Lake County Gazette

It’s the world against state Sen. Terry Link (D-Vernon Hills) and the world is winning.

Under pressure from fellow Democrats, Link on Saturday resigned his position as chairman of the Lake County Democratic Party. He stepped down two weeks before he had intended. In mid-August, after being charged with federal tax evasion, he announced he would leave Tuesday, Sept. 15.  

Speculation was that Link was waiting until Friday, Sept. 11 to resign his Senate seat but maintain party chairmanship – a political maneuver that would allow him to name his successor in the Senate. His Democratic colleagues, however, were unwilling to give him that window of opportunity, and pressured him to resign. He remains a sitting member of the Senate.

Republican lawmakers insist that Link resign immediately from the General Assembly.

State Rep. David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills) told the Lake County Gazette that when the news first broke of Link’s federal charges, he was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt since they worked on township consolidation legislation together.

“I was waiting for at least an explanation but it never came,” McSweeney said. “He has to go.”

The only move Link made immediately after the charges became public in mid-August was to resign his position on the Legislative Ethics Commission. 

For Denise Rotheimer, a victims’ rights advocate who in 2016 filed a harassment complaint against former state Sen. Ira Silverstein (D-Chicago), the resignation carries a special irony. She filed her complaint against Silverstein with the office of then Senate President John Cullerton, which referred it to the Office of Legislative Inspector General. The position was vacant at the time and the LIC was chaired by Link. The complaint fell into a black hole.

“Following my public disclosure [of the complaint] in 2017, then Senate President John Cullerton acknowledged receiving my complaint on Nov. 30, 2016," Rotheimer wrote in an email to the Lake County Gazette. "Reporters were told by Cullerton’s spokesperson that ‘senior staffers met with Silverstein to let him know such allegations are taken seriously’ and reported them to the IG’s office and the Legislative Ethics Commission.

“In his public statement, Link defended his fraudulent concealment of ethics complaints and said, ‘the vacancy in the [LIG] office’s leadership, [since December 2014] has not prevented it from operating.’ He said staff members receive complaints and investigate those deemed worthwhile.”

Rotheimer said Link’s failure to hold his colleagues accountable is nothing new in Springfield.

“…all our legislators have been failing to do their jobs,” she wrote. “And instead [they] continue to betray the public’s trusty by colluding with each other and protecting each other as they continuously do their bidding in the media and deliver the false narrative that keeps the scheme going for years and perpetuates their culture of corruption.”

Last August an outside investigation found that “bullying, inappropriate behavior, and fear” pervasive in the state capitol under Speaker Michael Madigan’s (D-Chicago). Madigan himself has been linked to the recent ComEd scandal.

The Illinois Policy Institute is keeping a running tab on the corruption in Springfield, including media reports that Link wore a wire in conversations with former Rep. Luis Arroyo (D-Chicago), who last October was arrested on bribery charges. Link has denied he was a mole.

Link had served as the Lake County Democratic chair since 1992. He has represented the 30th Senate District, which includes much of central and eastern Lake County and a small portion of Cook County, since 1997.