McClatchy-Tribune Information Services reports:
Sen. Dick Durbin has long said that he and his wife, Loretta, an Illinois lobbyist, take pains to separate their work and avoid conflicts of interest.There's more, much much more:
But a Tribune investigation has found instances in which Loretta Durbin's clients have received federal funding promoted by her husband, raising questions about whether the power couple have done enough to avoid inherent conflicts of interest as they go about their jobs.
The Durbins sat down for an hourlong interview with the Tribune last week, and the U.S. senator acknowledged occasional "overlap" in which his wife's clients received his help, but both insisted that she limited her lobbying to the state and never sought federal funds.
"We were never asked to do any federal lobbying, and we never did," Loretta Durbin said.
Even so, her lobbying contracts with the city of Naperville, obtained by the Tribune through a public records request, stated that her firm would work with "state or federal government officials."
Among the areas of overlap in the Durbins' careers: her firm getting a one-year contract with a housing nonprofit group around the time the senator went to bat for the organization and others like it; a state university receiving funds earmarked by Durbin when his wife was its lobbyist; and Durbin arranging federal money for a public health nonprofit when his wife was seeking state support for the same group.
Loretta Durbin, 68, who said she plans to retire soon, has earned a total of at least $1.04 million in salary from lobbying since 1998, according to the senator's annual financial disclosures. Sen. Durbin also makes his federal and state tax returns public.
You'll want to read the entire article. Doesn't Dick Durbin care about Eastern Illinois students who have to pay high tuition to subsidize his wife??
Loretta Durbin's firm was paid about $627,000 to lobby for Eastern Illinois from 1998 to 2011, records show. Under the agreements, the lobbyists also were paid expenses for items including the "entertainment of legislators, staff, and other relevant political persons," with such costs usually capped at $1,000 per month.
President Bill Perry, who came on board in 2007 after their hiring, said they did a "particularly good job" setting up meetings in Springfield for university officials and keeping them apprised of legislation.
The work by Loretta Durbin and Phillips never strayed into federal turf, Perry said. Eastern does not have a federally registered lobbyist but, like other universities, depends on federal dollars. The "federal side" is handled by a university vice president, Perry said.
Over the years, Sen. Durbin announced big bucks for Eastern -- along with other Illinois schools -- in Library of Congress grants to train teachers to produce curriculum with the library's digitized resources. The program now is called Teaching with Primary Sources, or TPS.
The TPS grants to Illinois, begun with a Sen. Durbin earmark, have brought Eastern $1.925 million for the program since 2004, its president said.
Sen. Durbin said Eastern was not one of the original Illinois recipients and, moreover, that the Library of Congress decides which schools are qualified. Eastern says on its website that the program was brought to its campus "thanks to the efforts of Sen. Dick Durbin."
Perry said that, to his knowledge, neither of the Durbins went to bat for the university at the federal level.
When asked why Sen. Durbin was singled out for thanks in university statements about TPS, Perry said: "Someone could thank somebody, but the influence, in my experience in ... all the federal grant areas, those things are insulated from the political process."
Durbin said he was aware that his wife represented the university when he pushed for the funding.
"I made a conscious decision on Eastern," the senator said. "And I made a conscious decision on the lung association. I just said, I cannot deny these entities access to this money for this good purpose, for veterans, for teacher training."
