Politics By ROBERT KIECKHEFER

Voters will answer conflict question

WHAT'S A CONFLICT of interest? Is it Jerry Cosentino owning a trucking firm and running for secretary of state at the same time? Or is it George Ryan circumventing the bureaucracy for a guy whose Medicaid business he's seeking?

The two cases certainly present the extremes. Many people thought Cosentino was outdoing Caesar's wife in his decision to sell his business. And even more thought Ryan was dead wrong in cutting the corners of state government for a guy whose money he coveted. But the middle ground here is the voters. They and they alone will decide whether Ryan's actions constitute a conflict and whether Cosentino's decision was a good one. They'll do it November 2.

Cosentino's case is a touchy one that honestly can be argued both ways. In fact, he got conflicting opinions when he asked for advice. His problem was that truckers are regulated in several ways by the Secretary of State's Office, and it clearly would be a conflict for him to take an active part in running the business at the same time. So he asked the State Ethics Board to look into the situation and tell him whether he could avoid conflicts by putting the business in a blind trust. To his chagrin, the board said: "Sell."

That put Cosentino in a real bind. If he hadn't asked for the opinion, he might have been able to tough it out by voluntarily putting the firm in a blind trust. But once he asked, he almost had to act on the recommendation. And that's what he did, although his own attorney said a trust arrangement would be acceptable.

Where is the line to be drawn in cases like this? Could public servants be prohibited from owning an interest in any business that's regulated by the state? After all, they're already prohibited from doing business directly with state government. But there's a big difference. It's easy enough for a legislator with an auto dealership simply to refrain from selling Fords to the state. But many businesses are regulated in one way or another, and many owners would opt not to enter public service if they had to give up their life's work to do so.

Can the Ethics Board be relied on to make the definitive judgments? Well, the board's membership isn't exactly apolitical, and some people felt Cosentino may have been sandbagged in the response he got. Anyway, no one is about to give the opinions of the Ethics Board the force of law, so that really wouldn't solve anything.

In the long run, there are only two real judges of the situation — the candidate's own conscience and the decision of the electorate. Cosentino's conscience would have been clear if he had decided to keep his business. He clearly felt there would have been no conflict of interest. But he feared that second judge.

As an aside, Cosentino made it clear in his announcement that he does not feel he gets fair treatment in the news media and that, as a result, his continued ownership of his business would be used to bludgeon his campaign.

Then there's Ryan's case — a horse of a different color. Ryan confirmed all the details originally presented by the Chicago Sun-Times. Essentially, a Kankakee nursing home that did business with Ryan's pharmacy was sold to Morris Esformes. The home took its business away from Ryan. Then the home was charged with serious violations and faced a heavy fine and loss of its license. Esformes appealed to Ryan for a personal meeting with Public Health Director William Kempiners, a former Republican legislator. Ryan said, sure. He'd be happy to help a constituent. So he went to Kempiners and told him not only who Esformes was and that he wanted a meeting -but also told Kempiners that he was trying to get back Esformes' Medicaid business.

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At that point, many people see a blatant conflict of interest, Ryan said he told Kempiners about his business dealings with Esformes so Kempiners would know all the facts. But to others, it looks like Ryan was subtly saying, "I want something from this guy. If you can take care of him, I might benefit."

You won't find many people who know Ryan who believe he meant it to sound that way. Most of his associates, in fact, are convinced that Ryan not only did nothing wrong in this case but that he honestly doesn't see even the appearance of a conflict in the situation.

Nonetheless, the appearance is strong, especially considering that Esformes' Medicaid business was returned to Ryan's pharmacy after the meeting.... and that the charges and tines were dropped by the department. How do we prevent this kind of situation? Ryan himself pointed out — correctly — that it would be silly to bar him from filling a prescription for a young mother just because she had a Medicaid card. Equally silly would be dollar limits. Does a conflict start at $100? $1,000? Where?

Again, the decision is going to have to come from the voters.

In Ryan's case the decision may be a little clouded because voters will have to cast a ballot against Jim Thompson to express their opinion of his running mate. But the voting booth is the only court with jurisdiction.

The point is reinforced when voters — for whatever reason — fail to react to apparent conflicts of interest. For instance, all the double-dippers hanging around Chicago City Hall and the County Building have built-in conflicts of interest. They pull down generous salaries from their second government job and then go to Springfield to vote on legislation affecting their employer.

Because there's no effective opposition in most Chicago wards and districts, the voters usually don't have a chance to erase the conflict. But the fault is with the participants, not the system. Even in Chicago, it's the voters who should logically be left to do the deciding — whether it is or isn't a conflict of interest.

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