-By Warner Todd Huston
A few days ago I posted a story about how the race for the GOP seat on the Cook County Board of Review is already heating up. That is mostly due to the straight out campaigning of challenger Sean M. Morrison.
In writing that story, I took some time speaking to and emailing back and forth with Mr. Morrison on what I intended to write in the earlier piece. He gave me so much content about his ideas and replies to incumbent Commissioner Dan Patlak’s record that I felt it would not do our contact justice unless I made a whole separate post covering it all. So, here we go.
The most glaring charge that Morrison makes is that of Patlak’s reputed soliciting of campaign contributions from attorneys in what Morrison contends is a corrupt game of pay-to-play politics. I noted to Morrison that it is perfectly legal to take contributions from attorneys and asked for clarification of his point.
Morrison felt that taking high dollar donations from attorneys that might appear before the Board of Review to represent their real estate clients was something that “raises serious questions” about Patlak’s propriety. “It doesn’t pass the smell test,” Morrison claimed.
Morrison cited a Daily Herald article as evidence that there may be something fishy going on at the BofR. The Herald found that property tax appeals favor businesses in Cook County. This situation show a BofR going askew, Morrison felt, and he wondered why Patlak isn’t trying to do anything about this.
We are dealing with a system that is intentionally rigged; a system that is difficult to extract information from. Our campaign recently submitted a FOIA request to the Board of Review which was rejected on all three requests because the County does not track the information. We were requesting information on the average commercial assessment reduction per township and for specific classes of commercial properties.
Candidate Morrison insists that a genuine conservative would not stand for this situation and would at least try to do something to change the culture of corruption. He claims Patlak simply hasn’t.
“Even Rep. Mike Quigley who sponsored a 2007 ordinance to curb the ties between the commissioners and the lawyers who seek reductions from the board believed ‘the appearance [of pay to play] alone creates a problem,’” Morrison said.
“Aggressively soliciting contributions in excess of $300,000 from property tax attorneys in just 17 months is excessive and we need to ask Mr. Patlak the question: why,” Morrison said.
As I mentioned in my earlier piece, Patlak says that Morrison’s numbers are way off and that he most certainly has not taken any $300,000 from attorneys that appear before the BofR. But Morrison insists that his numbers are exactly right.
Mr. Patlak has raised/solicited more than $300,000 in just the last seventeen months since he first ran for Cook County Board of Review. This figure does not yet include the September report from the Board of Elections. This includes law firms and individual attorneys that appear before him.
Patlak raised this money, Morrison says, by direct appeals through mailings the Commissioner made to scores of law firms in Cook County.
I asked Morrison what exactly he really intended to do should he gain the office? I noted that he’s made all sorts of vague claims that he’d do things to improve the BofR and the like, but he’s not really laid out any specific program. He replied that he’ll soon be unveiling a “full and complete picture” of what he’d do as a member of the BofR and it will appear on his campaign web site soon.
As to the two incorrect statements that I saw on his campaign blog, he agrees that he wasn’t very clear and he intends to make clarifications and corrections on those soon. On his blog, for instance, Morrison admits he did indeed confuse the senior freeze with the senior exemption and he agrees that he was unclear on whether or not people could file commercial appeals online.
What Morrison lacks in concrete knowledge of the work of the BofR, he certainly makes up in verve for conservative values, in any case. His final word in our communications was an appeal to conservative sensibilities.
If you call yourself a conservative Republican, I do not believe it is enough to go along with the system as it is. I think that the best representatives are the ones who go beyond what they are supposed to do. Any elected office is a potential bully pulpit to be a force for change. Isn’t that what many of the Tea Party congressmen have become? Haven’t they stood up and spoke out on things they believed were improper? Hasn’t that helped change things in Washington? Why can’t we do this in Cook County?
I think being a force for change is what we should demand and receive from our public officials – that is, if they are really serving us.
One thing is sure. The first round of this race goes to the guy shaping the debate and thus far that is Sean M. Morrison. He is absolutely charging full bore ahead and controlling the debate. Patlak assures me that he will soon begin to reply directly to what he says are Morrison’s outrageous and unprovable charges after which he will take the debate to Morrison on his own terms.
Whatever else is going on, this race is already in the tall weeds and the long knives are out.
For more on Morrison, Illinois Review did an extensive interview with him in four parts. Go check them out:
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“The first round of this race goes to the guy shaping the debate and thus far that is Sean M. Morrison. ”
Really? Shaping the debate? Let’s call it what it is, mudslinging, slander, name-calling, whining, etc. This guy doesn’t have a single idea about what this office does, let alone how he can change it. I listened to him speak and all I heard was Patlak this, Patlak that. The guy was pathetic and acted in a way that can only be described as thugish. It was basically high schoolish bully behavior.
The fact is, he doesn’t have even the slightest understanding of the position for which he is running and has described his qualification for the position simply as “I have purchased property.” He should be ashamed and embarrassed of himself and his performance.
If this guy is a “conservative republican,” then I will be exercising my First Amendment right to associate and disassociate myself right out of the Republican party.