Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.There's no disputing the substance of the hiring scandal that's racked the Illinois Department of Transportation.
The only real question is, What to do about it? And that's an issue on which Gov. Pat Quinn and his critics are at odds. So it's going to be up to a federal judge to decide whether to install a hiring monitor to assure merit-based hiring at IDOT.
In our view, the federal court has no choice but to put a monitor in place at Transportation. Indeed, one could credibly argue that a monitor ought to oversee all hiring in state government, not just at the Transportation Department.
Why? The recent report issued by Executive Inspector General Richardo Meza revealed that illegal — repeat illegal — patronage hiring is alive and well in the Land of Lincoln. What a shock. Read the editorial in its entirety The News-Gazette.