Roland W. Burris, Illinois attorney general, 1991-

From talk around the Capitol, you'd think Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland W. Burris is just about the greatest thing since sliced bread — unless you stop by the governor's office or go off the record. Lobbyists, lawmakers and lawyers alike have only kind words for Burris, who smilingly shakes off political cloudbursts unscathed, earning him the sobriquet of the "teflon AG."

Attorneys general have always been visible during legislative sessions, stopping by to testify for one or another consumer-protection bill or to bail out a sinking piece of criminal justice reform. In recent Illinois history, when the attorney general has been elected from the party opposite of the governor's, the fur flies over the issue: Who, exactly, is in charge of the legal affairs of the state? For example. Republican William J. Scott as attorney general fought Democratic Gov. Dan Walker over control of funding for all state government attorney salaries, pushing the legislative session into summer overtime.

Scott, however, who had seemed destined to serve forever as Illinois attorney general until found guilty of federal tax charges in 1980, even earned the wrath of Republican interests when he used the powers of the attorney general's office to push enforcement of new environmental protections.

The proverbial dilemma in this superpolitical state is separating the politically driven public statements from an apolitical review of any elected official's performance of his or her official duties.

Burris himself is a likeable, high-profile professional politician who's not ashamed of the label and unabashedly promotes his own legislative agenda. The fact that he's also the first African American elected to statewide

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office in Illinois is "no longer relevant" after almost two decades in the political arena, insists the "General" — as Burris staffers refer to their boss.

Is Burris simply exercising the attorney general's role as "legal officer for state government" to its full potential? Or, as critics suggest, is he further redefining the office as the "people's lawyer" to satisfy his own political goals and ambitions?

'On the one hand [the attorney general] has to represent the state when it's being sued, but he also has the discretion to refuse, or to file suit against a department of government'

Enter his biggest critic and the attorney general's chief legal client — Gov. Jim Edgar. Still smarting from a budget showdown with Burris last summer, he now faces a possible challenge from the ambitious attorney general in next year's gubernatorial election. In last year's budget debate, Edgar charged that Burris refused to make minimal spending cuts agreed to by other state officials. Edgar used his veto to slash deeply into the attorney general's fiscal year 1993 spending plans — a move quickly overridden by the Democratically controlled General Assembly, but not yet forgotten by either side.

Also at issue with the governor are the attorney general's "divided loyalties," says Edgar spokesman Mike Lawrence, between his dual roles as a public advocate and the state's chief legal officer. That division has sometimes forced state agencies to hire their own outside legal counsel, claims Lawrence. The conflict is a longstanding one of policy, not politics or personalities, Lawrence carefully insists. "On one hand [the attorney general] has to represent the state when it's being sued, but he also has the discretion to refuse, or to file suit against a department of government," Lawrence said. "Would you hire a lawyer and retain him if occasionally he'd sue you? I don't think you'd feel totally comfortable in that relationship. That's not Jim Edgar's fault. That's not Roland Burris' fault. That's just the system."

That's not the way Burris sees it. The state should spend more to bolster his office's legal staff, he contends, instead of paying staff attorneys and legal fees at state agencies and the governor's office. "Anyone who would drastically cut the AG's budget the way [Edgar] did, it's just not practical," he said. Burris has repeatedly criticized the Governor's Office and executive agencies under the governor's administration for contracting with expensive private law firms while, he says, they already employ more full-time lawyers at higher salaries than the Attorney General's Office can afford. Starting pay for assistant attorneys general is in the mid-$20,000's, while the governor's agency lawyers earn from the mid-$30,000's up, Burris charged.

"If he's going to make those assertions, he ought to produce the numbers — and I don't think he can do it," Lawrence responded. "It was not a matter of whether we want Roland Burris to have good lawyers. It was a matter of whether the budget was going to be in balance, and [Burris] took a position against balancing the budget."

And so the rhetoric begins, as the still-unannounced candidate Burris gears up to challenge Edgar and any Democratic competitors for the governorship in 1994.

Burris concedes he's had to shift some priorities in the Attorney General's Office primarily because the office budget hasn't increased much in the last four years, but he denies that services have suffered. "We hit the ground running, and there's been no let-up in our office," Burris asserted. While he may have "put a little more emphasis on the legal side," Burris said that tight funding has sometimes forced him to choose between prosecuting legal cases and offering more outreach services — a problem he blames on Gov. Edgar's "inflexibility" in his budget.

Former Atty. Gen. Tyrone Fahner, a Republican who served when James R. Thompson was governor, was empathetic: "I think Roland has tried very hard, under severe budget restraints going in, to run a tight office and do the best he can for his people. He inherited a very difficult budget situation and has done very well with what he had to work with."

That "budget situation," Lawrence insists, shouldn't be blamed on Gov. Edgar. "Let's get down to brass tacks. If Roland has a problem, it's for one reason only — and that's Neil Hartigan," Lawrence charged. When then Atty. Gen. Hartigan ran against Edgar for the governorship, Hartigan proposed an artificially low budget to make himself look like a cost-cutter, Lawrence contended. When Burris took over as attorney general, he inherited an inadequate mid-year budget, which has been used as a base to calculate future funding increases, Lawrence said. "That's a problem between him and Mr. Hartigan, not for the governor," Lawrence asserted. "Gov. Edgar began cutting the day he took office, and we asked [Burris] to take a modest cut, in comparison with some others. We weren't asking him to live under a different set of rules; Mr. Burris wanted his own set of rules."

But the rules of the marketplace dictate that good lawyers cost money, and a team of good lawyers is expensive to retain — a problem Burris says has limited the number of lawsuits he can file and consequently the monetary judgments he can win for the state's own coffers. With overburdened lawyers each handling up to 130 cases at a time in his office, Burris said he's been forced to lay off some support staff in order to increase attorneys' salaries. Money now spent on agency lawyers, in the Governor's Office budget, and on expensive private law firms could be better spent building up the attorney general's staff, he said. "[Edgar] should not chop up on the chief legal officer; that's

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Burris' career in brief The son of a Centralia railroad worker, Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland W. Burris, age 55, delights in relating how a childhood experience integrating the local swimming pool sparked his ambition to become first a lawyer, then a statewide elected official. Graduating from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Burris spent a year as an exchange student in international law at the University of Hamburg in Germany before earning his law degree at Howard University in 1963. A member of former Gov. Dan Walker's cabinet, Burris served a year as head of Operation Push before winning his first statewide election in 1978 as comptroller. Three terms (and 12 years) later, he considered a run for governor but decided instead to try for attorney general in 1990 when the incumbent attorney general, Neil F. Hartigan, was the Democratic candidate challenging Jim Edgar for the governorship. Diane Oltman Ayers

a revenue-producing operation for state government," Burris complained. "If you're that inflexible, with a $29 billion budget, then you're in the wrong business." "The salaries are too low for state government, period," agreed Fahner, who's now a partner in a prestigious Chicago law firm. "I never had such a problem in my time — maybe because Jim Thompson was my mentor and I was his lawyer. There were very few lawyers in the Governor's Office at that time." But today, while the AG's office can handle routine legal tasks, most agencies still need their own specialized attorneys to untangle complicated legal problems, Lawrence said. "We've been more than willing to try to work with Roland to increase the number of cases where the AG is involved," he added. "It would help our budget, frankly, if the AG could do more, but then there's that problem you don't usually have with your own lawyer." Lawrence is referring to a matter of trust between the governor and the attorney general. "There's been this tension for 20 years, back when Bill Scott started to make more out of that office, " Lawrence explained. "Scott became an activist [attorney general] on environmental issues and started initiating lawsuits. Hartigan was an activist, and I assume Burris wants to be one, too. They were all jealous of their independent power to be the 'people's lawyer,' and that leaves them free to sue the state."

In the past, attorneys general have sued state agencies, or testified against them, instead of defending them, Lawrence claimed. Burris spokesman Ernie Slottag said Burris has crossed the GOP only once, with a written opinion challenging the legality of new Republican-drawn rules governing Senate procedures backed by Senate President James "Pate" Philip (R-23, Wood Dale).

But such conflicts did arise when Hartigan was attorney general and Thompson was governor. During Janet Otwell's tenure as director of the Department on Aging under Thompson, she found herself without legal counsel at one court appearance over changes in community care eligibility rules. "We were in federal court, and I had no representation at all," Otwell recalled. "The AG's Office was questioning whether, in such cases, they should represent the clients or the department. That was an issue of their mission and their responsibility, but as an agency we need to know how to work that out."

She added that coming from opposite political parties, Thompson and Hartigan were often at odds. "No matter what the party is, it's their personal style and the way they mesh with each other that's very important. They can either work together or they can collide."

