From the AP

Mar. 31, 2008
AP: Gov's office sought favorable vote for hire
By JOHN O'CONNOR
AP Political Writer
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. --
Gov. Rod Blagojevich's legislative aide told colleagues he might get a favorable vote from a senator if the administration hired the lawmaker's secretary, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.
The November 2003 e-mail from Joseph Handley to Blagojevich's patronage office seeks confirmation that the administration planned to transfer an Agriculture Department employee, Tim Kraft, to the transportation agency - into a position that by law should be filled on merit, not politics.
Taking his place would be Rhonda Wood, secretary to then-Sen. Larry Walsh.
"If this can be confirmed, it helps me w/Walsh on important vote," Handley, then Blagojevich's legislative liaison, wrote in the e-mail obtained by the AP.
The note offers a new look at hiring in the Blagojevich administration, which is under federal investigation for possibly violating laws that prohibit hiring based on politics and require military veterans be given first chance at jobs.
The administration routinely accepted job recommendations from legislators after Democrat Blagojevich took office in 2003. Friends and campaign contributors won hundreds of state jobs - even those supposedly filled on merit.
But the e-mail hints for the first time that the governor's office hoped to win legislative approval for its initiatives by handing out payroll plums.
Walsh, who tried to help Wood get promoted to the legislative liaison post, said he was unaware of Handley's note to patronage chief Joseph Cini and doesn't know what legislation Handley had in mind. Now a lobbyist, Handley declined comment.
One of the bigger issues facing the Legislature in its fall 2003 session was tougher ethics legislation. Blagojevich had vetoed a version earlier he called too weak.
Walsh, who chuckled when a reporter read him the e-mail, said he told the administration - probably Handley - that Wood was qualified and interested, but never heard anything more. He said he wouldn't have changed a vote had she gotten hired.
"It don't offend me," said Walsh, an Elwood Democrat who left the Senate after his 2004 election as Will County executive. "I would never have known what the vote would have been if there was one, and if it was a vote that I thought was a bad vote, I had no problem in voting against the administration."
Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said the administration does not trade jobs for votes.
Neither Kraft nor Wood switched agencies. Kraft remains at Agriculture and Wood at the Senate, according to state records. Neither returned calls for comment.
In response to the e-mail, Jennifer Thomas, a Cini assistant, laid out the process by which Kraft would be hired at the Department of Transportation into a job protected by a court ruling known as Rutan, which prohibits hiring or firing for most state jobs based on political affiliation. The law requires interviews for all eligible candidates.
"Tim needs to apply for the position and go through a Rutan interview and be the most qualified candidate of those who applied," wrote Thomas, who testified for the prosecution earlier this month about outside influence on state hiring in the federal fraud trial of Blagojevich fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko.
Even though Handley suggested Kraft's move was preordained, Ottenhoff said Thomas' response "reinforces that the position would go to the most qualified candidate. That's how it should be."
Thomas left state government in January. A call to her home went unanswered.
For years, even after federal prosecutors issued subpoenas in 2005 for state employment records, the administration claimed it hired people based on qualifications, not clout. Blagojevich aides said they did not review applicants' names for jobs that are supposed to be insulated from politics.
But a series of Associated Press articles in 2006 showed maneuvers the administration used to get around Rutan and veterans' preference laws and that top aides were signing off on individual names, even for protected jobs, as late as fall 2004.
In the Rezko trial, Thomas testified that she and Cini met on several occasions in Rezko's Chicago office to discuss state hiring and filling posts on boards and commissions. Rezko, a former fundraiser for presidential candidate Barack Obama as well as Blagojevich, is on trial in Chicago on fraud charges in connection with a kickback scheme to raise campaign cash for Blagojevich.
EDITOR'S NOTE: John O'Connor has covered Illinois government and politics for The Associated Press since 1998.