Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough seeks end to historic anti-patronage case despite charges that she ‘stonewalls’

For more than a decade as a Cook County officeholder, Democratic stalwart Karen Yarbrough has repeatedly fought allegations she and her office violated long-standing federal court decrees aimed at cracking down on patronage hiring that has haunted local government for generations.

The two-term Cook County clerk and former recorder of deeds’ approach to hiring has, at times, resembled that of a partisan throwback. She’s been called out repeatedly in federal court documents for allegedly flouting best employment practices and instead enlisting friends and political allies for jobs in her offices. Early on as county clerk, Yarbrough’s office once was even accused of “running an illegal patronage employment system.”

As Chicago, state and even other Cook County officials have been freed in recent years of federal court oversight to ensure hiring is done properly in their offices, Yarbrough has been the final holdout in the more-than-half-century struggle by attorney Michael Shakman to wring politics out of hiring, firing and promotions in government.

But Yarbrough, too, may be freed from Shakman oversight — possibly as soon as Thursday — even though Shakman himself doesn’t fully embrace the move and a federal monitor has questioned whether Yarbrough has fully addressed problematic personnel practices that have plagued her offices almost since she was first elected a countywide official in 2012.

Shakman told the Tribune that a U.S. appeals court decision last year ending hiring oversight for Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration has caused him to “very reluctantly” join Yarbrough in a court motion to shut down the federal monitor tracking her personnel moves.

If granted, it would effectively end the far-reaching Shakman case he first filed in 1969, a year after the world watched Chicago’s riotous Democratic National Convention during the reign of Mayor Richard J. Daley, who oversaw the rise of machine politics and a patronage kingdom.

“It’s not the way I would have liked to have the story end,” said Shakman, who has long contended Yarbrough slow-walked or ignored important reforms.

“She stonewalls,” he said.

Over her tenure in both offices, a federal court monitor and Cook County’s inspector general have thrown scores of red flags at Yarbrough and her top staff.

Records show Yarbrough handed out jobs to her niece, a congressman’s nephew, a former Illinois House colleague, a state representative’s son, a state senator’s sister and campaign workers tied to her political orbit in Maywood and Proviso Township. She’s been accused of giving county jobs to people with political ties when no influence is allowed, giving breaks to workers with partisan allies for making false statements, firing people with lesser clout for similar offenses, and promoting employees without following proper guidelines.

In response to the findings, federal court documents, monitor reports and confidential inspector general investigations examined by the Tribune frequently portray Yarbrough and top aides as uncooperative.

Yarbrough often fought, ignored or disagreed with findings and recommendations, the documents show. That included once when the inspector general wrote “it is difficult to conceive, if not impossible” that Yarbrough — who was vice chair of the Illinois Democratic Party while then-Speaker Michael Madigan ran it — didn’t know that one of her top aides was affiliated with Madigan.

Indeed, Yarbrough’s rosters of employees at both the recorder of deeds and clerk’s offices have carried a number of former staffers, precinct workers and campaign contributors tied to Madigan, who created one of Illinois’ most significant and notorious patronage armies. The former speaker now faces racketeering charges that he helped patronage workers land no-work jobs with utility giant Commonwealth Edison while the company wanted him to back its lucrative legislative agenda.

Shakman provisions allow for certain positions to be “exempt” from strict anti-patronage guidelines, generally jobs designed for top managers, policymakers and workers with confidential duties. Yarbrough has roughly three dozen exempt positions in an office with 350 budgeted full-time staff. Many of her employees with political ties are exempt, allowing her to have more leeway in choosing political friends.

But the court monitor records and inspector general reports outlined hiring and employee maneuvers under Yarbrough offices that watchdogs have labeled problematic and, at times, illegal, including unlawful political discrimination, using improper political factors in hiring, and violating the county ethics ordinance.

Even as recently as 11 months ago, attorney Cardelle Spangler, the court-appointed monitor over Yarbrough in both the recorder and clerk offices, reported several lingering problems, including times the “clerk repeatedly and materially violated its hiring policies.”

Spangler’s brief in August 2022 maintained the unresolved issues refuted Yarbrough’s position that oversight was no longer needed, noting the clerk repeatedly rejected monitor and inspector general recommendations and fell short of the appeals court standards.

“These are hardly the actions of an office instituting and supporting remedial measures aimed at preventing unlawful political discrimination,” wrote Spangler, who declined to comment for this story, referring all questions to her court filings.

