For better and for worse, Governor Bruce Rauner has never made a secret of his deep contempt—bordering on hatred—for the Chicago Teachers Union.
So imagine my surprise when I got a call from a source I’ll call Cockburn—because he doesn’t want to be identified—informing me that Rauner’s old private equity firm was a paid consultant to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund.
In September 2011, just a few months after inking its deal with the teachers’ fund, Townsend was purchased by GTCR, the private equity firm that Rauner used to help lead. In fact, the R in GTCR stands for—you guessed it—Rauner.
On the other hand, Townsend—and GTCR—can make friends in the real estate world by advising the pension fund on where to park its money.
It would have been a natural cue for Rauner to say something like, “Well, as long as we’re talking full disclosure: yo, Jesse, I’m making money off your pension. Now let me go back to ripping the shit out of it.”
Obviously, nerve like that will get you far in the corporate world—and in politics, for that matter.
