Patronage Workers Got Raises for Campaign Contributions

By Kevin Robinson in News on Aug 25, 2009 2:00PM

In yet another shocking expose, it turns out that patronage workers (specifically those that are exempt from Shakman oversight) were given large pay raises between 2006 and 2009. Those workers, 28 forest preserve employees, had all contributed financially to the campaign funds of Cook County Board President Todd Stroger; his late father, former board President John Stroger; or the 8th Ward Regular Democratic Organization.

Forest district spokesman Steve Mayberry says that Todd Stroger never solicited those employees for contributions, and that they have a constitutional right to make them. "It is the First Amendment right of all private citizens ... to make political contributions to whomever they please," Mayberry told the Sun-Times. The Bright One also noted that Mayberry himself had given nearly $4,000 to Stroger's campaign fund. "The current Shakman-exempt list is a result of long and careful debate," Mayberry says. "It is intended to recognize the need for the president of Cook County and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County to have some confidential employees in leadership positions."

Ironically, for all public pummeling Todd Stroger has taken for his alleged role in corruption and patronage in the city and county, he may not have ever really wanted to be in the County Board President's chair. David Bernstein's profile of Stroger in the September issue of Chicago Magazine suggests that young Stroger is in the position he's in not because of naked ambition, but because his father, former county board president the late John Stroger, pushed him to take on politics as a career.

“We’d fight and all that stuff,” Todd told Bernstein of his relationship with his father. “Maybe that was just my nature. In the end, I’d do what he said.” When it came to taking over as 8th Ward Alderman, “It was pretty much his father’s decision,” State rep and Todd Stroger friend Marlow Colvin said. “Todd could’ve said no, but why would he? At the time he wasn’t accustomed to saying no.” And when it came to time to run for board president? “He hadn’t thought about it.”