Will White also copy Rutherford's proposals to greatly enhance service at Driver Services Facilities?

(PONTIAC) Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White held a news conference today to announce a change in procedure that closely copies a proposal made two weeks ago by his opponent, Senator Dan Rutherford.  Rutherford called White's proposal "a day late and a dollar short," and noted that it was made in the heat of a campaign when Secretary White has had eight years to fine tune the Secretary of State's Office. 

"Just two weeks ago, I proposed a comprehensive plan to improve services at the Secretary of State's Driver Services Facilities," said Rutherford.  "One of the proposals was to provide an outlet for complaints or suggestions on the Secretary of State's website.  Today, Jesse White followed that by proposing the enabling of people to report corruption on his website.  That's a decent step forward from his "hotline" that already exists.  However, it falls far short of my proposal to allow people to report details of their experiences at Driver Service Facilities in an online customer care survey."  A copy of Rutherford's plan is available at his website, www.DanRutherford.org.

Regarding corruption, Rutherford pointed out that the current Secretary of State's Office has been plagued with prosecutions and convictions for corruption in the office during Jesse White's administration. 

Most notably, Jesse White's high-level administrator, Cecil Turner, is scheduled to be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney in federal court on September 11, 2006 for a ghost payrolling scheme Turner set up shortly after White hired him.  Jesse White publicly brushed off warnings about Turner when he hired him for a top position at a salary of nearly $100,000 a year.  When White hired Turner, Turner was a convicted felon for a scheme involving stealing Veterans' benefit checks out of the U.S. Mail. 

Turner is now being prosecuted for setting up a ghost payrolling scheme shortly after he was hired by Jesse White, and the scheme went on for six years.

Jesse White was publicly criticized at the time of Turner's hiring not only for hiring a convicted felon-who was convicted for such an egregious crime as stealing Veteran's checks- for such a high level position, but also because Turner apparently had no bona fide qualifications for the position.  At the time Turner was hired he was simply an official in the Democratic Party. 

The problem of corruption in the Secretary of State's office was compounded once Turner was hired because there obviously was little oversight of this convicted felon since the scheme went on for 6 years.

"Under a Rutherford administration, all people hired are going to have to have bona fide qualifications for the position," Rutherford continued.  "Partisan political activity alone won't cut it to get a job while I am Secretary of State.  When it comes to routing out corruption, nothing else comes close to the importance of hiring on merit and not for political favors."

"Allowing citizens improved ways to report corruption is a good thing, but it is no substitute for hiring qualified, honest people to begin with," Rutherford concluded.