May 22, 2002
"DADDY BAGGAGE" MAY SINK MADIGAN AGAINST BIRKETT
ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART
Lisa Madigan won the March Democratic primary for Illinois Attorney General because of her father, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, the state Democratic chairman. And she will likely lose the November election against Republican Joe Birkett, also because of her father.
As detailed in last week’s column, Lisa Madigan, only eight years out of law school, ranks as the least-qualified contender for the state’s top legal post in the past century. But the clout of her father, speaker for 18 of the past 20 years, and 13th Ward Democratic Committeeman, enabled her to beat John Schmidt with 58.2 percent of the Democratic primary vote.
The thrust of Madigan’s campaign is that the Attorney General need not be a tough prosecutor, but instead be an “advocate” on various issues, such as consumer and environmental protection, official corruption and government integrity, senior abuse, and charitable fraud. Madigan claims she has plenty of experience as an “advocate.” Birkett, the DuPage County State’s Attorney, the post held by current Attorney General Jim Ryan from 1984 to 1994 (when he became attorney general), is a career prosecutor, with over 20 years’ experience; he has been his county’s chief prosecutor since 1996. His campaign thrust is that he is a “tough prosecutor,” a trait needed for the state’s top legal post.
In most campaigns, the dye is usually cast early. The public’s perceptions take root, and are nearly impossible to eradicate. Schmidt pounded Madigan mercilessly in the primary as being “unqualified,” and as her father’s tool, and a huge chunk of Democratic voters agreed. She goes into the election with lots of negative baggage, and two fervent hopes: First, that the Democratic statewide ticket, led by Rod Blagojevich for governor, will be carried into office atop a Democratic sweep, precipitated by voter revulsion toward Governor George Ryan. And second, that the Schmidt primary voters will forget why they voted against her, and will not opt to back Birkett.
That second hope may be dashed in June, when a group called the Illinois Committee for Honest Government plans to release a study alleging that Speaker Madigan, as a stockholder in five Illinois banks, voted 139 times on legislation affecting financial institutions from 1971 to 2000. The group plans to release a 75-page investigative report, detailing Madigan’s roll-call votes, and charging that Madigan violated the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act. The Act mandates that state legislators abstain on those votes in which they have an economic self-interest; Madigan didn’t.
On the political Richter scale, this ranks somewhere between a thunderstorm and an earthquake, depending on how the news media plays it. And since it devolves upon the state Attorney General to investigate such infractions, it will be up to Jim Ryan, at least this year, and up to Lisa Madigan, if she beats Birkett, to investigate her dad.
To paraphrase the poetic Little Miss Muffet, Miss Madigan would be in a real tuffet, and, if victorious, would have to be Miss Disqualification when it comes to any attorney general’s investigation of official corruption relating to her father, any member of the Illinois House, or any politician to which Mike Madigan’s Democratic Party of Illinois or Friends of Mike Madigan may have contributed. In fact, when Lisa Madigan announced her candidacy last December, she promised that she would be a “…watchdog for the public interest,” and would “not turn a blind eye to those who corrupt our state government.” She added that those in state government “…have a special responsibility to uphold the values of public service.”
Mark that down as a masterful piece of hollow political rhetoric. If elected, Madigan would be a “watchdog” limited to watching everybody except her father and those politically connected with him.
The Committee’s report will also charge that Republican House minority leader Lee Daniels allegedly violated the state ethics law on 97 occasions, and that U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill) allegedly did so on 37 occasions. The Committee intends to deliver their research to Attorney General Ryan within the next week, and to demand that he initiate an investigation. Since Madigan, Daniels and Fitzgerald are lawyers, any violation of any state law requires that they be reported to the state’s Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission. Once in receipt of the information, Ryan must do so.
Jim Ryan promised that, as governor, he would give Illinois politics a much-needed “bath” and that he would enforce ethics’ laws. Blagojevich ripped Ryan for for not doing precisely that in his current office, and for not vigorously investigating the bribes-for-licenses in the Secretary of State’s office under George Ryan in the mid-1990s. Ryan, as attorney general, promised to create a “public integrity unit” in his office, but never did so. He may soon have his chance to be a corruption-battling white knight, but that will mean spearing Republicans Fitzgerald and Daniels, as well as Mike Madigan. Will Ryan have the guts to do it?
