On this page:
The poor are unstylish now, but their
problems are still with us (just below)
'People
like me are perceived as tax eaters, money
grabbers'
Debate
Focuses on Death Penalty Reforms - Bias in Rural
Areas
Last
Days: Grab for the Gusto
Illinois Issues - November, 1995: Your Turn
By DOUG DOBMEYER
Americans have a love-hate relationship with poor people. While our society is unwilling to put brakes on a free enterprise economy, it does believe in helping to solve some of the problems created by an unfettered private sector. Unfortunately, such help has always been dependent on the whims of the political system. We remain unwilling to tackle the root causes of poverty.
On one level, the long-term solution to poverty is simple: jobs that pay a living wage. Yet, while there's plenty of rhetoric devoted to creating jobs for those who want them, we clearly lack a shared value system that would ensure that full employment becomes a permanent reality.
There's plenty of evidence in Illinois. It comes in the unwillingness to fund job training for poor people; in the development of employment that doesn't provide decent pay for low-skilled workers; and in transportation systems that aren't geared to finding affordable ways to get poor people from their homes to distant workplaces.
Because a permanent full-employment infrastructure has never been put into place, our sympathies are subject to erosion by the new political "reality." The fad in Washington, D.C., and Springfield is that the poor are too expensive and not worthy of being helped. Conservative political leaders preach against government-financed and locally run programs that respond to some of the worst economic problems. In short, we are passing from an era characterized by caring and government mobilization to overcome poverty.
Ironically, that era was a response to an earlier period of private market excess.
Our free enterprise system ran amok during the 1920s, resulting in the Depression of the '30s. The public sector was left to clean up the mess. During the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, we provided jobs through public works projects and established a system for long-term social security.
Roosevelt correctly read the American political spirit of embarrassment over extreme gaps between the rich and the poor. He correctly calculated the political and social necessity of responding to the need for jobs and education -- and the role the federal government should play in leading recalcitrant states to do better for their people.
To a large extent, he and his successors succeeded. We have lived through a remarkable span of 60 years in the expansion of government's participation in establishing fairness for the American public. People in poverty and those of color were the primary benefactors of that American spirit.
Gone were the days of cultural acceptance that "the poor will always be with us." Instead, America endorsed a plan of attack that is based on the belief that the federal government has the primary role to play in being the arbitrator of fairness through civil rights laws, tax policy and programs that will help people in need.
Now the programs spawned by the New Deal -- and the caring impulse behind them -- are under severe attack. Although the political battle is not over, our decades-old guarantee of economic security for most Americans could be dismantled. Unless we move now to change the nature of the economic system, we will fail under any political banner.
The most difficult issue has always been employment. The federal government spent billions on job training. But it let the states and cities further define employment programs and contract with private groups to carry them out. In the end, all of the job training depended on the will of the private sector. In fact, the success or failure of job training has always sat squarely where the conservatives maintain it should be -- with the private sector.
But what is required of us is to realize that the free enterprise system cannot exist without some checks. For example, private businesses need to build factories where low-skilled workers can reach the jobs. And the public sector needs to work closely with the private sector to make certain workers can get to a job and are trained to do the work when they get there.
We need to ask ourselves what we are doing to establish a permanent structure for the creation of jobs that provide a livable income. The poor may be out of style in this new political reality, but their unstylish problems are still with us.
Doug Dobmeyer, a longtime leader on poverty issues, headed the Illinois Public Welfare Coalition for eight years. He just completed a fellowship from the Chicago Community Trust examining media coverage of low-income issues.
Illinois Issues - June 16, 1994: November 1995/Illinois Issues/33
By JENNIFER HALPERIN
Doug Dobmeyer
Doug Dobmeyer has become a familiar face around the state Capitol during the last few years. As executive director of the Public Welfare Coalition since 1986, he traveled between Chicago and Springfield to lobby on behalf of the disadvantaged. Now Dobmeyer is shifting gears a bit. He recently was awarded one of three Chicago Community Trust one-year service fellowships, which will pay him a stipend equal to his current salary, tuition, travel, lodging and related expenses. Jennifer Halperin of Illinois Issues sat down with him during his waning days with the Public Welfare Coalition.
