It’s the Chicago way…
State workers were forced to attend a Pelosi-Jackson Jr. dinner.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announces her endorsement of incumbent Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters. (Chicago Maroon)
Whistle-blower documents reveal that Illinois state employees were forced to attend a Jesse Jackson Jr-Nancy Pelosi dinner on the taxpayer dime.
The Daily Caller reported:
Documents and a whistle-blower affidavit obtained by The Daily Caller charge that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., and Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., participated in an unethical — and possibly illegal — effort to force 76 employees of an Illinois state agency to engage in political activity on the taxpayers’ dime.
According to the whistle-blower, Rev. Jackson also encouraged the government employees to load first-generation and low-income college students up with student loan debt — because Democrats in Congress, he allegedly promised, would eventually pass laws to forgive that debt later. “[T]hose people will continue to vote Democratic,” Jackson Sr. said, according to the whistle-blower.
On March 3, Pelosi flew to Chicago to endorse Rep. Jackson Jr., 17 days ahead of a heated March 20 Democratic primary he later won. Pelosi was scheduled to make the endorsement at a press conference later in the day, after she participated in an hour-long “forum” hosted by the elder Jackson at the headquarters of his progressive Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Pelosi politicized that forum, jumping the gun and endorsing Jackson Jr. earlier than planned.
“One of the reasons I am here, and I will do this following this wonderful meeting, is to publicly state my endorsement of Jesse Jackson Jr. for re-election,” Pelosi said at the Rainbow PUSH forum. “I do so with great pride. I remember when he came to the Congress with a great name and a great tradition of his parents. But he came and he made his own mark in the Congress from his own generation.”
Adam Andrzejewski, chairman of the For The Good of Illinois PAC and a former 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidate endorsed by Polish Solidarity movement founder Lech Walesa, told TheDC that a state government agency forcing workers to go the event was likely illegal. Even if it failed to violate any specific law, he said, the activity was undoubtedly unethical.
More here.