From Atty. Gen. Bill Scott and Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie, who were law school classmates and fellow Young Republicans, to Scott and Walker, whose power struggle ran the General Assembly into two weeks' overtime, the conflict is the same, Lawrence said. The problem is structural, and the only solution may be either to redefine the attorney general's role as the people's lawyer and let state government have its own counsel or to adopt the federal model, where the attorney general is an appointed member of the chief executive's cabinet. "But neither the governor nor I are recommending any changes; it hasn't come to that," Lawrence was quick to add. "On a day-to-day basis, there's a very professional relationship between our lawyers and his."

The irony in this issue is that if Burris is successful in winning Illinois' governorship some day, he will have to deal with an elected attorney general over the same issues. A look at Burris' tenure as attorney general elicits some mixed reviews, but mostly positive responses from people who have often dealt with the office. Terms like "sincere," "capable" and "committed" are frequently used in responses from both Democrats and Republicans when asked to rate Burris' performance.

'I really wanted to be attorney general, being a lawyer,' he insisted. 'I'm more of an action-oriented AG, in terms of aggressiveness, in solving the problems that confront us in this state'

"He's running a very fine office. I've followed some of his work in the consumer area, and he's done a great job there," replied former Atty. Gen. Fahner, who helped run Republican Jim Ryan's 1990 campaign against Burris. "It's real with him. [Burris] is a very sincere, decent man."

Burris himself denied seeking the attorney general's post only as a springboard to the governorship. "I really wanted to be attorney general, being a lawyer," he insisted. "I'm more of an action-oriented AG, in terms of aggressiveness, in solving the problems that confront us in this state." Burris claims a fairly solid track record to back his bravado. The

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AG's annual reports boast dozens of successful lawsuits against polluters and scam artists, the processing of thousands of consumer complaints and several successful criminal investigations and death penalty prosecutions.

Since he took over as attorney general in January 1991, Burris also has lobbied for major criminal justice, domestic violence and consumer legislation. Consumer education and outreach programs were continued and expanded under Burris, and suits were filed to intervene on behalf of senior citizens, victims of fraud and abuse and environmental protection. Some of these are new ideas, some are preexisting programs and others are basic to the responsibilities that any attorney general would be expected to handle. The question is: How well are they being handled under Atty. Gen. Burris?

On consumer issues, the AG's office has "generally performed well" under Burris, said Illinois Public Action Coalition Director Robert Creamer. "On utility rate cases, for example, they continue to take a vigorous pro-consumer stand," Creamer said. "Sometimes they represent state agencies in a position that we disagree with, but that's their job. I think they've done a good job representing the public in the areas of toxic waste, consumer protection, etc."

Relations have not always been so friendly with the AG's office, Creamer added. "There was a period when [former Atty. Gen.] Hartigan, Gov. Thompson and the mayor of Chicago tried to push through a settlement with Com Ed that we thought was terrible, that would cost ratepayers several million dollars. Luckily, that has not occurred under Burris. The [AG's] utility division has consistently represented the opinion of consumers with reasonable accuracy."

A network of regional AG offices created by Hartigan to handle consumer complaints was cut back last year due to budget constraints, but several have now reopened. The 17 regional offices opened files on nearly 36,000 citizen complaints during fiscal 1992, according to the AG's Annual Report. "I wish you could see the caseloads in those offices," Burris declared. "When we closed down the West Frankfort office, those people had a fit, and when we got our money back there were 100 people out there for the reopening. Those offices are not just some political outpost; they're our satellite offices."

Burris also claims credit for numerous lawsuits cracking down on deceptive automobile ads and warranties, home repair fraud, illegal fundraisers, "900-number" toll lines, pyramid schemes and sweepstakes, loan sharking and other consumer scams. Most have generated headlines in the media and kudos from consumer groups.

On the environment, in a highly publicized lawsuit, Burris last year used court injunctions — and "obstinate determination," according to some — to chase an East Coast garbage train out of Illinois and back to its home state, to the cheers of local environmentalists. Taken as a whole, Burris' environmental record is a mixed bag — probably no better or worse than Hartigan's, said Kevin Greene, research director for the Chicago-based Citizens for a Better Environment.

Burris as attorney general did intervene to demand a public hearing on the siting of a controversial waste incinerator at Robbins in southern Cook County. But Burris' nonconfrontational approach led to a negotiated settlement that didn't satisfy some environmental activists, Greene said. In another case, the AG's office worked out a compromise allowing Chemical Waste Management to reopen a hazardous waste incinerator on Chicago's southeast side by meeting certain conditions, despite objections by skeptical members of the South East Chicago Environmental Task Force. "People have been disappointed. They thought the AG's office could have taken a stronger position against the Robbins incinerator," Greene said. "But it was probably the best agreement they thought they could get if they didn't have the legal means to get the facility shut down permanently. We were disappointed the AG's office didn't pursue that case to the bitter end," Greene noted. "That probably dropped his grade down to a C-plus from our perspective."

