Chicago representative didn’t list a source of $170,000 of income, gives a pretty question reason for the omission

Illinois Rep. Robert Martwick, D-Chicago, left, and Rep. Christian L. Mitchell, D-Chicago, top right, talk with fellow lawmakers and staff while on the House floor during before session begins at the state Capitol, Thursday, June 30, 2016, in Springfield, Ill. If Illinois enters another year without a budget by Thursday, cash will stop flowing to local 911 centers, preventative health screenings and tuition grants for low-income college students. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

A Northwest Side Democratic legislator was paid $170,000 to work as a consultant to his fellow Democrats during two years when he neglected to list that work as a source of income on his mandatory state ethics filings.

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State Rep. Robert Martwick, who is an attorney, blamed his lack of filing this income on the idea that the economic-interest statements legislators are required to fill out every year are so “poorly written” that he didn’t understand what he needed to include on it, according to the Chicago Sun Times.

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“When I get to the disclosures, I try to be as open as I can be,” Martwick told the Sun Times. “I’m a lawyer, but, looking at those questions, I don’t know what they’re asking.”

The ethics form asks legislators to “list the name and instrument of ownership in any entity doing business in the state of Illinois in which ownership interest” is worth more than $5,000 or from which they made more than $1,200 during the last year.

“I’m being honest,” Matwick told the Sun Times. “I don’t know how to interpret those questions.”

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Campaign-finance records filled out by other politicians showed that Matwick was paid a total of about $170,000 over the course of two years, but on his form he wrote “none” when asked to list any entity he had outside business income from. On the ethics form from 2016 however, Matwick did list First Tuesday, his political consulting firm.

Not listing his income for two years and blaming it on a lack of understanding seems to contradict what happened in 2016, but Matwick has other problems as well such as the fact that his business is currently operating without a business license.

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