NW Illinois News

A forced vote by Senate Democrats Feb. 16 to select a legislative inspector general (LIG) has been met with criticism by state Sen. Brian Stewart (R-Freeport), who said the move led to the selection of a candidate who has not received the same level of review as prior LIG candidates. 

In a press release Feb. 17, Stewart said previous candidates for the position had appeared before the Legislative Ethics Commission’s (LEC) bipartisan search committee, a process that was not followed with the forced vote this year.

“Democrat members of the LEC want to do everything their own way and they want their own candidate. When the established process did not give them who they wanted, they stalled,” Stewart, a member of the LEC, said in the release. 

While a process has been put in place for this task, Stewart said Democratic members chose to ignore it.

“To the public, it could appear that those lawmakers want to police themselves and hand-pick their ethics watchdog,” Stewart said. 

According to the release, Jan. 6 was the last day former LIG Carol Pope was in office to perform her official duties. Since then, Stewart said, the office has been empty, leaving complaints unanswered and uninvestigated. 

“Pope announced on July 14, 2021, that she would resign that post on Dec. 15, 2021, calling the LIG office a 'paper tiger' after a bill passed earlier in 2021 did not create meaningful ethics reform in Illinois,” the release states. “After an impasse within the LEC to fill the vacant LIG position, Pope agreed to stay on through Jan. 6, 2022.”

The Illinois Senate approved Judge Michael P. McCuskey as the new LIG on Feb. 16, less than three days after his vetting began, KFVS 12 reports.

Following the resignation of Pope, Sen. Jil Tracy spoke on the need to fill that position, proposing a bill that outlined reforms to ethics issues in the state. 

According to a report by the Peoria Standard, Senate Bill 3030, which has been referred to the assignments committee, would establish a Legislative Ethics Commission which would have oversight over the Illinois Legislature and review instances of ethics concerns.