'People have been disappointed. They thought the AG's office could have taken a stronger position against the Robbins incinerator,' Greene said. 'But it was probably the best agreement they thought they could get. . .'

In the plus column, Burris lists pro-environment legal intervention to regulate incinerators and landfills, clean up contaminants and fine polluters. AG staffers have also testified against legislative attempts to loosen regulation of pesticides in what Burris calls his "commitment to environmental enforcement."

On senior citizens' issues, Hartigan's administration was a hard act for any attorney general to follow since the former lieutenant governor helped create the Illinois Department on Aging, developed the state's in-home care program and actively pursued other senior-oriented issues such as elder abuse and senior-targeted fraud.

"Burris has continued that kind of emphasis, giving special attention to senior issues," said Janet Otwell, now regional director for the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and a former director of the Department on Aging under the Thompson administration. "There's a difference in focus. Burris' staff is now more into consumer issues rather than social services, which other agencies should be doing anyway, but the same commitment, and many of the same people, are still there," said Otwell. The AG's seniors program now emphasizes education — teach-

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ing seniors to spot scams, such as "living trusts," said Otwell, who serves along with another AARP staffer on Burris' Senior Advisory Committee, working on health and income issues. Other services provided by the attorney general for senior citizens, said Burris, include training bank tellers to prevent thefts from seniors and assigning legal investigators to expose nursing home fraud.

Are these programs legitimate parts of the AG's mission, or just another tool to build goodwill with a high-voter-turnout constituency, as critics suggest? Burris is quick to reply that it's all in a day's work for a "citizens' advocate." Otwell said, "[Burris] and Hartigan approached it somewhat differently, but both certainly recognize the political value of having a senior section within their office, both in Chicago and downstate. There's a limited role they can play, but seniors do need the protection of the chief law enforcement officer of the state, and that's where the AG comes in."

Burris has drawn the most attention — and most criticism — for the high-profile anticrime legislation he has backed as attorney general: statewide grand juries to nail drug dealers; the nation's toughest antistalker law; a Victims' Rights Amendment to the state Constitution; and this year's domestic violence package. Most of those reforms, his political opponents argue, are more shell than substance — producing more tabloid headlines than tangible results. It's always a safe call, they charge, to embrace "safe issues:" to denounce drugs, support crime victims and condemn wife-beaters without having to document real successes.

In its first year, the statewide grand jury program has not produced the thousands of dollars in drug profit seizures that Burris and other supporters predicted, and the program may take years to fulfill its promises, critics say. Although authorized since January 1992, the first jury was empaneled late last fall, and by this May had yet to announce any indictments or even investigations. Supporters say, however, that the delay can't be attributed to either Burris or the program.

For 20 years, every attorney general since William Scott tried to win legislative approval of statewide grand juries, giving the attorney general power to probe multicounty crimes throughout the state, according to former Atty. Gen. Fahner. "I tried to get a statewide grand jury for drug and environmental investigations but wasn't able to because I didn't have control of the General Assembly," Fahner explained. "The state's attorneys were against it because they thought it would undercut their authority, and of course the special interests — the utility companies and the polluters — didn't want it either. If they got it under Roland, it's probably because they had great confidence that he would not abuse the process, and that's a tribute to him."

Others say the plan finally passed when the scope of the statewide grand jury program was scaled back to cover only prosecution of intrastate "kingpin" drug dealers. That group, of course, has no effective lobby in Springfield, said Rep. Tom Homer (D-91, Canton), a former Fulton County prosecutor who chairs the House Judiciary II Committee and sponsored the statewide grand jury plan for two consecutive years. "The more expansive you make it, the more opposition you draw, and the drug program was too important," Homer said. "If this works well, then the legislature may be more open-minded to expanding it to environmental crimes as well. [Burris] has done a very good job. I'd give him high marks," Homer added. "[The grand jury program] may give the appearance that there's not much activity, but they are diligently working on investigations of a nature that simply can't be made public at this point."

In the area of victim's rights. Burris championed the referendum for a Victim's Rights Amendment to the Illinois Constitution. It won overwhelming voter approval last November and solidly aligned him with victim support groups throughout the state.

