Lucky state auditor avoided audit of his (destroyed) records
Apr. 22—Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is scheduled to be sentenced June 13 for his conviction on public corruption charges.
The bribery trial of current Chicago state Sen. Emil Jones III continued Monday, with final arguments to the jury to be followed by deliberations and a verdict.
The ComEd Four — three Commonwealth Edison lobbyists and a former CEO — will be sentenced someday soon, maybe, following their convictions for conspiring to bribe Madigan.
So many corruption cases. It's hard to keep them all straight, especially with the passage of time.
The calendar moves like lightning. Memories fade. Now who was that guy who was indicted or should have been way back when?
The subject came up the other day when Patrick Pfingsten of The Illinoize reported that Frank Mautino, the state's auditor general, plans to retire within a year.
An Illinois House member from Spring Valley, Mautino was appointed in 2016 by his fellow legislators to a 10-year term. That came after Mautino won former House Speaker Michael Madigan's support for the important, well-paying job.
What does this have to do with Illinois' history of shady or questionable conduct by public officials?
After Mautino became auditor general, the Edgar County Watchdogs flashed their sharp teeth and took a look at Mautino's campaign spending.
When finished, they raised a question that was never definitively answered: What happened to nearly $500,000 in Mautino campaign funds?
The watchdogs found roughly $250,000 in payments to Mautino's hometown Spring Valley bank. They found another $213,000 in expenditures between March 2005 and December 2015 that reportedly went for fuel and repairs at a service station owned by one of Mautino's friends and supporters.
The Illinois State Board of Elections asked where the bank money went, because the expenditures were not payments to the bank. As for the vehicle expenses, the Illinois Supreme Court found they were made for vehicles "neither owned nor leased" by the Mautino campaign.
Eyebrows were raised. One former legislator insisted Mautino explain himself because "the office of auditor general requires the highest ethical standards."
The late Adam Andrzejewski, chairman of spending watchdog Open the Books, insisted Mautino must demonstrate his integrity or resign.
Mautino did neither. He hired a lawyer, kept his mouth shut and waited for things to blow over.
One reason why there were never any explanations is that Mautino's spending records had been destroyed.
One of Mautino's constituents, David Cooke, a retired teacher from Streator, filed a formal complaint with the elections board that urged an in-depth investigation. Board members told Cooke he'd have to do the investigation himself.
A volunteer lawyer from the Liberty Justice Center eventually took up Cooke's cause. The elections board — an eight-member panel divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans — dismissed the case. Then the appellate court reinstated it.
Eventually, the board fined Mautino's campaign committee $5,000. Since the committee had been dissolved, there was no entity to pay the fine.
It was, in the finest fashion of Illinois, a non-scandal scandal — lots of smoke, too little verifiable information.
Where did the money go? Those who know never said. Those who didn't know had dark suspicions.
The irony, of course, is that the auditor general's job that Mautino filled involved conducting oversight into how state government spends taxpayer dollars.
The general's auditors track down illegal spending, unwise spending, inefficient spending. They identify wrongdoers and write reports intended for public consumption.
Mautino proved to be the watchdog who was watched and found wanting. Now, as he plans his retirement, he's just another public official whose questionable escapades have faded away.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Axios
23 minutes ago
- Axios
Threats to Tesla's revenue are piling up
Tesla faces fresh risks to a big income stream: sales of regulatory credits to other automakers under vehicle emissions and efficiency rules. Why it matters: Tesla's credit sales were $595 million last quarter and totaled $3.36 billion in the five quarters through Q1 of 2025. The credits are awarded to companies like Tesla that exceed emissions standards. Producers of gas-powered vehicles buy them to help meet various CO2 and mileage standards. The latest: Republicans on the Senate's commerce committee late last week proposed ending civil penalties under the Transportation Department's fuel economy rules. It's part of the committee's portion of the budget "reconciliation" bill — the top GOP and White House legislative priority. The provision would "modestly" cut auto prices by ending penalties on automakers that now "design cars to conform to the wishes of DC bureaucrats rather than consumers," a GOP summary states. The intrigue:"This Senate action would effectively end the market for CAFE credits," Chris Harto, a senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports, tells Axios via email. Dan Becker, who heads the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity, noted: "Why buy credits if Trump gives you a get out of CAFE free card?" Driving the news: Separately, DOT on Friday issued an "interpretive rule" that bars consideration of EVs when it sets these mileage rules. It's a step toward crafting replacement standards, DOT said. This paves the way for less aggressive requirements — and less need for buying credits. State of play: Several buckets of credits benefit Tesla, the dominant U.S. EV seller. EPA emissions standards, Transportation Department fuel economy mandates, and California's ambitious clean cars program all provide opportunities. European emissions rules also generate credits. The big picture: The regulatory credit market was already facing risks before all the news late last week. EPA is planning to rescind Biden-era EPA carbon emissions rules for model years 2027 and onward. The House-passed reconciliation bill and the Senate GOP proposal would also nix them. And the House bill pulls back Biden-era DOT mileage rules. Both chambers have passed measures that end EPA's approval of California's auto emissions rules. Threat level: Potential loss of credit revenues comes at a perilous time for Tesla. Its sales have slumped in recent quarters, and CEO Elon Musk's rightward turn and alliance with Trump are among the reasons why, analysts say. The House plan ends $7,500 consumer purchase subsidies for EVs under the Democrats' 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. By the numbers: Credit revenues exceeded Tesla's overall profit last quarter — in other words, it would have been in the red without them. Yes, Q1 was atypically weak for Tesla, but consider Q4 of 2024, when Tesla reported $2.13 billion in profits that were helped along by $692 million in credit sales. In Q3, those numbers were $2.17B and $739M, respectively. Friction point: More broadly, the meltdown of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's relationship with Trump also creates new and unpredictable risks for the billionaire entrepreneur's business empire.
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The Democrats Have an Authenticity Gap
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Since President Donald Trump's victory last fall, Democrats have been trying to reengage with male voters, find a 'Joe Rogan of the left,' and even fund a whole left-leaning 'manosphere.' Young men—Rogan's core audience—were among the voting blocs that definitively moved toward the GOP in 2024, as a comprehensive postmortem by the data firm Catalist recently illustrated. In response, many powerful liberal figures have obsessively returned to the same idea: If we can't compete with their influential manosphere, why not construct our own? One high-profile progressive group, the Speaking With American Men project, is embarking on a two-year, $20 million mission to build 'year-round engagement in online and offline spaces Democrats have long ignored—investing in creators, trusted messengers, and upstream cultural content,' though its leaders say they're not looking for a liberal Rogan. Another effort, AND Media (AND being an acronym for 'Achieve Narrative Dominance'), has raised $7 million and, according to The New York Times, is looking to amass many times that amount over the next four years to back voices that will break with 'the current didactic, hall monitor style of Democratic politics that turns off younger audiences.' But in recent conversations with people in all corners of Democratic politics—far-left Bernie bros, seasoned centrists of the D.C. establishment, and rising new voices in progressive media—I came away with the sense that Democrats don't have simply a podcast-dude issue, one that could be solved with fresh money, new YouTube channels, and a bunch of studio mics. The party has struggled to capitalize on Trump's second-term missteps. It has yet to settle on a unifying message or vision of the future. Given this absence, such a tactical, top-down fix as deputizing a liberal Rogan looks tempting. The big problem is: That fix is both improbable and illogical. [Read: Democrats have a man problem] The party's 'podcast problem' is a microcosm of a much larger likability issue. 'We are a little bit, you know, too front-of-the-classroom,' Jon Lovett, a former Obama speechwriter and a co-host of Pod Save America, told me. In a sense, the show's production company, Crooked Media, already tested the 'make your own media ecosystem' proposition: Five years after its independent founding in 2017, Crooked announced that it had received funding from an investment firm run by the Democratic megadonor George Soros. Lovett seemed less skeptical of the new initiatives than other Democrats I interviewed, but also acknowledged some limitations. 'We believe how important it is to invest in progressive media,' Lovett told me. 'But in the same way you can't strategize ways to be authentic, you can't buy organic support.' The limits of this approach have already become clear. 'If you're trying to identify and cultivate and create this idea of a 'liberal Joe Rogan,' by definition, you're manufacturing something that's not authentic,' Brendan McPhillips, who served as campaign manager during John Fetterman's successful Pennsylvania Senate bid in 2022, told me. 'This fucking insane goose chase that these elite donors want to pursue to create some liberal oasis of new media is just really harebrained and misguided.' Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and other prominent voices in the existing manosphere are not inherently political and, even when they do touch politics, don't adhere to GOP or conservative orthodoxy. Although Rogan and Von did attend Trump's second inauguration, both have also been enamored with Senator Bernie Sanders, of Vermont; and recently, Von delivered an emotional monologue about the destruction in Gaza, drawing ire from many of his listeners on the right. In short, these guys are guided not by ideology, but by their own curiosity and gut instinct. Fluidity in belief is central to their appeal, and helps explain their cross-party success. Their audiences also blossomed over time, not after the stroke of a donor's pen. Throughout my interviews, I heard constant lamentations over the inescapable 'D.C. speak' in both Democratic politics and the left-leaning press. 'Normal people aren't out here talking about and paying attention to the kind of things that tie senior Democratic strategists up in knots,' McPhillips, who lives in Philadelphia, told me. You can't read white papers and study what goes on in the states from afar, he argued; you have to be there at eye level, living among real people, talking like a real person. What politicians have been advised to do for decades—stick to short cable-news hits, repeat the same few points over and over—are habits that today's voters find, in the words of a senior official who worked both in the Joe Biden White House and on the Kamala Harris campaign, 'repulsive.' Although this person, who asked for anonymity in order to speak freely about party strategy, discounted the premise of finding a 'Rogan of the left' as a fool's errand, they did say that, from now through 2028, Democrats should try to infiltrate sports-focused podcasts, paying particular attention to YouTube. This operative has come to view the current moment less as center-left versus center-right, and more as a larger battle of institutionalists versus anti-institutionalists: 'The psyche of a liberal in this moment is institution defense.' Also: fear. Too many Democrats, they believe, approach every public conversation and media interview with a level of trepidation about what they're saying—not in fear of Trump, but in fear of the wrath of their own potential voters. During her 2024 campaign, Harris reportedly feared the potential blowback within her own team from sitting down with Rogan. 'There was a backlash with some of our progressive staff that didn't want her to be on' his show, Jennifer Palmieri, who advised the second gentleman Doug Emhoff, said a week after the election. (Palmieri later revised her comments.) This year, some progressives have found a way to break through. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who's proved capable of acing a hostile Fox News interview, has now grown facial scruff and has been popping up on the podcast circuit. Several Democrats I spoke with praised both Buttigieg's recent media tour—his appearance on the brash bro show Flagrant was singled out—and Sanders's ability to win over certain manosphere hosts. 'They're able to do that because they have the confidence and the skill to go on a program like that and just be themselves, and people believe what they say because they're being honest,' McPhillips told me. On the Fighting Oligarchy Tour, and in his frequent podcast appearances, Sanders has positioned himself as an accessible and righteously angry force. Faiz Shakir, Sanders's 2020 campaign manager and now an adviser to the senator, told me that Democrats 'are too far removed from organic and interesting conversations that people want to hear about, and have become too reliant on a one-way push at people about the things we want to tell them,' rather than actually listening to voters. Although he himself is a Harvard alumnus who lives and works in D.C., Shakir criticized the Democratic Party's perpetually buttoned-up ethos, the opposite of an unstructured podcast hang. He spoke about the power of anger—the defining emotion of the past political decade—as something that many Democrats don't know how to wield effectively. 'If you're angry, you're uncouth,' Shakir said. 'Calm down! That's not professional!' Unless Democrats stop worrying about politely conforming to pre-Trump communication mores, he believes the chasm with voters will continue to exist, hypothetical new-media ecosystem be damned. [John Hendrickson: Jake and Logan Paul hit the limits of the manosphere] Two things can be true at the same time: Many centrist Democrats may be too timid or genteel, and lack the moxie to speak with the anger that resonates with voters. But the cause of men's alienation from liberal politics cannot be distilled simply into perceptions of gentility. Nor is voicing rage a plausible way to hack the manosphere. When it comes to podcasts—the medium of the moment—a different emotion reigns: curiosity. Hosts such as Rogan and Von succeed across party lines not because they're indignant, but because they're inquisitive and, crucially, persuadable. Their talent is to seem real and relatable without trying. Throughout my conversations, I asked why liberals have not organically produced a figure of Rogan's magnitude and influence. No one really had an answer. But one thing became abundantly clear: No amount of strategic parsing will let Democrats fake their way through this moment. You can't buy authentic communication. Article originally published at The Atlantic
San Francisco Chronicle
26 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Americans still have faith in local news − but few are willing to pay for it
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Jennifer Hoewe, Purdue University (THE CONVERSATION) Many Americans say they have lost trust in national news – but most still believe they can rely on the accuracy of local news. In 2023, trust in national newspapers, TV and radio reached historic lows. Just 32% of Americans said they have a 'great deal' or 'fair amount' of trust in these news sources. In 1976, by comparison, 72% of Americans said they had a 'great deal' or 'fair amount' of trust in mass media, including newspapers, TV and radio. And in 2021, the United States ranked last among 46 countries in the trust citizens placed in news outlets. Yet even as the local news industry is declining in the U.S. – more than 3,200 local and regional newspapers have closed since 2005 – Americans still place much more trust in local news than they do in national news. In 2024, 74% of Americans said they had 'a lot of' or 'some' trust in their local news organizations, and 85% believed their local news outlets are at least somewhat important to their community. I am a former local journalist who studies the effects that media content can have on people. Local news can help people understand what their local government is doing, stay aware of day-to-day events, such as local weather, traffic, sports, schools and crime, and even feel a greater sense of community. The decline of local news News organizations in the U.S. have long relied on commercial business practices – such as advertising from companies and subscriptions from readers – that have not been financially sustainable since the mid-2000s. Newspapers' advertising revenue peaked around 2005 and has since rapidly declined from more than $49 billion a year in 2005 to less than $10 billion in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. This drop was driven by the rise of the internet. As a result, the U.S. has lost more than a third of its local and regional newspapers since 2004. Of the local newspapers that remain, 80% are weeklies, as opposed to the daily local newspapers that were more common in the past. With fewer reporters and editors who closely follow the ins and outs of local and state issues, local newspapers are now less able to hold state and local government officials accountable for their actions. Americans also read local newspapers less than they once did. Since 2015, print and digital circulation numbers have dropped 40% for weekday news editions and 45% for Sunday editions among locally focused daily newspapers and their websites. Instead, a larger percentage of Americans now turn to their family members, friends and neighbors than their local news outlets for local news. Despite local news' problems with declining revenue and readership, Americans still trust local news – and this trust crosses partisan lines. A 2024 Pew Research Center survey found that both Republicans and Democrats think local journalists are in touch with their local communities. The majority of Democrats and Republicans in this survey agreed that local news media 'report news accurately,' 'are transparent about their reporting,' 'cover the most important stories/issues' and 'keep an eye on local political leaders.' This might be because local newspapers can focus on issues people encounter in their day-to-day lives rather than on national politics. In many cases, readers are also able to more easily connect with local journalists in their communities and share story ideas or feedback. People learn about their elected officials and become more informed about local issues from their local news, making it an important component of developing a well-informed public. The current local news environment When people no longer have access to local news sources, or they stop following local news coverage, their faith in the integrity of local elections decreases, their ability to assess elected officials is worse, and voter turnout is lower in local elections, compared with those who do follow, read, watch or listen to local news. Some Americans started relying more heavily on national news when local newspapers shut down, which research shows led to increases in political polarization. My research found that when people trust a partisan-leaning national news source, for example, they're very likely to agree with the partisan-slanted news stories published by that source. As nonpartisan local newspapers have vanished or downsized, partisan-leaning online local news content has cropped up over the past several years. These sites publish news stories that are focused on local issues but approach it with a partisan bent. As a result, people looking for local news information may take in unreliable information that is presented as local news and interpret it as trustworthy. Verifying the origins and intentions of information continues to be paramount for news consumers to make sure they are receiving accurate information – including when it comes to local news.