Yarbrough also declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. Previously, though, she has called the various allegations leveled against her and her office “outrageous,” “preposterous” and “simply not true.”

In a statement, Yarbrough’s spokeswoman, Sally Daly, noted that Shakman joined the motion agreeing the office has reached the necessary level of compliance to end the case.

Daly also played down the repeated issues raised by watchdogs or included in the court filings, saying some are nearly 10 years old. Given that the recorder and clerk offices have now merged, Daly said, some of the older documents “refer to investigations about former county employees from an office that no longer exists.”

But Shakman’s longtime lawyer Brian Hays contended that Yarbrough’s actions are incomparable among contemporaries in public offices.

“Unlike the other defendants in the case, the clerk’s office has not embraced the principles of the Shakman decrees or the need to reform employment practices to prevent unlawful political patronage,” Hays said in an emailed statement. “The city, county, sheriff, and assessor all went above and beyond what was minimally required and worked to bring transparency and accountability to try to prevent political patronage from returning.

“The clerk’s office chose to do the absolute minimum required by the federal court of appeals in the Pritzker decision,” Hays said.

Faced with the Pritzker ruling from last year, attorneys for Yarbrough and Shakman began discussing a settlement in May and filed a motion in June stating the clerk’s office has satisfied the appeals’ court’s standard.

“Although we strongly disagree with the appeals court,” Hays said of the Pritzker ruling, “we are bound by that decision.”

To satisfy the standard set by the Pritzker ruling, Yarbrough’s office would have to demonstrate it had “substantially complied” with the terms of the decree and implemented a “durable” remedy to prevent backsliding. The motion agreed Yarbrough has worked to revise her personnel manual, implement policies banning unlawful political discrimination and increase transparency in decision making.

The county inspector general and the clerk’s chief ethics officer would investigate future complaints and violations.

The motion also maintained the inspector general has not found evidence of unlawful political discrimination in the clerk’s office for two years, demonstrating Yarbrough cleared one of the terms of substantial compliance.

Now the case goes before U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang, who has scheduled a hearing Thursday.

Political friends and family

A former state lawmaker, Yarbrough, 72, heads a clerk’s office responsible for keeping county records, such as birth, marriage and death certificates, as well as suburban elections.

She has deep ties in state, county and Proviso Township politics. Her husband, Henderson, is a previous mayor of Maywood, and her chief of staff for the clerk’s office, Cedric Giles, is chair of the Proviso Township Democratic Organization, which has supported Yarbrough’s political efforts. She also served as vice chair of the state Democratic Party under Madigan and filled in as interim chair when he resigned in 2021.

In May, the Proviso campaign fund received a $1,500 contribution from Devin Mapes, the son of former top Madigan aide Tim Mapes, who faces a perjury-related trial next month. The younger Mapes works as a lawyer in the clerk’s office making nearly $113,000 a year, a major jump from his $76,400 annual Cook County salary as an assistant state’s attorney handling misdemeanors in Rolling Meadows when he left two years ago, his former office reported.

Yarbrough’s deputy chief of staff and labor counsel is James Gleffe, a longtime precinct captain in Madigan’s 13th Ward political organization married to a former Madigan staffer.

When Yarbrough left the recorder’s office to be county clerk, the Cook County Board gave the recorder job to Ed Moody to serve as a caretaker before the recorder and clerk offices merged.

Moody was a legendary Madigan precinct captain and patronage worker who made headlines in April when he testified in the Madigan-tied ComEd Four bribery trial in which all defendants were convicted. Moody, who was not charged, testified ComEd funneled him monthly checks through Madigan associates, mostly for doing nothing, and that Madigan warned Moody the contract would disappear if he stopped campaign work.

IG attention

As recorder, Yarbrough’s office drew then-Cook County Inspector General Patrick Blanchard’s attention a number of times, including the unusual case starting in 2013 of a ranking official allegedly protected from harsh discipline.

Felix Babatunde, then-Yarbrough’s human resources director, had contributed $21,000 to Madigan’s 13th Ward Democratic Organization or the campaign fund for his daughter, former Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the inspector general reported. Additional contributions went to former Cook County Assessor and ex-Cook County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Berrios, a Madigan ally, as well as Yarbrough herself.

A 2015 confidential inspector general report noted Babatunde also volunteered for the 13th Ward organization and was represented in an interview with the IG’s office by Michael Kasper, Madigan’s longtime top political lawyer. Babatunde told the inspector general he was referred to Kasper by 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn’s brother, Kevin Quinn, who was tossed from Madigan’s organization in 2018 following allegations of sexual harassment.