On domestic violence issues specifically, Burris has formed a new Women's Advisory Commission and appointed a full-time staffer to train local law enforcers, clerks and prosecutors to deal consistently with domestic violence and abuse cases. He is also pushing for a package of tougher statutes. "I think it's a step in the right direction, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done," said Vickie Smith, acting director of the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence. "We need to educate everybody who comes in contact with these victims, but the attorney general has certainly made a good start."

'. . . when training takes place, that's substantive in my point of view. Whether or not that helps someone run for office, I don't know or care, but his office took the initiative and did it when nobody else would'

Smith, a member of the Attorney General's Women's Advisory Commission, dismissed suggestions that Burris' interest may be more political than substantive: "It's more than just meetings; when training takes place, that's substance in my point of view. Whether or not that helps someone run for office, I don't know or care, but his office took the initiative and did it when nobody else would," she added. "You can always say it takes too long, we should have done it yesterday, but changing societal attitudes always takes a while." DuPage County State's Atty. Jim Ryan, who lost to Burris in the 1990 attorney general election, is hesitant to rate his former opponent's success. However, many of Burris' projects — the domestic violence package, the Victim's Rights Amendment, the statewide grand jury, environmental and drug crime bills — were proposals Ryan made in the 1990

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campaign. "I had a lot to say about the AG's office when I was running [in 1990], but I don't want to do that right now," Ryan said. "I might become a candidate for that office again, so I'm not sure it's appropriate for me to comment on it."

When he was running in 1990, Ryan called Burris "inexperienced, untested, and soft on crime," citing examples including a lack of enthusiasm for capital punishment (all claims were denied of course). Still sensitive to Ryan's charges from that earlier campaign, especially those related to upholding Illinois' death penalty statutes, Burris defends his current record; "Are you kidding me? We have 143 people on death row, and we're fighting those cases at every turn. It's very ticklish and very time-consuming, but we're fighting to uphold the death penalty," Burris insisted, even in racially charged cases like that of Orlando Cruz, the Joliet teenager convicted of killing a police officer. "That case has been very controversial and highly profiled, and I have been vilified and attacked for doing my job," Burris said.

In support of the attorney general's record on death penalty cases is Ted Gottfried, state appellate defender for the last 20 years. "That's an area I have some knowledge of, and they've been very professional and competent in presenting the state's position," he said. "If they were not filing their briefs or making the required appearances, I guess you could say they were not aggressive, but that has not happened. In terms of our dealings, they do a very good job."

Day-to-day litigation hasn't suffered while attention focused on other high-profile AG programs. Burris said. His claim was confirmed by Charles Zaiar, assistant to the state appellate prosecutor, who says he's dealt with every attorney general from Scott through Fahner, Hartigan and Burris. "We've had a very good working relationship with Burris," Zaiar responded. "We've worked with [his office] on drug asset forfeiture and recently on a bill to implement the Victims' Rights Amendment. We've found the issues confronting us are not Republican or Democrat; they're law enforcement issues. Mr. Burris has upheld the tradition of his predecessors in doing what's best for the criminal justice system."

Burris denies charges that he has used the AG's post as a stepping-stone, focusing on high-profile, noncontroversial issues to bolster his political profile: "That's not true because I'm prosecuting some very unpopular things right now. How about these big companies and the environment? How about my suing five automobile dealers on behalf of the consumers?"

And there's his recent written opinion, responding to a lawmaker's request, concluding that the state's anti-stalking law is gender-neutral and can be used to prosecute those who harrass or threaten abortion clinic workers. "It has to be done. They're violating the law," Burris flatly states. "So I'm doing it because I want to be governor? No, I'm doing it because it's my job, and I will continue to do my job."

Still, he's not going to refuse credit for his accomplishments. "I don't think people can say you run for office just to move up. If you do a good job where you are, then the people will move you up," Burris explains.

A campaign veteran himself, Fahner also took issue with Burris' critics: "I don't think that's right — I'm a Republican, I campaigned against Burris — but that doesn't translate into saying he's using that office for political gain. If you do something good, that's the basis on which people vote for you. It would be foolish for him to do good things and keep it a secret — for him or any politician."

As for Candidate Burris, count on seeing him back at his day job for at least the next year and a half. "The AG's Office is not being neglected," he insists. "Everything I do is not being done because I'm running for governor. I am doing my job." 

Diane Oltman Ayers is the owner and bureau chief of Great Prairie News Service, an independent legislative news service based in the Statehouse pressroom in Springfield. She has covered state and local government since 1986. Former Atty. Gen. Neil F. Hartigan declined an interview for this article. Gov. Jim Edgar was unavailable for comment, according to his staff.

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