Apologies to DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett.
My column Friday greatly and unfairly overstated the potential financial benefit to him if he were to be appointed associate Circuit Court judge before Jan. 1, and was based on the assumption that he had applied for such a vacancy, as he told reporters last month that he was planning to do. And though we published a short correction in Saturday’s paper, I want to set the record straight and explain what went wrong.
Birkett, 55, has worked for 29 years in the county prosecutor’s office in Wheaton, and has led that office since 1996. On Sept. 28 he told reporters he was “in the process of filling out the application” for an entry-level vacancy on the Circuit Court, which would have required him to step down halfway through his fourth term.
Multiple efforts Thursday to get a yes or no answer on this and other questions from Birkett failed, as did efforts to get a list of applicants from the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts. Then, Friday, Birkett said he had never actually filled out the application for the Circuit Court, and has decided instead to actively seek appointment to a vacancy on the state Appellate Court that will open in early December.
Thursday, Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund executive director Louis Kosiba told me, and I reported, that if Birkett were to have been appointed to the bench before Jan. 1, he would be allowed to “double dip,” or collect from the state both his prosecutor’s pension — $137,520, roughly 80 percent of his current salary — and his judge’s salary of $169,893. But if he were to have been appointed after Jan. 1, he would have had to defer collecting his pensions until after he retires from government work altogether.
This turns out not to be true, as Kosiba explained Friday in a follow-up call. The double-dip deadline does not, as he said he thought, apply to existing government employees, even those who change state jobs and join different state pension programs
And therefore it was wrong of me to strongly suggest that Birkett was in a hurry to leave his high-profile, influential position for an obscure job presiding over minor matters in order to be sure to reap the advantages of getting a state pension plus a state salary at the same time, a perfectly legal practice, by the way.
No matter when he might make his hoped-for transition to the bench, he will be able to double-dip, though anyone who becomes a judge after Jan. 1 will be enrolled in a somewhat less lucrative pension plan.
Birkett took strong exception in our conversation Friday to the implication that money might be motivating any of his career decisions. “I sacrificed a lucrative career in the private sector to stay here,” he said, referring to the prosecutor’s office. “I could be making millions of dollars” a year.
Rude jerk or tenacious reporter?
I call it the Rorschach Video — a three-minute YouTube clip making the rounds in which conservatives tend to see one thing and liberals something else altogether.
It features William Kelly, who received 22 percent of the vote in February’s Republican primary for state comptroller in finishing second to party nominee Judy Baar Topinka. And it begins with Kelly approaching Rahm Emanuel (you know who he is) at the Columbus Day Parade in Grant Park.
“So how’s it like to be back in Chicago?” asks Kelly, holding a microphone out to the mayoral hopeful. A little icebreaker question. Emanuel responds with a reference to “Sweet Home Chicago,” and before Kelly can follow up, someone who seems to be a campaign aide steps up next to him and asks “Who are you with?”
“We’re with WIND radio,” Kelly answers, referring to the conservative talk station at 560 on your AM dial. Though for him to say he’s “with” WIND is misleading. He buys an hour every week, 6 to 7 p.m. Saturdays, and, like others who buy weekend slots on low-powered radio stations everywhere, puts on his own program and finds his own sponsors.
The video continues. As Emanuel walks along glad-handing, Kelly says: “There are a lot of people that speculate that the stimulus was actually just a payback to your Wall Street friends who made you a multi-multimillionaire. What do you say to those people?”
Some on the Internet, mostly on the right, have hailed this as a “good question.” It’s not. It’s just heckling. No serious person speculates that Emanuel engineered the Wall Street bailout, which began under President George W. Bush, to return a personal favor.
Emanuel barely acknowledges Kelly, who then changes tack. “Have you been able to straighten out the residency issues yet?” Kelly asks. The residency issue — whether Emanuel qualifies as a “resident” of Chicago during the past year, as the law requires, even though he’s been living in Washington and serving until recently as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff — is a good question.
Asking whether he’s “straightened (it) out” yet is not a good question, as anyone who is following the news is aware. The question will almost certainly end up in court after Emanuel files his nominating petitions, which aren’t due until next month.
The dreaded mainstream media arrive, and Charles Thomas of ABC steps in and asks, “What have you been hearing from Chicagoans?” Another icebreaker question, but one that’s been harshly criticized as a softball.
As the cameramen are setting up their shot, Kelly edges in and repeats his question, at which an irritated Thomas says “Dude, will you please get out of here. You’re not even a reporter.”
“I am too!” says Kelly. “I’m with WIND radio. I do a show on WIND. What are you talking about?”
Kelly accuses Thomas of being Emanuel’s press secretary and keeps asking questions about Emanuel’s residency. Jay Levine of CBS then moves to block Kelly and repeats the icebreaker question.
As Emanuel is giving his answer, Kelly pipes up, “Was the stimulus a failure?” Emanuel ignores him, so Kelly says “It’s too bad that the stimulus didn’t work.”
Emanuel continues talking “… they want a basic change in the direction and a fresh beginning and a new start .”
“How are you a fresh beginning if you were President (Barack) Obama’s chief of staff?” Kelly interrupts.
Jay Levine erupts. “Let him (Emanuel) finish, or I’m gonna deck ya!”
“Really?”
“Yeah!”
“Are you his press secretary?”
Emanuel moves on and a smirking Kelly turns to a video camera and says that “the Chicago Rahm Emanuel media got to ask their softball questions” but he got something for his show.
Of course we have no idea what questions, plural, were on the minds of the credentialed reporters since Kelly never let them get past the icebreaker before things got unpleasant.
What I see in this video isn’t left versus right, but polite versus rude. Reporters are turf hounds, no question about it, but they get very angry with imbeciles of all stripes who try to hijack news conferences and interview opportunities.
Yet, to be sure, there are times when someone, even a fake reporter, must ask the urgent questions that aren’t being asked.
If this were the heat of the mayoral race and Emanuel was refusing to answer or was not being asked serious questions about his career in public life that might be relevant, then yes. He should be chased down the street with microphones and cameras. Reporters who ask banal questions should be challenged.
But then, I would see it that way, wouldn’t I?
Watch the video at chicagotribune.com/zorn