Q: What are your plans now?
A: People have been calling me from a variety of organizations saying to me: "Come meet with us. Talk to us about either media or how you do lobbying." I think that's fairly exciting because I think one of the things I didn't get to focus on when I applied for my job with the welfare coalition was wanting to teach others. I think that among people from the progressive world, one of our shortcomings has been that we have failed to replenish ourselves.
Q: Why is it so difficult to do that?
A: People like me have a harder time because we're perceived as tax eaters, money grabbers -- people who want to take and not give. I think it was different 30 years ago because there were movements, the Vietnam thing, the whole poverty thing. At the time there was a lot more support. People were more sympathetic. People who are more conservative can easily get in front of a crowd and start waving around a newspaper article about some poor woman on welfare who has five, six, 10 kids. And they say, "See who we're supporting with our tax dollars? See how many kids they're having?" That's not the norm, but it's perceived. They try to make it the norm.
Q: Are people losing sympathy for welfare recipients?
A: My experience the last 10 years has been in large part with the homeless and with people on public aid. The vast majority of people who have had the most sympathy havebeen the homeless -- usually until they end up in someone's back yard. Philosophically there's more support because no one wants to see someone die in a trash compactor or a dumpster or a car.
Q: How successful have you been at the welfare coalition?
A: Well, when it comes to the public policy side of the job, my work has been to hold the line, trying to keep some of the rotten stuff from happening. The cuts in General Assistance grants (welfare) were a big, big example. We weren't really successful in stopping that. It's very much like a war. We held a pitched battle, and everyone got bloodied on it. People said to me, "Why are you fighting this? It's gonna happen." I hate the cynicism down here -- that's the one thing I hate about Springfield. But it's also the case in other state capitals, and it's also true in D.C. People say, 'You've got to cut a deal.' It's never been my style. I don't want to cut a deal that could end up harming the people I work for. We engaged in negotations on the Earn-fare bill two years ago. That was the first bill we fully sat at the table on and were willing to make compromises and were willing to make deals on. We got a program out of it. But we're still trying to fix it today.
Q: How important is your media work?
A: Of all the not-for-profits, we're really the ones who started focusing on media -- not for grandstanding, but simply to get messages out about what certain bills would do. For a long time I watched (former Gov.) Thompson's people, and (Gov.) Edgar's press people shmooze with reporters when they're waiting for the Four Tops (the legislative leaders). That's our tax dollars paying for them. Why should they have a leg up? The people I represent have something to say, too. A couple of years ago we started putting together advisories with information on bills that were up for votes. I didn't know if anyone else was doing it, and I didn't care. I didn't know if it was unorthodox. I figured people could throw it in the wastebasket if they wanted. But I got enough positive response from it to keep doing it. Now we do fax briefings for 200 organizations. We just want them to be aware of what the hell a bill's about. That sort of public education work I think is groundbreaking. Just this past year I noticed several mainstream organizations have been doing the same type of briefing we're doing.
Q: What do you like least about what goes on under the Statehouse dome?
A: People respond to different sources of power here than they do back home in their districts. You could have one type of conversation back in a district office or in your own office, but you come down to Springfield and find the way things are done here is totally different, with all the politics that go along with votes. Our group doesn't give money to candidates, we don't throw parties, don't make endorsements. So what do we have to offer? Moral righteousness? The kind of groups I direct or am a part of are the type of groups that don't have the wherewithal to participate down here. They hope their strength is in their votes back home. Sometimes it works for them and sometimes it does not. One thing we've figured out is what is news. For instance, one of the homeless groups -- the one that dumped all the shoes in the Capitol at a news conference -- hired a professional public relations lady. It's no different than what Jim Edgar does.
