Chicago Mayor's Popularity Dips as Associates Are Indicted

CHICAGO, July 21 -- First it was the truckers caught paying bribes and pocketing millions in city contracts. Then it was the white businessmen who set up front companies to win minority contracts. Then came charges that employees in the water department got raises for working on political campaigns.

Mayor Richard M. Daley has suffered bad news aplenty since soaring into his fifth term with 79 percent of the vote, but none as troublesome as this week's federal corruption indictment of two close associates, including the leader of the City Hall patronage operation.

Federal investigators charged that the hiring system was thoroughly rigged.

One political organizer was picked for a job although he died before interviews were held. Another was hired over objections that he was a "drunk." A third won a promotion although he was in Iraq when the interview supposedly took place. He scored a perfect 5.0 anyway.

Allegations of favoritism and corruption have not reached Daley, who told reporters: "I don't play any role in hiring, no, I don't. I never have." Yet his popularity is falling, a potential political rival is criticizing him and federal investigators are making it clear they are not yet done.

"Now is the time to cooperate, because this train is leaving and you're either on the train or you're on the tracks," Robert Grant, head of the FBI's Chicago office, said this week. An affidavit unveiled this week against patronage boss Robert Sorich mentions 22 cooperating witnesses.

Daley responded Thursday by proposing that all hiring for the city's 37,000 nonpolitical jobs be handled by an outside office to be called the Independent Public Service Commission. The mayor talked of "mixed feelings" about changing the system, saying that "only history will judge if this represents progress in the city of Chicago."

In all, 30 people have been charged and 21 have been convicted in the corruption investigation.

"Every single city personnel decision will be subject to criminal investigation and potential prosecution," Daley said in a reference to the ongoing investigation. "I do not want to put any city employer doing their job in that position. The only alternative is basically to move all hiring and promotion out of City Hall, period."

For 22 years, city hiring has been governed by a consent decree that prohibits political hiring for all but about 900 city employees. A federal judge last year rejected arguments by Daley administration lawyers that it was too burdensome.

Prosecution documents filed in court allege that high-ranking members of Daley's staff routinely violated the civil decree, as well as federal law. U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald charged that the system was riddled with fraud, but in an interview he would not say whether evidence indicates that Daley was aware of the alleged crimes.

"We're making no allegations about anyone not charged in the complaint," said Fitzgerald, who is also leading the investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative.