Three people — including the husband of an alderman and a close friend of and heavy donor to Mayor Rahm Emanuel — will not have to pay $2,500 fines after all for lobbying the mayor through his private emails but failing to register as lobbyists.
In settlement agreements posted Thursday, the Chicago Board of Ethics agreed to drop the fines it levied earlier this year against: Alan King, husband of Ald. Sophia King (4th); James Abrams, whose wealthy North Shore family owns Medline Industries and sold the city the Michael Reese Hospital site and Tony Davis, president of Linden Capital Partners.
Newly-reappointed Ethics Board Chairman William Conlon has faced harsh criticism — from Emanuel, Ald. King and others — for taking too strong a stand against unregistered lobbyists, using Emanuel’s treasure trove of private emails as his guide.
The decision to waive the fines — as long as King, Abrams and Davis abide by a “one-year waiting period during which no other lobbying violations will occur” — marks a retreat from that hard-line position.
“These three individuals were not at all professional lobbyists — either as a full-time job or even as a part-time activity,” Conlon said. “This is the first time the Board of Ethics has addressed enforcement. People are now on notice that we’re gonna enforce. It’s fair to let people know that.”
Alan King denied that he engaged in lobbying and challenged the $2,500 fine.
King said he’s “pleased that the Board of Ethics approached me with a settlement” that vacated the fine and the “prior determination that I engaged in unregistered lobbying.”
“The Board interpreted the Ethics Ordinance in my case in a manner that was broadly condemned and disagreed with, and I am confident that this interpretation would not have withstood judicial scrutiny,” King said in a statement.
Alan King is a house music disc jockey and Chicago attorney who is a close friend and basketball buddy of former President Barack Obama. In part, that’s how Sophia King came to the attention of Emanuel, who was Obama’s first White House chief of staff.
Ald. King has accused the reinvigorated Board of Ethics of regulatory overkill.
She has argued that illegal lobbying is supposed to be confined to people who either do not register as lobbyists or don’t report their lobbying to actions that stand to benefit them or their clients financially.
The rookie alderman said that was not the case with her husband.
At the time, King’s group had a permit to hold a “House Music Picnic” in Jackson Park, but the event was being threatened by construction on the site.
“My husband was merely trying to get a fence moved that the Army Corps of Engineers had put on a place that they had paid for. … I don’t think the spirit or the letter of the law is intended to punish somebody who is trying to right a wrong,” King said then.
“People come to my office every day about fences, about all kinds of things that they want to get done or right wrongs. That’s the right place to go. You go to your elected officials.”
Emanuel has also accused the Board of Ethics of turning “average citizens” into lobbyists in its zeal to shed its weakling image and follow the road map provided by his private emails.
“In the interest of reform, we have lost our perspective,” the mayor said earlier this year. “We know what a lobbyist is. …They get paid to represent a particular interest, then have a financial interest in the outcome. A citizen expressing their views to their elected democratic officials is doing exactly what you want in a representative form of government.”
At the time, the mayor also joked about a conversation at home.
“Amy [the mayor’s wife] was saying something to me and [daughter] Ilana says, ‘You’d better not, Mom. You’re gonna have to register as a lobbyist,’” Emanuel said.
Davis’ December 2014 email to the mayor was about a zoning change needed for a triathlon training center displaced by a CTA project.
He has accused the Ethics Board of getting the facts and the law wrong and of violating his constitutional rights as a citizens to “ask my elected officials a question.”
Abrams could not be reached for comment.
He emailed the mayor in April, 2015 seeking help for “one of my dearest friends in the world” who was seeking a “small manufacturer’s exemption” to the city’s minimum wage ordinance and a ruling that “compensation as defined in the ordinance includes health insurance” and pension costs.
