In the News

Daily Herald, May 23, 2007

Harper College’s last-minute shot to beef up lobbying efforts on its four-year degree proposal will cost taxpayers at least $30,000.

Trustees voted unanimously to hire a lobbying firm with ties to Democratic Senate President Emil Jones, who currently controls the plan’s fate.

Springfield-based consulting company Zack Stamp, Ltd., started work on behalf of the Palatine college May 1, shortly after the bachelor degree bill was approved by the Illinois House.

One of the attorneys for the firm, Rudolph Braud, is the former chief legal counsel to Jones.

“We needed some help on the Senate side,” said Harper spokesman Phil Burdick. “We’re trying to find a way to get past university lobbyists and get our bill onto the floor.”

The move comes as legislation opening the door for a four-year degree program at Harper appears stalled in the Senate. It was sent recently to the Senate’s Higher Education Committee, but was never called for a vote — largely because the committee is generally stacked with lawmakers sympathetic to the concerns of the state’s major four-year schools. Those schools oppose Harper’s plans.

“It’s been very difficult to get past that kind of resistance,” state Sen. Susan Garrett, a Lake Forest Democrat said at a news conference Tuesday where Harper supporters gathered.

Garrett wants Senate leadership to send the plan to a different committee. To date, that hasn’t happened and with lawmakers’ spring session winding toward its final days, it increasingly looks like the Harper proposal is stuck.

Cindy Davidsmeyer, a spokeswoman for Senate President Emil Jones Jr., a Chicago Democrat, explained that the Harper legislation had gone through the process and Garrett had chosen not to let it be voted on in committee.

“It was posted a couple weeks ago for the Higher Education Committee, and it was not called for a vote, possibly because most of the members of the committee didn’t support it,” Davidsmeyer said.

Lawmakers are slated to wrap up their spring session on May 31.

Burdick says the $30,000 expenditure for Zack Stamp consultants is also to help the college secure more than $53 million in state help for campus construction projects once the budget is wrapped up.

“This is expertise that we don’t have as far as unlocking that money,” said Burdick.

Tuesday night’s expenditure is in addition to the $60,000 that was approved in 2004 to lobby in Springfield on behalf of the college’s four-year degree initiative.

Zack Stamp will be paid that sum for work done May 1 through the end of the 2007 spring legislative session. In addition to the $30,000 fee, the group will also be paid for necessary registration fees, travel, lodging and other costs for their work.

If the four-year proposal is passed, Harper would start a pilot program to offer bachelor degrees in two fields — public safety administration-homeland security and technology management.