Another Day At The Clout Club

From the Tribune Blogs:

Daley's embattled ethics aide resigns in power struggle

UPDATE 3:18 p.m. by Todd Lighty and Hal Dardick; originally posted at 2:52 p.m.

Mayor Richard Daley’s embattled compliance officer abruptly resigned today amid a power struggle that pitted two City Hall watchdogs against each other.

Anthony Boswell, executive director of the Office of Compliance, informed Daley that he plans to leave city employment at the end of May, said Boswell’s lawyer, Jamie Wareham. He said Boswell’s future plans were unclear.

“He’s leaving because of the stress and strain on his family and because of all of the unfairness,” Wareham

Boswell has been embroiled in controversy since Daley suspended him for 30 days earlier this year for allegedly mishandling a sexual harassment investigation.
...

In the meantime, Daley has moved to strip Boswell’s office of much of its authority. He recently shifted the responsibility for overseeing city hiring from the compliance office to the inspector general.

Daley created the compliance office in 2007 to ensure city government complies with legal and ethical guidelines and grew the department to include a budget of $3.5 million and 39 employees. The City Council plans to hold hearings on the mayor's proposal to realign the powers between compliance office and the inspector general, including giving the inspector general the authority to investigate aldermen.
...

For those of you who are not from here and might --

• Be shocked to learn that the City of Chicago has something called the "Office of Compliance", and,


• Accidentally mistake the existence of that office as an indicator of some larger, vital, aggressive commitment on the part of the City to have an actual "office" that insures "compliance" with "ethics thingies"

-- let me assure you that The Chicago Machine has not died and gone to Minnesota.

First, while it is rare to see it spill into the newspapers, such power struggles are incredibly common within city gummint. They are -- and always have been -- part of careful and deliberate strategy of investing separate and competing city offices and departments with overlapping, ambiguous and mutually-hostile mandates. This keeps everybody but Da Mare perpetually off-balance and makes sure that the dukes and earls of power are kept so busy fighting each other that none of them can ever mount a serious challenge.

This is why Chiefs of Staff are rotated in and out of office faster than "Precious" opened and closed at Teabagger Movie Night. Why there are 50 aldermen instead of a more rational and cost-effective 10-15. And why the gummint is kept pumped full of transient interns and private-sector-based consultants who Da Mare uses as his personal Janissaries, and who wield godlike powers on Hizzonner's behalf.

Second, while the City really does have an extensive array of ethics regulations (about which it makes a Great Big Show; knowledge of which every manager-and-above is tested on at least twice a year; and fidelity to which every manager-and-above is required to attest to in writing at least twice a year on pain of a substantial fine) when it comes to the City actually enforcing those regulations fairly and uniformly -- as I have previously and extensively written about here -- the Two Commandments are, as always, in full effect:

Commandment One: There is a Club.
Commandment Two: You are not in it.