KELLY CASSIDY MIGHT WANT TO PROVIDE A MORE LOGICAL EXPLANATION OF WHY SHE NO LONGER WORKS IN THE COOK COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE…AND WHY SHE WORKED THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

5/23/18

A little common sense should be brought to the discussion regarding State Representative Kelly Cassidy’s charges that she was forced out of her part-time job with the Cook County Sheriff’s office in retaliation for her criticizing Speaker Mike Madigan’s handling of sexual harassment complaints against Kevin Quinn (no relation), a long time Madigan political aide.

First, Representative Cassidy was not fired from her position at the Sheriff’s office; she resigned.   She seems to be arguing that she was pressured to resign by a call from the Speaker’s chief of staff, Tim Mapes, to the Sheriff’s department inquiring about her employment status there.   But Representative Cassidy has been around Chicago politics a long time and presumably is tough enough not to let a mere employment inquiry, even from someone of Mr. Mapes’ stature, intimidate her into resigning.

Second, the Sheriff’s office contends that Representative Cassidy resigned because she opposed a bill that Sheriff Tom Dart was pushing, a bill that would place inmates who engage in sexually predatory behavior in prison on the sex offender registry upon release.   That would certainly seem to be the more direct and relevant cause for Representative Cassidy’s resignation than presumed pressure from the Speaker on an unrelated issued. Representative Cassidy even cites as evidence of pressure from Speaker Madigan a call from Madigan protégé Representative Bob Rita inquiring as to how she could oppose the sex offender registry bill that was supported by her “boss,” Sheriff Tom Dart.   That call from Representative Rita lends credence to the logical argument that, to the extent there was pressure on her to resign, the pressure arose from her opposition to the sex offender registry bill, not from her calling out Speaker Madigan on his handling of complaints against Mr. Quinn.

Third, one has to ask what Representative Cassidy’s part-time job at the Sheriff’s office involved.   If it was, as some of Representative Cassidy’s defenders argue, used as political leverage, the job was part of the old way of doing things in Chicago politics, a brand of politics that Rep. Cassidy purports to abhor.   If she understandably doesn’t like the old school brand of Chicago politics she seems to be accusing Sheriff Dart and Speaker Madigan of practicing, why did she take the job in the first place?

It would seem to the disinterested observer that the burden of proof in this case lies with Representative Cassidy.  While she argues that she was pressured out of her job with the Sheriff because of her criticism of Speaker Madigan in the Kevin Quinn affair, it seems more logical to conclude that the story is just what the Sheriff’s office says it is:   Representative Cassidy quit because she found reprehensible the Sheriff’s efforts to battle sexually predatory conduct on the part of inmates against female staffers.  One can understand why Representative Cassidy would want to deflect attention from her stance on this issue and instead paint her actions as a noble manifestation of her dedication to the #MeToo movement.  Also, it would seem that if the part time job with the Sheriff’s office was just a form of political pressure to keep Representative Cassidy voting the “right” way, she, and those who gave her the job, including Sheriff Dart and perhaps Speaker Madigan, have a lot of explaining to do.  

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.