Weeks after tapping a former Chicago alderman to help lobby for the city in the state capitol, Mayor Brandon Johnson is adding a Springfield alderwoman to his once-skeletal state team. Johnson’s office confirmed Thursday it intends to hire Lakeisha Purchase, a current Springfield alderwoman and re gistered state lobbyist, on a contract basis, saying she came “highly recommended from lawmakers in Springfield.” Before she became a lobbyist, Purchase was employed as a support services specialist for the Illinois Department of Transportation, where she was once faulted for “abusing” government time. She left the IDOT job in 2023. Purchase’s hiring is part of a broader shift in Johnson’s intergovernmental affairs efforts in Springfield, where since taking office nearly two years ago he’s had minimal success working with Gov. JB Pritzker and some lawmakers. Johnson this month hired former Ald. John Arena, 45th, full time as one of his intergovernmental affairs deputies over the objections of some of Arena’s former colleagues who clashed with Arena on the City Council. Among the team’s biggest priorities: securing additional funding for the Chicago Transit Authority, covering additional costs at Chicago Public Schools and finding fiscal help with the city’s overall budget. Purchase, who does business through her firm, LKP Consulting, has been a registered lobbyist since 2023, according to state records. That’s the same year she won her first full term as a Springfield alderwoman. Her current client list includes Springfield Clinic and Touchette Regional Hospital, and her prior lobbying roster included several clients in the Metro East area of Illinois outside of St. Louis, records show. Before her 2023 election, Purchase was appointed an alderwoman in Springfield in 2021 and prior to that she was a local trustee on a capital improvement board. She also was a coordinator for Chicago City Clerk Anna Valencia’s secretary of state primary bid in 2022. In addition to being a state lobbyist, Purchase also runs a residential real estate development and management company, according to her LinkedIn account. Although state lawmakers are prohibited from lobbying other units of local government, local elected officials are not barred from lobbying in Springfield. State lobbyists are, however, required to declare they hold a local elected office on their lobbying registration forms with the Illinois secretary of state, which Purchase’s form shows she has done. Kent Redfield, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Illinois Springfield, said Purchase’s lobbying and aldermanic work raises two potential conflicts — a conflict of interest and a conflict of commitment. “Could you have a piece of legislation that would benefit the city of Chicago to the detriment of the city of Springfield? Sure,” Redfield said. “How do you deal with that potential?” In addition, her work for the city of Chicago might take away from time she could be spending on constituent issues in Springfield, he said. “Does it get to the point where you’re not giving complete attention to your duties and responsibilities and the time that you ought to be putting in as an alderman?” In 2024, the state’s Office of Executive Inspector General, which investigates potential ethics violations in agencies under the governor, released a report stating that Purchase’s aldermanic job crept into her work for the state during an 18-month period between 2021 and 2022 when Purchase still worked for IDOT. The inspector general’s redacted report last May concluded investigators found “reasonable cause” to believe Purchase violated IDOT policies related to outside employment, including working an outside job during state time and conducting “prohibited political activity” at work. Lakeisha Purchase, a Springfield alderwoman and registered state lobbyist, has been hired by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to lobby on behalf of the city. (City of Springfield) The OEIG received complaints in October 2021 and again in January 2023 about Purchase potentially performing aldermanic duties on state time. Investigators reviewed her personal phone records and found that out of 301 workdays they examined, Purchase had made personal calls longer than an hour on 279 of them, and that on 179 of those days, personal calls exceeded 3 hours. Though Purchase told investigators her IDOT job didn’t necessitate her speaking with local Springfield officials, 39 hours of those calls were with fellow aldermen, the mayor, and the clerk of the Capital Township board where she also served as trustee. She also called into Capital Township meetings during work hours, investigators found, which she said she did during “benefit time” allotted by IDOT, according to the report. Investigators also found she had called and texted fellow campaign workers ahead of Valencia’s 2022 primary election bid during her IDOT work hours. The report said Purchase also failed to disclose other outside work to the state, including her trustee position and work for her real estate company, Kashmir DST. The inspector general recommended she be disciplined “up to and including discharge,” but Purchase left IDOT before the report was concluded and made public. Johnson’s office did not comment on those findings, but said, “We expect all of our employees and contractors to abide by all city, state, and federal laws, without exception.” Purchase, who is originally from Maywood, also confirmed to the Tribune that she was being hired to join Johnson’s lobbying team. She referred all other questions to the Johnson administration. ...read more read less