McHenry County Blog

First, let me tell what I think the real story is on House Speaker Dennis Hastert and the Prairie Pathway.

I think it is offers some enterprising reporter the opportunity to determine the interconnection of infrastructure and politics.

Right after I first heard of the proposal I was driving through Kendall County from I-88 to Route 47. I saw a lot of Inland Real Estate signs. I assumed that this land was already owned by outsiders for speculative purposes.

I don’t want to single out Inland for any purpose other than I know the firm is into land speculation, as undoubtedly are many others.

The real question that takes more resources than I have is to, as the guys said in “All the President’s Men,”

follow the money.

Breaking secret land trusts is tough. Only when they try to sell property to public entities must their owners’ names be revealed. (Or, in this case, when hints must be given in a congressman's income disclosure filing.) And, by the time of the sale, any “original” speculator may be long gone…off to the next land speculation frontier.

I have seen four Illinois articles/columns on the Hastert deal this past week.

The Sunday before last’s headline in Elgin’s Daily Courier-News best described the question that calls to be answered:

Who benefits from Prairie Parkway bid?

That is indeed the underlying question.

Did purchasers of land nearby contribute to Hastert’s political committees? If so, can a pattern be found between the land purchase dates and the contributions? (If it were not for Illinois’ secret land trusts, the answer to that question could be probably be found much more easily.)

In Matthew DeFour’s article a long-time opponent who sold her land to the Kane County Forest Preserve District for under market prices explains the history of the Pathway.

Also the Sunday before last, the Chicago Tribune weighed in on the more narrow question of

How Hastert benefited from sale

It reveals how Hastert reinvested the profits in other land, some local, some in Wisconsin. It is narrow in scope, seeing to find if Hastert got paid more than market value (apparently, not). There’s much more, but does not answer the very basic “Who benefits from the Prairie Pathway?” question asked in the Elgin paper’s headline.

The Chicago Sun-times Lynn Sweet weighed in with a column last Thursday entitled,

Hastert should have revealed land trust

The headline pretty much sums up what I concluded in this post.

Here’s what Sweet dug out of the House Ethics Committee manual:
The disclosure exercise, according to the House Ethics Manual is

"intended to provide the information necessary to allow Members' constituencies to judge their official conduct in light of possible financial conflicts with private holdings. Review of a Member's financial conduct occurs in the context of the political process.'' Furthermore, disclosures are supposed to "inform the public about the financial interests of government officials in order to increase public confidence in the integrity of government and to deter potential conflicts of interest.''

She further points out that the land purchased (to save capital gains tax) was not specifically described, as the follow seems to require:

"The identity of the property, in addition to its category of value, must be specified. Disclosure of real property should include a description sufficient to permit its identification (e.g., street address or plat and map location).''

A second Sweet column appears on Friday. In it, she allows Hastert to defend himself. The column’s title is

Windfall tied to 'Hastert Highway'? No, speaker insists

Well-paved road to political perdition
The highway to Hastertland

is the title this past Sunday in which the Tribune kept the story alive locally with an opinion page contribution. It was by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, described as “a long-time critic of congressional ethics rules.”

The professor says that Hastert’s “transaction is neither unlawful nor unusual under the current ethics rules.”

He then points out that Hastert “became a millionaire while in public service” and proceeds to attack congressional ethics regulations. For example,

Members have resisted any effort to require that they create blind investment trusts or to recuse themselves from any matter in which they have a financial interest. Unlike judges, they continue to legislate in areas where they hold significant financial interests.

More strongly,

The current ethics rules are nothing more than a license to steal.

The professor was not speaking specifically of anything Hastert did in his land deal, I would stress.

There is another short Courier News article in which the Kendall County Board Chairman John Church faces off against board member Anne Vickery on what recently approved interchanges at county roads, including one near the land Hastert just sold, will mean to local residents.

Here are the other articles, I have written on this subject:
June 14 Hastert Sprawlway Intersection,
June 15 More on Hastert's Land Profits,
June 16 Dissecting Denny’s Defense.

Here's the web site of Citizens Against the Sprawlway.