Date: 18 Apr 2005 21:08:01 -0000 Message-ID: <20050418210801.31140.qmail@cr.yp.to> Automatic-Legal-Notices: See http://cr.yp.to/mailcopyright.html. From: "D. J. Bernstein" To: "Maddox, Nathan" Cc: "Paine, Renee" Subject: Re: replacement for statement of economic interests References: <96DF6DA6D4E9A946B7D02E762CED515801016C91@exc01.ilsos.net> Thanks for your message. I didn't see any cites in your message, so I have two followup questions: * You say that the Office of the Secretary of State is required by statute to impose penalties if it doesn't receive a statement from someone named by an ethics officer. Exactly which ILCS paragraph requires the Office to do that? * You refer to my ``right to challenge'' your action ``in appropriate administrative or judicial proceedings.'' Are there actually any mechanisms for administrative review? I've been asking this question for more than three weeks now. I'm aware of the court option, obviously, but a lawsuit will be painful for all of us, especially if I decide to expand this from a relatively narrow tenure-violation case into a 1983 case against various state officials infringing my privacy rights. I'd much rather start with a friendly dispute-resolution mechanism---something that shifts the May/June deadlines, and eliminates the immediate threats, during review (and reversal, I'm sure) of the University Ethics Officer's action. Separate from those questions, I have a comment regarding your final paragraph. You say, essentially, that the reason that the Office of the Secretary of State can't accept a letter like mine is that this would give too much power to state employees. The problem is that the Office is blindly accepting statements from ethics officers, and thus giving those ethics officers far too much power: specifically, the unfettered power to extort invasive statements out of employees who are _not_ required by law to file those statements. The obvious fix is to not blindly accept statements from anybody: i.e., to set up a reasonable dispute-resolution mechanism. But there doesn't seem to be any dispute-resolution mechanism short of the courts. If that's correct then it's a serious flaw in the Office's procedures. Earlier you say that the Office can't determine who's required to file. But the Office _is_ determining who's required to file---by inadequate procedures that fail to ensure the accuracy of those determinations. I'm telling you that the procedures have produced incorrect determinations in this case, and that the Office is threatening penalties against people who are _not_ covered by the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act. Surely you find this troubling. ---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago