August 21, 2013
DUMPSTERS, "SON SWAP," THE "NEXT MELL," "KIDDIELAND," AND THE "GRAVEL SNEAK"
ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART
This week's column is about "Dumpsters," "Dumpees," no "juice," the "next Mell," "Kiddieland," the developing "Son Swap," and the judicial "gavel snatch" and "gavel sneak." Here are four mini-columns on the above topics.
The "Great Son Swap." Who says Hispanics aren't assimilating? In fact, Chicago's Hispanic politicians can connive, deceive, dissemble and behave as selfishly as any veteran white or black politician. According to Cook County Commissioner Edwin Reyes (8th), state Representative Luis Arroyo (D-3) is the "next Mell" -- a reference to Dick Mell's recent bequest of his aldermanic job to his daughter Deb Mell -- and is conspiring to give his son Reyes' job.
The 2011 City Council ward remap created a new Hispanic-majority 36th Ward, effective in 2015, specifically including Arroyo's residence in the mostly white Galewood-Montclare 36th Ward. It forced Alderman Nick Sposato to move and run in the 38th Ward.
Enter Alderman Ray Suarez (31st), a longtime ally of county Assessor Joe Berrios, the county Democratic chairman and the 31st Ward Democratic committeeman. As of June 30, the obscure Suarez had $1,209,051 in his campaign account. The alderman, who first was elected in 1991, has a friend named Willie Aquino Sr. The elder Aquino wants to make his son, Willie Aquino Jr., the 36th Ward alderman in 2015, but he has to clear out Arroyo.
So here's the deal: Call it the "Son Swap." The elder Arroyo stays put in the Illinois House. His son, Luis Arroyo Jr., gets slated for the 8th District County Board seat, setting up a 2014 Democratic primary with Reyes, and the younger Aquino gets the aldermanic seat in 2015.
The battle lines are forming: Behind Arroyo are "Dumpsters" Berrios, Suarez (and his money), Mell, and Aldermen Roberto Maldonado (26th) and Ariel Reboyros (30th) -- the "Old Guard." Behind Reyes, who replaced Maldonado in 2009, are state Senators Iris Martinez (D-20) and Willie Delgado (D-2), state Representative Cynthia Soto (D-4), Alderman Ric Munoz (22nd), former state senator Miguel del Valle, and 35th Ward Democratic Committeeman Nancy Schiavone -- the "reformers." The district contains all the North Side Hispanic areas, and it is mostly Puerto Rican.
On the fence are Alderman Rey Colon (35th), for whom Reyes once worked as chief of staff, and Alderman Proco Joe Moreno (1st).
"They're being very secretive about the slating," Reyes said of the "Dumpsters." "They haven't invited me. They don't return my calls." The committeemen will meet before the end of August.
The rap on Reyes, a 22-year state trooper and an Air Force veteran, according to one insider, is that he is "an ingrate," that he "thumbs his nose at the party," and that he is "too independent." Retorts Reyes: "I took orders in the Air Force. I don't take orders from other politicians." He said that the real reason he's being dumped is "because I fired Rudy Urian," a holdover Maldonado staffer, and "because I wouldn't let them" -- meaning Maldonado, Arroyo, Berrios and Suarez -- redraw the boundaries of the 8th District to add more of the 30th, 31st and 36th wards.
As a commissioner, Reyes supported the 1 percent sales tax rollback, sponsored an ordinance to require the Cook County Forest Preserve District to hire more minority and women vendors, backed a boycott on county business with "anti-immigrant" Arizona, and voted to bar the sheriff from detaining nonviolent illegal alien prisoners without bond until they are deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Reyes faced two opponents in the 2010 primary, the strongest being Javier Nogueras, who was Maldonado's candidate. In a turnout of 18,073, Reyes got 9,256 votes (51.2 percent of the total), to 6,075 for Nogueras and 2,742 for Ariel Rosa. The district contained 238 precincts in 10 wards, with the bulk in the 26th (63 precincts), 35th (36), 30th (26), 33rd (25), 1st (28) and 35th (36) wards. Reyes won every ward.
The outlook: Arroyo will have the money to bury the district in mailers and to pay for precinct workers. Reyes faces a very difficult race.
A new Kiddieland? Remember the amusement park in Melrose Park? If both "Juniors" get elected, joining Berrios' daughter, state Representative Toni Berrios (D-39), they'll have created Chicago's "Kiddieland."
