Dorothy A. Brown (born September 4, 1953) is an American politician and lawyer. Brown currently serves as the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County in the First Judicial District of Illinois.
Early life, family, and education
Brown grew up in Minden, Louisiana, one of eight children. Her father worked in the laundry room of the Louisiana Army Ammunitions Plant near Minden. He also owned a cotton farm in Athens, Louisiana, where Brown and her seven siblings helped him pick and chop cotton. Brown's mother worked as a cook and a domestic.
At Webster High School, Brown was captain of the girl's varsity basketball team, and graduated in the top ten percent of her class. Brown entered college in 1971 at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She graduated Magna cum Laude from Southern University in 1975. In 1977, Brown received her license as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). In 1981, she received her Master in Business Administration (MBA) with honors from DePaul University in Chicago. In 1996, Brown received her law degree with honors from Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Professional career
Brown worked for Arthur Andersen and Commonwealth Edison as a certified public accountant. She also helped to start a minority public accounting firm. From 1991 to 2000, Brown was employed as the General Auditor for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).
Brown unsuccessfully ran for Treasurer of the City of Chicago in 1999, Mayor of Chicago in 2007 and President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 2010.
Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County (2000â€"present)
Brown was elected as the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, in 2000, and has been reelected to three additional terms in office by overwhelming margins of votes. As the official keeper of recorders for all judicial matters brought into one of the largest unified court systems in the world, Brown is responsible for managing an annual operating budget of more than $100 million and has a workforce of over 1,800 employees. The Clerk's office was described as "a 2,300-employee office, one of the last true bastions of political patronage in Illinois" by the Chicago Sun-Times in 2014.
Major projects and services developed under Brown’s leadership include: Electronic filing (e-filing), a Clerk of the Circuit Court mobile app: “Court Clerk Mobile Connect,†an Online Traffic Ticket Payment System, an Electronic Tickets (eTickets) system, Mortgage Surplus Search, SmartForms (Online Order of Protection service), Smart Kiosks (court information terminals), and IDMS (Imaging Document Management System). All of these “Green Courtâ€/E-Court initiatives improve accuracy, save time for court users, cut costs for the court system, and conserve energy.
Brown accepted cash gifts on her birthday and Christmas from her employees, a practice that several former employees described as being an unspoken requirement of their jobs. Brown later announced that she would no longer accept the gifts after questions arose regarding how she claimed the items on her tax returns.
In January 2010, the Inspector General of Cook County investigated Brown's "Jeans Day" program, in which Clerk's office employees could donate cash to the Jeans Day fund and wear casual clothing to work on a Friday. The Jeans Day fund, which grew to over $300,000, was supposed to be used to fund employee morale activities and charities. The Inspector General's report documented expenditures unrelated to charitable causes, including Chicago Bulls and Six Flags Great America tickets and employee parking reimbursements. The Inspector General's report cleared Brown's office of wrongdoing, but advised Brown provide better controls. Brown discontinued Jeans Day in August 2010.
In May 2006, Brown chaired the host committee for a fund raiser held in Chicago to support the re-election of Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, Louisiana. Helping organize the event was information technology contractor Mark St. Pierre, who had worked contracts for both the city of New Orleans and Cook County government, and was a significant political donor to both Brown and Nagin. The event figured prominently in the indictment of Nagin on corruption charges on January 18, 2013. Brown was not charged.
A contributor to Brown's political campaigns gave a commercial property at the intersection of Pulaski, Ogden and Cermak Avenues on Chicago's southwest side to Brown's husband in June 2011. Two months later, the deed was transferred to The Sankofa Group, L. L. C., Brown and her husband's for-profit consulting firm, and in November 2011 The Sankofa Group sold the property for $100,000. The land deal is being investigated by the Cook County Inspector General and by a grand jury convened by prosecutors with the Cook County State's Attorney's office.
In 2012, during Brown's third re-election campaign, the Chicago Tribune editorial board declined to endorse any candidate, citing "Brown's years of failed assurances to modernize the obsolete, paper-choked office she heads."
In August 2015, the slating committee of the Cook County Democratic Party narrowly voted to endorse Brown for re-election to a fifth term in the March 2016 primary elections. In early October 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant at Brown's home and seized her County-issued cell phone. Chicago attorney Ed Genson represented Brown. On October 23, 2015 the Cook County Democratic Party withdrew its endorsement of Brown, and endorsed Michelle A. Harris. In November 2015, an employee of the Clerk's office was charged in a federal indictment that alleged that he lied to a federal grand jury after he had been rehired by the Clerk's office weeks after lending $15,000 to a company controlled by Brown's husband; the employee pleaded not guilty. Brown has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing.
Both the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune have declined to endorse Brown or her opponent in the 2016 campaign.
Publications
- Brown, Dorothy (January 3, 2015). "A Year of Achievements Roll into a New Year of More Innovations in the Clerk's Office". The Chicago Defender. Retrieved January 20, 2015.Â
- Brown, Dorothy (November 19, 2014). "eTickets remove some of the frustration of getting a traffic ticket". The Chicago Defender. Retrieved January 20, 2015.Â
References
External links
- Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County
- Illinois Circuit Court Clerks by District & Circuit
- Dorothy Brown news and investigations by the Better Government Association, an Illinois watchdog group
- Dorothy Brown archive at the Chicago Reader