Yarbrough political committees hit up village's legal counsel

West Suburban Journal (Kevin Williams with Nicole Trottie) detailed how two political committees aligned with Karen & Henderson Yarbrough received $9,000 since 2005 from Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins, the attorneys for the Village of Maywood. (h/t Proviso Insider)

Karen Yarbrough is the state representative for Maywood and much of the surrounding area; she is also Proviso Township's Democratic Committeeman. Henderson Yarbrough is Maywood's village president. Before the April, 2007 election Yarbrough's block had a 4-3 majority on the village board; now they have a 6-1 majority.

In an email to me Karen Yarbrough wrote that the Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins contributions were a “non issue”. I disagree.

In the past I have expressed concern that politicians raising money from law firms that work for local taxing bodies is simply money laundering. At its simplest the taxing body picks a law firm—because legal work is a “professional service” it doesn't need to be bid out—and the law firms merely pad their bills to cover the contributions the politicians want. They can either build the cost of the political contributions into the firm's hourly rate or add extra hours.

Raising money from vendors and contractors looks bad, but there are a number of ways raising money from law firms is worse.

1. Legal work is not bid upon.
2. If there is a quid pro quo negotiated it is more difficult for outsiders, including law enforcement, to detect because of the protections of attorney-client privilege.
3. There is no protection against attorneys padding their bills other than the personal honor of the attorneys. Normally, law clients have an incentive to be skeptical of the bills and pay as little as possible. But when politicians are making money off the attorneys the incentives for keeping bills low are weaker than the incentives to “get along and go along”.
4. The interrelationship between attorney and client also taints the legal advice given. Normally an ethical lawyer counsels clients on ways to avoid legal costs. But if the politicians can reasonably anticipate a kickback to their political committee (or an ally's political committee) then they have an incentive to make choices that increase the legal bills, not keep them down.

When people want to rip on Karen Yarbrough they say she practices politics like the people she seeks to replace; at best she's a “reluctant reformer”. She's more articulate than Eugene Moore and less likely to do something flagrantly illegal. But from the community's point of view the new boss looks like the old boss.

I disagree with this assessment. But I think Yarbrough has to make an effort to be better. Most of the people with their hands on the levers of political power want the system to stay the same. The people with political power can convert it into wealth and power for themselves and their political allies. They are going to serve the community as little as possible while maintaining the perks of attaining political power.

There's always going to be a pull to “get along and go along”. Yarbrough and her team have to make an effort to resist this inevitable pull. The pull is inevitable, but giving in to pull of “get along and go along” politics isn't.

IMO, the Yarbroughs should return the contributions to Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins and the Village of Maywood should attach language to the contracts with all law firms that they are expected to stay out of local politics in the Proviso area.