Q: What do you like best?
A: Maybe the receptivity of people to well-thought-out arguments. When someone says overtly or not, "I don't like Public Aid recipients," I ask them why. I think you have to confront people very directly. One thing I've done is to never, ever treat representatives, senators or even the governor like they're better than me. One advantage of the Capitol building is that it sort of does equalize people. I don't treat anyone with disrespect, nor do I treat them better than the people I represent. I don't want to insult people, but I don't prostrate myself before them, either. I'm sure it's pissed some people off over the years, but generally it equalizes the discussion.
16/June 1994/Illinois Issues
Former federal prosecutor, private lawyer and author Scott Turow debated Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine in the safe environs of the Evanston Library. While outside demonstrators opposed to Devine's stand on the death penalty had led chants against his position before joining the overflow crowd inside.
Turow in the forum co-sponsored by State Representatives Julie Hamos (D-18) and Jeff Schoenberg (D-58) described the death penalty as an "electric issue" that needed to be discussed at a "pragmatic level." He described his own position on the ultimate penalty as having changed just as Illinois governor George Ryan's had. Turow was appointed by Ryan to the commission that studied the death penalty in Illinois that ended up recommending 85 ways to improve it.
Turow said a recommendation for abolition advanced by retired US Senator Paul Simon had support of a majority of commission members but ran against popular opinion in Illinois. That recommendation was ultimately rejected. He described the commission arguing through broad agreement the system can be changed through the set of recommendations. Later under questioning, both speakers agreed the system couldn't be made fool proof against executing an innocent person.
Illinois has released 13 men from death row, due to DNA testing or changes in witness testimony. Throughout the US, over 100 people have been released through similar changes in evidence since 1977.
Turow when asked about bias said you were four times more likely to get a death sentence in rural areas as in Cook County. He also said you are four times more likely to get the death penalty if you are white and kill someone white. Finally men are twice as likely to be sentenced to death as women.
Turow said only one in 50 first-degree murder cases results in the death penalty. While a capital case must qualify under one of twenty criteria, Turow described one Illinois death row inmate, Henry Brisbane as the definition of how bad, bad is. Brisbane, currently on death row was convicted of multiple killings on I-57 late at night.
Aside from a poster person like Brisbane, Turow recounted numerous problems with the reliability of eyewitnesses, jailhouse snitches and confessions. He said these issues called into question the reliability of the system. He followed the commission's reform list and suggested amending the way police lineups were conducted, reducing reliability on jailhouse snitch testimony and videotaping all interrogations and confessions.
Cook County States' Attorney Dick Devine said he supported many of the commission's recommendations. He thought a suspect confessing on videotape with a Coke and sandwich in front of him would come off better than the current system. While he wanted to see of the current criteria retained for eligibility for capital cases, he was willing to forgo some of the 20 reasons. He cited retaining child murder and murder and rape as reasons to impose the death penalty.
He warned the audience; "There is true evil in this world."
Devine has been the target of demonstrations because of prosecutions of twelve African-American men alleging torture by a former Chicago police commander Jon Burge. The meeting provided a confrontation opportunity for his critics. Several mothers of death row inmates, former non-death row inmates and their supporters peppered Devine with questions. He remained non-committal on any action to seek freedom or facilitate court hearings for those claiming unjust tactics.
Both men urged what has become a recurrent set of themes: Turow &endash; The death penalty is intensely symbolic and the risk of executing an innocent person is too high. Devine &endash; "The system depends on a good defense counsel." He did admit that the Anthony Porter debacle (Porter on death row for 17 years came within 50 hours of being executed and help lead to Governor Ryan's moratorium in January 2001) was a "wakeup call."
Meanwhile in Illinois over 160 men and four women languish on death row &endash; uncertain of their ultimate fate. George Ryan leaves office in January 2003. He can commute their sentences to life without parole or hand the problem off to the next governor.
