Why Do Newspapers Fear This Woman?
Forget crime, drugs, corruption, and those other themes that newspapers thunder against in their pages. The crusade closest to the owners’ hearts is the one against Sally Jackson, a state official who could cost Illinois papers a bundle of money.
The Department of Employment Security maintains the trust fund out of which unemployment compensation is paid. The fund is nourished by unemployment taxes paid by employers.
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By the early 80s, the trust fund had plunged more than $2 billion into the red. Today its surplus exceeds a billion dollars. Sally Jackson insists she did no more than professionalize her department by hiring more auditors and training them better. She flatly denies what her critics swear is true: that at the behest of the governor she changed the rules to raise a lot more money.
Yet there’s such bitterness, we told her. “It is extraordinary,” Jackson said. “It is absolutely extraordinary.”
He went on, “The truckers have talked about how they can pick up and move to other states. I think other businesses will do the same. Unfortunately,” he said, referring to newpapers, “we’re stuck here.”
We asked Hirschfeld, who happens to be a former legislator, what position the governor takes. “The governor is pretty good at being evasive,” Hirschfeld told us. “He says, ‘Sally runs the department. I don’t tell her what to do.’”
David Bennett said, “The people who control the agreed-bill process won’t let it be discussed. It’s like OPEC. It’s a closely guarded fiefdom, and the Illinois Chamber is top dog on the totem pole.”
