Marathon Pundit: Illinois corruption update: Pol accepted "birthday gifts"

The practice of giving "birthday presents" of cash to the politically connected in Chicago and Cook County goes back decades. My grandfather, a city worker, was forced to do send annual "birthday greetings" to a union boss.

If he hadn't, he would have been an ex-City of Chicago employee.

The Chicago Tribune reports that this shameful tradition:

Dorothy Brown's campaign literature says she puts "professionalism over politics," but the veteran Cook County Circuit Court clerk has long accepted annual cash gifts from her employees -- a relic of Illinois' political patronage system that raises questions about coercion.

Brown says employees are not pressured to give and says the practice is not banned by law or local ethics rules. But after the Tribune asked who she takes gifts from and how she reports it on her taxes, Brown said this week that she would stop.

The three-term clerk -- who is mulling a run for County Board president -- defended accepting workers' cash gifts, even at time when such practices are under increasing scrutiny amid a focus on government ethics.

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"If you didn't contribute, you were treated differently than other people who did," said Barbara Nicosia, a former union leader who retired in 2002 after more than 30 years in the office and repeatedly sparred with Brown. "Eventually, you paid for it."