I promised readers I’d follow up our discussion on Facebook of the DeKalb mayor’s use of photos of our fire and police chiefs in uniform in his campaign mailers. People don’t like what he did, but did Mayor Cohen Barnes also violate state and/or federal laws?
Mayor Barnes never answered my questions about whether DeKalb’s police and fire chiefs were endorsing him, and whether they gave their consent to appear in uniform on his campaign mailers. His only response was that he consulted with counsel and did nothing illegal.
Generally speaking, government restrictions are meant to ensure that public employees and/or elected officials don’t use their positions to gain advantages for their candidates, including use of government property. Additionally, government employees’ appearances on mailers while acting in their official capacities could be seen as implied endorsements.
The photos used in the Barnes mailers appear to be the sort you see city staff taking during meetings and other official city events. Until proven otherwise, it seems reasonable to assume he used city property for his campaign, which is a violation of state laws governing political activity in government work settings.
As for federal law, the Hatch Act covers employees of both public and private organizations that receive financial assistance from the federal government. City of DeKalb receives federal grants annually for providing community development and transit services, and supports first responder activities with federal money, too (e.g., equipment grants, SAFER program, etc. ). Therefore, I assume employees of City of DeKalb are covered.
Ironically, my reading of the Hatch Act suggests it does not cover Mayor Barnes himself, who is an elected officer and not an employee of the city. Imo he could probably not be faulted federally for using city employees, although his actions could potentially put them in a tight spot.
So in finding this campaign behavior ethically dubious in appearance, what can we do at the local level?
Illinois State Police have a specific prohibition against wearing uniforms during campaign activity. DeKalb PD has its own uniform code, and it might be appropriate to add such a prohibition to the existing local code.
Even better, we could update City of DeKalb’s ethics ordinance first, which would cover both employees and elected officials. Illinois law allows municipalities to make local rules stricter than what the state provides for, so the city council would simply amend the section on prohibited campaign activities to include uniformed shenanigans.
This also seems like a good time for a reminder that state law allows for the creation of an ethics commission to help with local enforcement of ethics laws.