Chicago council approves $12M settlement

The Chicago City Council on Wednesday approved a $12 million settlement that could signal the end of a nearly 40-year-long legal battle to stop political hiring at City Hall.

The deal, which aldermen approved 48-0, still must get final approval from U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen, who has asked both sides to return to court May 31.

Last month, the city agreed to establish a $12 million fund to be paid out to individuals who say they have been discriminated against in the hiring process dating back to 2000. The maximum award would be $100,000.

"Hopefully with this settlement we can open a new era and a new chapter in city politics and city government and truly have a professional staff that will serve the people and not political patrons," Alderman Joe Moore said.

Under the preliminary agreement that Andersen approved in March, Chicago officials agreed to establish new hiring practices, the details of which have not been finalized. About 1,200 city jobs still will be exempt from a court-ordered decree banning political hiring.

The city also can get out from under the decree by the end of next year if it proves procedures are in place to prevent future abuses.

The 1983 decree banning political hiring for the vast majority of Chicago employees resulted from a 1969 lawsuit filed by attorney Michael Shakman. He has feuded with City Hall over patronage abuses ever since.

In 2005, Andersen appointed a federal monitor to keep an eye on city hiring after Mayor Richard M. Daley's former patronage chief was arrested on charges that he and others conspired to rig the city's hiring process. They were convicted last summer by a federal jury.

The monitor concluded in a December report that while efforts to reform hiring at City Hall had improved, there remained "pockets of resistance" from employees and a small group of aldermen who "have openly expressed a preference for a patronage system," where jobs are doled out based on political loyalty.

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