Politicians Beware: "Dumpsters" at Work. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, Cook County's Democratic-dominated government and judiciary is of the "Dumpsters," by the "Dumpsters," for the "Dumpsters," and I don't mean behemoth steel receptacles behind condominiums or in dingy alleys. I'm talking about the upper-echelon bosses of the county Democratic party, guys like Mike Madigan, Ed Burke, Dick Mell and Joe Berrios.
The "Dumpsters" control the Cook County Democratic Central Committee, consisting of 50 ward and 30 suburban township committeemen. They met to slate the party's 2014 candidates on Aug. 15 and 16.
"I was disappointed," said Sposato, who is the 36th Ward committeeman. "There was no discussion of candidates' merits. Whatever the preslating subcommittees recommended was approved. Everything had been already decided."
The most prominent "Dumpee" was 18-year Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner Cynthia Santos, who is the chairman of the water district's Finance Committee, a former top aide to Secretary of State Jesse White, and the 5th U.S. House District Democratic state central committeeman.
Sources say that at the committeeman-only, closed-door session, Santos had "an attitude," demanding, not asking, for slating. When she was asked if she would run if she were not slated, she emphatically answered yes. That was a non-no.
However, according to Sposato, Santos was dumped because she "no longer had any juice," a political euphemism for "clout" derived through the support of a powerhouse committeeman. Santos' "juice," until 2011, was former 36th Ward alderman and committeeman Bill Banks. Sposato beat Banks' aldermanic candidate that year and won the party post in 2012. Prior to that, Santos' "clout" was Mell, who orchestrated her reslating in 2007 but soon thereafter dumped her husband, 12-year state Representative Rich Bradley, to clear the way for Mell to install his daughter in Bradley's House seat in 2008. That was the end of their relationship.
Before that, Santos was part of the old 35th Ward organization of Joe Kotlarz, and she, Bradley and Alderman Mike Wojcik were among his proteges. They all worked for Mell's son-in-law, Rod Blagojevich, in the 1996 congressional primary. Santos won her first term in 1996, running against the three slated candidates. She benefited from name confusion with former city treasurer Miriam Santos and the fact that, even though she is of Greek ancestry, her surname sounds Hispanic. She ran second in 2002 and 2008.
The 2014 water district slate of the "Dumpsters" consists of 12-year incumbent Frank Avila, south suburban Rich Township administrator and Democratic Committeeman Tim Bradford, who is black, and Josina Morita, a Japanese American who is the director of the United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations. All three, along with Santos and Wallace Davis III, made presentations. Surprisingly, Barbara Moore, the wife of Alderman Joe Moore (49th), who sought water district slating in 2012, didn't appear and sent a letter endorsing Bradford. The 2014 election was supposed to have been "her turn."
It requires 7,500 signatures to get on the countywide ballot, and the juiceless Santos, with no political base, will have to do it on her own. No committeeman will pass her petitions. Asian Americans are a growing Democratic fund-raising source, and they would be apoplectic if Morita does not become the county's first Asian-American office holder. The pressure will be enormous to deliver for her.
All other countywide incumbents were re-slated. The outlook: Avila and Bradford are a lock, but Santos could edge Morita.
The "Old Switch and Sneak." Burke chairs the judicial subcommittee, and he and Madigan decide who gets slated. Burke's "recommendations" were ratified at the slating. The Illinois Supreme Court, on which Burke's wife Justice Anne Burke sits, fills all Cook County Appellate Court and Circuit Court vacancies until the next election. Those appointees are expected to run. Each slated candidate must donate $30,000 to the party for "expenses," such as mailers and advertising.
There are 10 Circuit Court and three Appellate Court judges to be elected. Does that mean all the appointees were slated? No, it doesn't. A surprised Sposato said that some incumbent judges were not slated. Call it the "Gavel Switch": judge today, gone tomorrow. Of the 10 candidates who were slated countywide for the Circuit Court, five were appointees, which means that five sitting judges were dumped or quit. Of the three slated for the Appellate Court, one was an incumbent, so two appointed justices will either be retired or demoted back to the Circuit Court.
Then there's the "Gavel Sneak": The party slated four "alternates" each for the Circuit Court and the Appellate Court. They're not replacements for a slated candidate who might leave the race. It's safe to assume that up to half a dozen judges will submit resignations just before the end of the filing period and that one or more "alternates" will be sneaked onto the ballot, too late for any opponent to get 10,000-plus signatures. The party organization can get 4,000 signatures in a weekend.
Notably, eight of the 10 slated Circuit Court candidates are women, and all four of the alternates all are men. Women always run better than men in crowded primaries, so an unopposed primary is the best way to get a juiced man on the bench. The "sneak" is under way.