Ed Burke, Esquire.
The disgraced former aldermanic powerhouse retains his law license despite his conviction on multiple felony counts tied to using his public position to pressure those needing various city approvals to employ his law firm on property tax appeals. As first reported by WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times, an effort by the state’s Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission to yank Burke’s law license foundered when the Illinois Supreme Court deemed itself unable to rule on the matter.
Too many justices on the state’s high court asserted conflicts of interest and thus couldn’t act, according to the report. So Citizen Burke remains available for legal services, theoretically at least.
Burke’s attorney told the newspaper he no longer even wants his law license, so arguably this is moot. But the optics are terrible all the same.
That at least four of the seven Supreme Court justices felt too compromised to act on something so basic underscores just how cartoonishly corrupt this city’s and state’s politics have been for eons. Did some or all of them beg off because they felt they owed their current positions at least in part to Burke? We don’t know because they don’t have to say.
It’s not much of a stretch to wonder, though. Burke, merely a Chicago alderman for the five-plus decades until leaving the City Council last year, wielded power far beyond his elected position and had an outsize influence over whom the Democratic Party slated for judges or backed in judicial elections.
Burke is a free man for now while awaiting sentencing. Meanwhile, Chicagoans have to come to terms with the state’s apparent inability to do something so simple as barring this convicted felon from practicing law here.
You could argue it’s funny in a black-comedy, Royko-esque way.
But we don’t think we’re alone in feeling more than done with the (long) era when Chicagoans would roll their eyes and crack wise about the “city that works.” Good — or at least honest — government is something we all deserve from our representatives.
And our judges too.
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