Politics: Horrible

ingredient in higher ed

Scout hates liars. Plain and simple.

And when the person in question is the chairman of the Board of Trustees, Scout is really distraught.

Scout is talking about Lawrence Eppley. Now a lot of people probably already know that chairman Eppley is a pretty political guy.

But Eppley continues to identify himself as an Independent. Scout's response: Bah-humbug.

But Scout will put it in the words of one of Eppley's fellow board members: "Come on, he's Lee Daniels' law partner," the trustee said.

Lee Daniels, of course, is a former GOP state chairman who has served in the General Assembly since 1974. That tenure includes a stint as minority leader from 1997 to 2002.

By the way, Daniels resigned from his chairman role after allegations surfaced that his staffers were doing campaign work on state time.

Scout called Eppley's home and was told that Eppley was at work.

Scout called Eppley's law office in Chicago and left a message.

Scout even spoke with Eppley's mother, who was very kind.

Alas, Scout couldn't contact Eppley for comment.

Still, the anonymous trustee's candor got Scout thinking. So Scout began playing around with Federal Election Commission reports.

Well, looky here

The independent board of trustees chairman, Lawrence Eppley, donated a whopping $1,000 to U.S. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert on December 18, 2001.

Now if you want anyone to believe you are an independent, donating to one of the biggest Republican in the country probably isn't the way to go.

Eppley was appointed to the board in 2001 by former Republican Gov. George Ryan. Now the rules limit the number of people of any one party a governor can appoint to five. But Eppley's self-proclaimed independent status (although highly questionable) meant he didn't take away from Ryan's Republican limit.

And this brings Scout to the real problem.

While the board members are all well-educated and many highly-commended, donating to political campaigns seems fishy. Something stinks when the board — which is responsible for maintaining the quality of education — is appointed by a partisan governor to fill partisan quotas.

Shouldn't education be a non-partisan organization?

Scout wonders if appointments to the board could be based on political activism (read: doling out dollars to the party in power) rather than commitment to education. That might not be true for all board members, but Scout certainly thinks some have been politically active and ultimately profited more from it (gotten lucrative appointments and contracts).

And Scout is especially concerned that this particular governor might have appointed a few trustees to rehearse the his own thoughts on higher ed rather than work for the University (Read: not increasing tuition more).

Former Gov. Jim Edgar said it best: "The governor names the trustees, and the trustees with approach pretty much do what the governor tells them."

But since the trustees are responsible to the University, maybe the community should know about the trustees' political proclivities (read: campaign contributions).

Scout would hate it if the rest of the trustees thought they could wrangle politically without the public knowing.

For the 2000, 2002 and 2004 election cycles, as of August 2003, according to the Federal Election Commission:

• Democrat Devon Bruce

$4,450 to Democratic sources including two $1,000 contributions to Al Gore.

• Democrat Frances Carroll

$200 to Barack Obama. Obama is now running for a U.S. Senate seat.

• Democrat Jeffrey Gindorf

Donated $500 to the Democratic Party of Illinois on Oct. 24, 2001. He even listed the University of Illinois Board of Trustees as an employer, so to speak.

• Republican Kenneth Schmidt

$7,580 to various sources including four donations of $1,000 on April 19, 2001 to Republican Mark Kirk.

• Democrat Niranjan Shah

$71,650 to numerous big name Democrats. The list includes Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and multiple $5,000 donations to the Democratic Party of Illinois.

• Republican Marjorie Sodemann

$750 to Republican sources. $250 of that went to President George W. Bush on Aug. 11, 2000.

• Independent Robert Sperling

$1,500 to Republican and Democratic sources. He gave $250 to Kirk but another $1,000 to Democrat Dick Durbin's political action committee.

• Republican Robert Vickrey

$250 to the Illinois Republican party. Vickrey was also spotted at Bush's $2,000-a-plate fundraising dinner in Chicago last month.

Campus Scout is a regular news commentary appearing on Wednesdays. Campus Scout can be reached at scoutingUI@hotmail.com.