Chicago — not ready for reform?
AIP Director Terry Brunner's press statement
Sept. 16, 2002
We've spent months researching and analyzing thousands of pages
of the city's internal documents, thousands of campaign contribution
records and dozens of other sources over the last four months to
find out what really drives O'Hare expansion.
Guess what we found?
A carefully orchestrated, coordinated and calculated campaign by
the city of Chicago, United and American Airlines, and the Civic
Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago (a group of downtown
CEOs, including the heads of United Airlines, American Airlines,
Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times) to expand O'Hare International
Airport and to cement the $13 billion deal
via federal legislation, effectively bypassing the messiness and
uncertainty of an open democratic process in Illinois which would
include opposition views. They've hijacked the system.
The airlines and the CEO's singled out and bought key legislators
early in the process with clusters of campaign contributions and
showered congress with money in a carefully timed fashion. In return,
the legislators responded by adopting the airlines position for
the airlines in a quid pro quo relationship rarely seen.
This is not the first time we have seen this. This is the same blueprint
the airlines used to get their bailout following Sept. 11th. In
an October 2001 article, The New York Times noted that the airline
industry bailout was the most high-level surgical strike ever. The
airlines achieved this bailout by "concentrating their CEOs
on a few crucial congressional leaders." This is the same thing
that happened here.
For example:
- In 1999, Don Carty, head of American Airlines, gave four contributions-
one each to Guiliani, Kay Granger, George Bush and Southwest Side
Rep. Bill Lipinski, ranking member of the house subcommittee on
aviation. Overall, Lipinski received over $100,000 from the airlines.
- In return, Lipinski has been the sponsor of all O'Hare expansion
legislation.
- American Airlines executives gave large, same-day clusters of
campaign contributions to Iowa Senator Harkin and Illinois Senator
Dick Durbin.
- Within six months both men were calling for runways despite
the fact that neither had been involved with the issue before.
In fact, Durbin flipped his position from neutral to supporting
runways ostensibly because of the pressure put on the issue by
Harkin.
- Within seventeen days of blasting suburban opposition at a hearing,
West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller receives $17,000 in contributions.
- Rockefeller also receives thousands in contributions from members
of the Civic Committee, even though he is an out of state, Democratic
senator with no apparent interests in Chicago.
This deal was engineered by parties with a vested, personal interest
in O'Hare expansion. The Civic Committee put out an ad in the Chicago
media calling for new runway for the good of the region. The city's
records of the O'Hare Capital Improvement Plan Program reveal that
13 of the ad's signers are affiliated with
corporations that have contracts at O'Hare totaling over $200 million
as of January 2002. If O'Hare expansion were to pass (the approximate
cost is $13 billion) their corporations stand to receive billions
in city contracts at O'Hare.
Who got what?
Harkin received $40,000, Durbin got $100,000, Lipinski got $120,000
and Rockefeller received $60,000. Dennis Hastert, who pushed the
bill through the house received $27,500. Mark "Rim Shot"
Kirk, an unheralded freshman who became point man on the legislation,
received $44,700. John McCain who held hearings alongside Rockefeller
got $50,000 in contributions. All told the airlines, their lobbyists
and the downtown fat cats spent $3.2 million to buy the congress.
The obvious purpose of these contributions is to influence legislation.
It is as former President Jimmy Carter said, "... that to get
legislation passed or decisions made, you've got to contribute money
in a so-called legal bribe."
Why would they have to bribe the congress? To keep the party going
at O'Hare. The city had a "terrible dilemma" at O'Hare
because of Peotone. If there was ever an admission of a capacity
crisis then the city would have to allow Peotone to go ahead. But
if they could hatch a plan to remove Peotone the table and force
the federal government to expand O'Hare then they would "not
lose control at O'Hare."
If they built Peotone they would have to accept a "regional
authority" to operate all three airports, thus losing "control"
of O'Hare. The documents repeat over and over that Chicago must
not lose "control" of O'Hare. What does control of O'Hare
mean? "Jobs and contracts." In the classic Chicago sense,
jobs and contracts equal campaign contribution and reciprocity,
the mother's milk of politics.
But the issue runs much deeper. United and American airlines make
an extra $623 million dollars a year at O'Hare because of their
monopoly and the extra fares they charge Chicagoans. And the city
gets the airlines to collect the passenger fare charges that it
then uses to hand out enormous contracts.
So what's wrong with all of this? There's nothing new about pinstripe
patronage or cronyism at the airport. The airlines protecting their
own with campaign contributions to pals Daley, Ryan, Rod and Durbin.
Hey, this is Chicago- the city that my old friend Paddy Bauler
said, "ain't ready for reform."
But wait, This isn't just suburbanites watching and laughing at
the most corrupt city in the nation. The city has run out of room
for corruption inside its own borders.
Now the city is hurting real people. They are going to make more
money by destroying housing values in Park Ridge, wrecking businesses
and jobs in the 100,000 person industrial park in Elk Grove Village
and the taking of homes in Bensenville.
Mayor Daley is running amok in the suburbs. Consider the reaction
of Wrigley Fields neighbors to extending the bleachers over the
sidewalk. Can you imagine the uproar if Daley tried to expand O'Hare
if it was in Wrigleyville? We would have Mayor Jesse Jackson Jr.
in a heartbeat.
The only way they could ever do this is to someone else. If Daley
tried this in Chicago he wouldn't last five minutes.
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