Date: 20 Apr 2005 04:14:39 -0000 Message-ID: <20050420041439.36895.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: <96DF6DA6D4E9A946B7D02E762CED515801016C9D@exc01.ilsos.net> Thanks for your message. Please send a fax to 1-312-413-9322, attention Bernstein, with a copy of your office's procedures---I assume they're in writing---for handling statements of economic interest. I understand your point that there are some procedural requirements in the statute. In particular, I agree that the Secretary of State is required to send a notification (demanding a statement plus $15) if he hasn't received, by 1 May, a statement of economic interests from a ``person who is required to file a statement.'' 5 ILCS 420/4A-105. 5 ILCS 420/4A-105 then specifies further penalties, but doesn't specify any particular procedures for assessing those penalties. Has anyone ever put your office in the position of collecting the $100/day penalties, or of trying to get that person fired? Is there really a firing procedure? Anyway, I am _not_ a ``person who is required to file a statement,'' so the penalties in 5 ILCS 420/4A-105 simply don't apply to me. What your office is threatening is not something authorized by law, but a breach of my tenured employment contract. What your office is demanding is not something authorized by law, but an invasion of my privacy. 5 ILCS 420/4A-106, which you cite repeatedly, is irrelevant. It requires the Secretary of State to send _initial_ notifications (e.g., the blank Statement of Economic Interests that I received) to ``all persons whose names have been certified to him.'' That isn't the penalty procedure; it's the initial-notification procedure. To emphasize the contrast between the language in 5 ILCS 420/4A-106 and the language in 5 ILCS 420/4A-105: initial notifications go to ``all persons whose names have been certified''; penalties are applied only to a ``person who is required to file a statement'' and fails to do so. You continue to claim that the statute requires the Office of the Secretary of State to blindly trust false certifications from the University Ethics Officer, and to impose penalties on the people named, even when those people are not required to file statements. I see no support in the statute for your position. ---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago