Illinois state Sen. Elgie Sims was approached in the spring by federal authorities investigating potential influence peddling involving a police body-camera manufacturer that hired the law firm where Sims works as a lobbyist, sources have told the Tribune.
“In addition to being a State Senator, Elgie Sims is also an attorney with the Chicago law firm of Foley & Lardner, a well respected national and international law firm,” Durkin wrote in the statement. “At no time has Senator Sims done anything whatsoever inappropriate on behalf of Axon or any other client of the firm.
In 2019, then-state Rep. Luis Arroyo, who moonlighted as a lobbyist at Chicago’s City Hall, was charged with attempting to bribe a colleague in the senate to sponsor legislation that would have been beneficial to a sweepstakes gaming company that Arroyo was representing. Arroyo pleaded guilty and was sentenced earlier this year to nearly 5 years in federal prison.
“It is bold. It is transformational. It is supposed to be,” Sims said on the Senate floor, according to a transcript. “The people of Illinois sent us here. They sent us here to do better by them, not by ourselves. This bill is not about who we are, it is about the Illinois that we strive to be!” In January 2021, though, Axon again employed National Strategies Inc., a firm that connects businesses with lobbyists in various spheres of government interest across the country.
Trotter said the amendment was heavily negotiated with lawyers on both sides of the issue. It passed the House and did not come up for a vote in the full Senate, where more negotiations took place.