dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

Burris replaced Obummer and worked with Blago and Loop Capital to move funds through ACS Healthcare!

Amid the controversy over whether he should become Illinois' next U.S. senator, Roland Burris has been described by friend and foe alike as an earnest public servant with a long history in state politics.

A closer examination reveals a prototypical Illinois politician, who put a relative on the public payroll, steered legal business to political supporters and sought to trade on his ties when he became a lobbyist.

While not in the core circle of power brokers and fundraisers who have dominated the state's pay-to-play culture, Burris has always hovered in the outer ring. His lobbying clients have gotten tastes of state business and favorable rulings from Illinois regulatory panels.

Although the two ran against each other for governor in the crowded 2002 Democratic primary, Burris has been a supporter since Gov. Rod Blagojevich won his first term that year.

Burris has hosted a fundraiser for Blagojevich and since 2002 he and firms he's been affiliated with have given more than $20,000 to Blagojevich's campaign fund, according to state records.

The lobbying firm he runs with Democratic political consultant Fred Lebed, Burris & Lebed, received about $290,000 in state contracts with the Illinois Department of Transportation a few years ago, according to state comptroller records. And many companies that hired Burris' firm have received hundreds of thousands in state business.

In 2003, the finance firm Loop Capital Markets got more than $750,000 in pension bond business from the Blagojevich administration as part of the governor's $10 billion bond program to pay off state debt. Burris, whose firm was on a $5,000-a-month retainer with Loop Capital, said then that there was nothing wrong with the arrangement.

"We make sure that the client has access, and the client has to have a product or services that the customer can use, and that it is a competitive product," Burris said.

Burris' clout has also carried over to Cook County where his firm has been paid nearly $425,000 since 2006 to lobby Cook County officials, according to disclosure statements. Of that, $240,000 was paid by ACS Healthcare Solutions, which has been named in the corruption indictment of a former Las Vegas public hospital official.

ACS long pursued an $18 million bill-collection contract with Cook County's public health system, but County Board President Todd Stroger's administration pulled the contract from consideration in March, after the Tribune wrote about the indictment.

Just a few months ago, a hospital that lists the Burris & Lebed firm as one of its lobbyists won approval from state hospital regulators to build a $140 million cutting-edge cancer-treatment center even though the board had initially opposed the idea and approved building a similar facility just a few miles away.

Jim Spear, executive vice president of Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, said Burris never worked for the hospital but it did employ Fred Lebed through another company that Lebed owns. He said Lebed did not work on the proton project.

"We erroneously listed Burris & Lebed and we're in the process of correcting that," Spear said of state lobbyist disclosure records. "If he was at meetings of the planning board he wasn't there on our behalf."

Lebed did not return phone calls seeking comment.