Quincy Reporter

This week, state Sen. Jil Tracy (R-Quincy) had harsh criticism for the Illinois Ethics Commission's failure to appoint a replacement for Legislative Inspector General Carol Pope following her resignation. 

Tracy said in a Facebook post, “Confirming  a candidate before the approaching deadline is my top priority for this Commission to ensure that Illinois will continue to have a Legislative Inspector General. Unfortunately, that priority was not shared by some of the members of the opposition."

As Legislative Inspector General, Pope was to have oversight over the legislative body amid recent indigents of corruption and ethics concerns in the state government. Pope resigned not long after being appointed, citing concerns that the position was "essentially a paper tiger," and that she really had very little oversight or power to do anything. Since she felt that ethics reform was not actually a priority for the legislative body, she tendered her resignation. 

Tracy pushed in 2019 to give the Legislative Inspector General more power, but was rebuffed. In July of this year, Tracy and her Republican colleagues tried once more to push through a stronger ethics reform bill, but once again failed. 

Despite frequent pushes from the Republican side of the aisle for cooperation from state Democrats to improve ethics and oversight of the legislative body, the efforts have failed repeatedly.