Blanchard criticized a series of Babatunde’s personnel moves, particularly the hiring of executive assistant Don Sloan, who Babatunde said he met while riding a South Shore Line train in 2012.

Babatunde told investigators he and Sloan talked by phone about twice a month after meeting. But Blanchard’s office found no evidence those calls took place.

Instead, the IG’s office said evidence showed the first telephone contact Babatunde had with Sloan was in May 2013, roughly 17 months after Babatunde said they’d met and a “mere two days” before Babatunde prepared a draft memo to hire Sloan as an executive assistant. Though Babatunde told investigators he initially hired Sloan for his experience in human resources, he could not recall details about where Sloan worked, the IG reported.

Sloan told the inspector general he met Babatunde on the train and said the two hadn’t talked on the phone before he got the job offer.

Although Sloan was a Republican and Yarbrough a Democrat, Sloan had been a trustee in Proviso Township for nearly two decades, and the two sometimes worked together at a west suburban senior center, the IG reported.

Blanchard’s office concluded the “preponderance of the evidence demonstrated political factors were involved” in hiring Sloan and that Yarbrough and her staff “insulated” Babatunde from major discipline, despite his poor performance and making false statements during investigations.

Yarbrough denied “any awareness” of Babatunde’s “strong affiliation” with Madigan, Blanchard wrote.

Given Babatunde’s contributions and political work, Blanchard wrote, “it is difficult to conceive, if not absolutely impossible, that Recorder Yarbrough, a former legislator and member of party leadership, could somehow be completely unaware that her Director of Human Resources has strong ties to the Madigan organization.”

“To profess such unawareness is, in effect, to submerge the truth,” Blanchard wrote.

Spangler, the court monitor, concluded Babatunde continued to be “insulated” until he retired. Babatunde and Sloan could not be reached for comment.

‘Non-cooperation’

Blanchard’s issues with Yarbrough were not isolated to Babatunde.

At one point the inspector general said he thought a “policy, custom or practice of non-cooperation” had developed within her recorder’s office. Blanchard also determined “political factors” went into hiring of a legislator’s son and then a person who worked on campaigns for both Karen Yarbrough and Henderson Yarbrough.

In 2013, Blanchard also recommended Yarbrough fire her niece Chloe Pedersen, whom she hired as a $114,622-a-year legal and labor counsel in what Blanchard said violated county anti-nepotism rules.

But Yarbrough said her niece, who moved on to a law firm, had “the best qualifications. … I think most people recognize it’s important to have someone you know and trust as your legal counsel.”

In April 2017, Blanchard again accused Yarbrough of violating the Shakman decree by hiring Jesse Davis, a nephew of U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, as a security officer making $35,000 a year. The nephew had volunteered at the Proviso Township Democratic Organization, records showed. At the time, Yarbrough defended the hiring, calling it “absolutely not political” and saying the IG’s report was “much ado about nothing.”

While Yarbrough has been hammered by the inspector general and the federal monitor in the Shakman case, she’s often pointed at the growing legal costs involved in Shakman oversight as a reason to question the motives in prolonging the case. County records show the cases, which started two years before she became recorder, have cost taxpayers upward of $7 million in legal costs on all sides of the issue. Spangler did not charge for most of her own time monitoring the two offices, a move that prevented costs from being even higher.

Clerk clashes

After she was sworn in as county clerk in December 2018, it took only nine months before Shakman accused Yarbrough of “running an illegal patronage employment system.” Her predecessor, David Orr, never had a court monitor during his more than a quarter-century in office.

While Yarbrough said “everything that I am being accused of is simply not true,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Sidney I. Schenkier in March 2020 chastised Yarbrough for “clear violations” of anti-patronage rules. Schenkier ordered Spangler to begin monitoring Yarbrough as clerk and Shakman declared it was “time for the clerk to get on board and embrace patronage reforms.”

Yarbrough challenged the ruling and lost in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

But the court noted the decadeslong duration of the Shakman decrees, saying “entrenched federal oversight should have raised red flags long ago.”

The momentum continued in Yarbrough’s favor last August with the Pritzker ruling from the same appeals court ending federal oversight of state hiring. Justices ruled a government could be freed from oversight because it substantially complied with the Shakman tenets and implemented “durable remedies to help ensure that compliance sticks.”

The appeals court also made a point that may give Yarbrough hope: “We cannot let perfect be the enemy of the constitutionally adequate.”

rlong@chicagotribune.com

aquig@chicagotribune.com