In the United States, of which 38 states have the death penalty, things continue to move along. So far in 2002, 40 men and women have been executed through August 8. Half of the executions have been in Texas, with other southern states and California contributing the rest. The balance of 2002 has 16 men docketed for execution between August 14 and December 4.Eleven of those are scheduled in Texas with Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina and Ohio adding the balance. If all are executed, that will be a total of 805 executions since 1976.
Outgoing Governor George Ryan appearing serious in one of his acts during the last three days in office fired a parting salvo by pardoning four men on death row and two other former prisoners. The four, Madison Hobley, Aaron Patterson, LeRoy Orange and Stanley Howard were taken off of death row. All except Howard were to be released from prison on Friday. Howard was being held for other crimes robbery, kidnapping and sexual assault, which Ryan asked his lawyers to further investigateHoward. The other people were Gary Dotson for crimes he was long ago freed from prison under then-Governor Jim Thompson. Miguel Castillo, a Cuban who served 11 years for a murder he didn't commit.
The four men on death row were part of an infamous "Death Row 10," a name dubbed for a dozen men tortured by a detective squad of former Area 2 detective commander Jon Burge. These men have long denied their guilt and said they had confessions coerced from them by Burge and his men. One man, Aaron Patterson went so far as to etch into a bench at Area 2 these words: " lie about murders, police threaten me with violence, slapped and suffocated me with plastic‚" signed false confessions to murder. "They have fought incarceration and being death row for years in the courts.
Ryan saying he was just a pharmacist and not a lawyer spoke as a lawyer in a forceful manner to drive home the points other have been making for years to deaf ears. Ryan acting as a man who did have a Nobel Peace Prize in his eyes set free four men so far physically and psychologically from the DePaul Law School setting.
Ryan, a long-time death penalty advocate, switched roles in January of 2000 when he instituted a moratorium on carrying out any more death sentences. He did so after over seeing one execution, seeing 13 men proved innocent and wrestling with the doubts of guilt vs. innocence. The almost death of Anthony Porter was the deciding factor that made George Ryan and advocate for criminal justice.
He cited examples that were termed ‚ "8 years in hell‚" "pretty gruesome picture‚" praise of man sentenced to 75 years refusing to rat on co-defendants as "real character‚" asking "How do you let innocent people march to death row?‚" citing a dismal fifty percent failure rate by prosecutors in capital cases as ‚ "I don't know how anyone can function on a fifty percent record‚" and his moratorium action as "the right thing to do, but not courageous."
The speech followed his other speeches on capital punishment "contrite and extraordinarily humbling. It was a religious experience in nature."
Ryan after citing an experience of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War of being a friend to a man accused of being a Union deserter by pardoning him said he would be the same to the men he pardoned today. While the standing ovation at that moment was expected, Ryan as a politician under an indictment threat climbed out on a very small twig.
He seemed to resolve that issue in his mind, by voicing this mantra to the largely law student body, "Let's promote justice."
He chided the legislature as "punting" three times his capital punishment reform bill carried by Senator Kirk Dillard (R-DuPage). His dripping sarcasm was not wasted on this group.
Saturday he has phase 2 of his speech at Northwestern University Law School, where he will announce his decision on the remaining 156 men and women on death row in Illinois.
There is widespread speculation he will do a blanket commutation to life in prison without parole for those remaining on death row. Although based on a question he posed as to why a person in one county may get a prison term and in another country death, he again called the entire system into question. In part Ryan may have answered his own question by saying, "I do not understand that (why the legislature refused to pass a reform bill). 13 innocent men were nearly executed. Countless flaws are highlighted. The system has proved itself to be wildly inaccurate, unjust, and unable to separate the innocent from the guilty and at times, a very racist system."
Ryan ended this sobering and thoughtful speech by asking the law students to, "you should be engaged in a passionate search for truth, rather than a zealous pursuit of a victory for victorysake."
His last words were an intonation of a "mantra." Grab it with gusto and fight for justice.