From the Sun-Times:

'I'm just an everyday, working guy'
'INSIDERS STAY IN' | Ex-legislator's fund owes $80,000, but gov hires him anyway

November 12, 2007
BY DAVE MCKINNEY, CHRIS FUSCO AND CAROL MARIN Staff Reporters
Losing his seat in the Illinois House has proven quite profitable for former West Side Democratic state Rep. Calvin Giles:

Gov. Blagojevich in June gave Giles a state job with a 48 percent pay increase -- a decision that's now sparking controversy because Giles' political fund still owes more than $80,000 in election fines to taxpayers.

"This makes a mockery of our State Board of Elections," said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a government watchdog group. "Not only is [Giles] not paying the state what he owes the state, he's now taking income from the state."

Giles, a Blagojevich ally while in the Legislature, served seven terms before losing his 2006 re-election bid. He's now northern region manager for the Illinois Department of Employment Security, an $84,996-a-year post in which he oversees nine work force services offices and about 250 employees. The job was vacant before Giles was hired.

Giles' defunct political fund, Citizens for Calvin L. Giles, still owes $80,250 in election fines for improperly filing disclosure documents in 2000 and 2002.

Giles wouldn't answer questions about his appointment to the job or explain his refusal to pay off his campaign committee's debt.

"I'm no longer an elected official at this time. I'm just a private citizen," Giles said. "I'd prefer to have no comment at this time. I'm just an everyday, working guy."

Dan White, the election board's executive director, said the agency would like to collect the $80,250 that Giles' fund owes, but it has not gotten cooperation from Blagojevich's administration.

Election officials had sought help from the state Revenue Department to collect unpaid fines imposed against Giles and other election-fine scofflaws.

"They said very simply that they didn't think it was in the best interest of the state to take on these fines," said White, who has asked Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office for an opinion on the matter.

Fines disappear in 2 years
Katherine Ridgway, a Revenue Department spokeswoman, said the agency does not have legal authority to take action against a campaign committee. The unpaid fines don't disqualify Giles from state employment, she added.

"Neither the personnel code nor the personnel rules contain any rules applicable to Mr. Giles that prohibit the state from hiring him due to a debt a political committee he was affiliated with owes," Ridgway said in a written statement. "The fines are unrelated to his position at IDES."

The Blagojevich administration's blind eye toward Giles' debt owed to another state agency underscores the problem with the governor's hiring practices, Canary said.

"Calvin Giles is a nice man," Canary said. "But you know, it begs the question, 'Are we hiring the most talented people, or are we making sure that insiders stay in?' "

Giles is the nephew of former Chicago Ald. Percy Giles (37th), who was convicted in 1999 of taking payoffs and tax evasion in the Operation Silver Shovel corruption probe.

At one point, Calvin Giles owed the state nearly $144,000 in election fines for failing to file disclosure reports for five years. To avoid being barred from the March 2006 primary ballot, he negotiated down a portion of that amount and paid it.

Giles' strategy on his current election-fine troubles might simply be to wait them out. Giles' campaign fund was dissolved in February, and state law calls for election fines to be zeroed out should candidates not seek office for two years. That means Giles would have to sit out elections through February 2009 to avoid having to pay the state any money.