The June through August period in any campaign season is critical for an unknown or underdog candidate (like Birkett) to define himself or herself, for a well-known candidate (like Lisa Madigan) to redefine himself or herself, or for any contender to bloody up their opponent. At present, Birkett is undefined, and Madigan is defined as being unqualified. If Mike Madigan suddenly starts taking some ethics hits, that further defines Lisa as being unacceptable as AG.
To win, Birkett must keep the focus on Lisa Madigan (or both Madigans), and make the election a referendum on her lack of qualifications. He must run a negative, anti-Madigan campaign. To win, Madigan must “define” Birkett as an unacceptable candidate. She must highlight his opposition to abortion rights, and his role in the case of Rolando Cruz, who was charged with and convicted for the 1983 murder of Jeanine Nicarico. Cruz was sentenced to death, but that was later overturned, and he was freed, but only after evidence surfaced that three former county prosecutors and four sheriff’s officers fabricatred evidence, and conspired to frame Cruz.
Birkett was not involved in the original prosecution, nor was he among the prosecutors who argued against overturning the appeal on several occasions during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Jim Ryan was State’s Attorney. But he was State’s Attorney in 1998, when Cruz had his last retrial, and he opposed any change of verdict. However, it was Birkett who ordered the DNA test which led to Cruz’s retrial.
Birkett is also a strong advocate of the death penalty, and opposes Governor George Ryan’s current moratorium; Madigan also supports the death penalty, but supports the moratorium. That won’t be a major issue. Birkett advocated a life sentence – not the death penalty -- for Marilyn Lemak, the Naperville mother who was convicted of killing her three children. Had Birkett sought death, he could have been attacked as being too harsh. Madigan can’t now criticize him for being too soft, so the “death penalty” issue disappears.
Birkett also prosecuted Bob Hickman, Jim Edgar’s former finance chairman, and former Chicago Alderman Joe Kotlarz, winning convictions on conspiracy charges.
Birkett, although unknown and not well-financed, won his primary comfortably over Bob Coleman, 514,946-288,829. Coleman spent heavily on cornball TV ads, with minimal impact; he got only 35.9 percent. Coleman engaged in no negative attacks, so Birkett came out of the primary in fine shape.
The first post-primary poll put Madigan ahead of Birkett by a 47-40 margin. That’s not good news for Madigan, since she has wide name identification, and should be up by a much bigger margin. As detailed in last week’s vote chart, Ryan won big in 1998 against Miriam Santos – another flawed female Democrat from Chicago (although Santos had not been indicted and convicted at that time) – by taking 77.8 percent of the vote in the collar counties, 66.7 percent in the Cook County suburbs, and 67.9 percent of the vote Downstate, on his way to a statewide margin of 783,802 (60.9 percent). Ryan got only 30 percent of the Chicago vote, carrying several Northwest Side wards; Santos won 88.3 percent of the black vote.
My early prediction: To win, Birkett must come reasonably close to replicating Ryan’s 1998 performance. Turnout will be about 3.2 million. Birkett must keep the base Republican vote, get about 200,000 of the Schmidt primary voter, and win a majority of the current undecideds, who will vote on the basis of qualifications and newspaper endorsements (which Birkett will get). Also, some voters are inclined to want checks-and-balances in government; that means they may vote for Blagojevich, but also think it wise to have somebody like Birkett as AG to keep him in check.
Madigan, as a Democrat, will get almost 90 percent of the black vote, and will win massively in the Southwest Side 13th and 23rd wards. Birkett needs to get at least 20 percent of the Chicago vote, which means amassing 45 percent of the Northwest Side vote, and 35 percent of the Lakefront vote; that’s doable. In the Cook County suburbs, Birkett won’t come close to Ryan’s 66.7 percent, but anti-Madigan votes by liberals and independents will give Birkett close to 60 percent.
In the collars, where Ryan won 77.8 percent, Birkett, with all the media endorsements, will come in with over 65 percent; and Downstate, where Ryan won with. 67.9 percent, Birkett will top Madigan by better than 60-40. Overall, that translates into a Birkett win by about 60,000 votes.
For most voters, the office of Attorney General rises above politics and gender. Competence is the criterion. Unless Madigan can somehow show Birkett to be unfit for the job, which means launching a negative TV blitz this summer, she will lose…but it will be close.