March 6, 2024
LATINA COURT CLERK MARTINEZ BEING PURGED BY PRECKWINKLE, DEMOCRATS
It is said that no good deed goes unpunished and Iris Martinez, the Clerk of Circuit Court nominated in the 2020 primary (D) with 31.3 percent, has discovered that to her chagrin. She replaced Dorothy Brown, who let the office decline into a dysfunctional morass during her 20-year tenure. Anyone with a pulse and some legal knowledge could have done better, and Martinez did.
For her good deed Martinez got dumped by the Democrats last August. “They dumped me because I beat them,” said Martinez, claiming county party chair Toni Preckwinkle and state senator Rob Martwick (D-10) orchestrated the purge. Another compelling factor, she said, was her slate of 5 females in the 2022 primary (D). “I want more women and Latinas in politics.”
This effort involved running ads in the Chicago Sun-Times with pictures of the five women. They included Martinez, running for 3rd District state central committeewoman; Erin Jones, a CPD investigator running for state senator against Martwick, Natalie Toro, a teacher running for county commissioner in the 8th District against the pro-Preckwinkle incumbent; Patricia Flynn, the slated candidate for MWRD; and a woman who never made the ballot for sheriff. All but Flynn lost, with Martinez being trounced by now-congresswoman Delia Ramirez, (D-3). Martinez lost even in her 33rd Ward base where Ramirez beat her 2,993-2,248. Toro was appointed 20th District senator instead.
This impression was compounded in the 2023 33rd Ward aldermanic election. All-the-time “democratic socialist” Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez was elected alderman in 2019, beating Deb Mell by 13 votes. Martinez was elected committeeman in 2020, winning the ward 5,712-3,778 vote and getting 5,287 votes for Court Clerk, or 54.4 percent. Yet in 2023 her weak choice for alderman, Samie Martinez, got crushed by Sanchez 5,814-3,604, getting 33.9 percent. The Woke/Leftist alderwoman, a big Brandon Johnson and pro-Palestinian booster, is running for committeeperson (D) against Martinez. You’d expect a flood of pro-Israeli money from Jewish sources to flow into the ward to beat Rodriguez Sanchez. There hasn’t. Martinez will lose.
“She (Martinez) was on a track to be (Chicago) mayor,” said Sean Tenner, the 46th Ward committeeperson (D). All Martinez needed to do, Tenner said, was do an exemplary job as Clerk, publicize it endlessly, keep unions happy, raise bundles of union money, make herself the Latina champion of Latinos, intimidate “progressives” from attacking her, use the Clerk’s 1,300 jobs to build a countywide (and especially suburban) base, get re-elected in 2024 and, in 2026, take out Preckwinkle as county chair.
And occasionally mumble some Woke platitudes that are necessary to keep your job.
In other words, don’t do silly stuff like endorsing Eileen O’Neil Burke over Clayton Harris III for state’s attorney (which she did) or complain about out-of-control crime (which she has).
The Democrats’ slated choice to beat Martinez is MWRD commissioner Mariyana Spyropoulos, who briefly ran for Clerk in 2020. Spyropoulos is the heiress to her family fortune founded on her father’s ownership of a Citgo oil and chemicals distributorship in the south suburbs. Theodore Spyropoulos died in 2019, his TGS Inc. sold, and Mariyana became a multi-millionaire. “She’s another rich kid trying to buy office,” said Martinez. Through Feb. 1 Spyropoulos had self-funded $1.4 million.
Spyropoulos has never been a fan mine and declined to be interviewed for this column. All quotes are taken from her Web site. She says “as an attorney” she in “best qualified” for the job. Except for a few years as an ASA in criminal court, she has no civil court experience, never worked for a law firm and never practiced solo. She says that the Clerk “failed to modernize for years” – like under Democrats Brown, Aurelia Pucinski, Morgan Finley and Matt Danaher. The office was stuffed with low-paid paper-pushers who worked precincts. A federal judge invoked Shakman in 2018 to get oversight on Brown’s hiring practices.
Spyropoulos says she wants to “end corruption,” “increase access to justice,” “modernize,” “improve technology,” and “operate in a transparent manner.” So here’s HER “transparency” issue: She was elected MWRD president in 2014 (after being elected commissioner in 2010). There are 9 commissioners, so it takes the vote of 4 plus the winner yourself to get the top post. She was dumped in 2018 by Kari Steele. I asked her why she was ”dumped” in front of an Oct. 2019 endorsement forum of 38th Ward Dems. She replied that she was “making way for new blood.” Martinez said it was because Spyropoulos is “smug, arrogant and insufferable.” Who to believe?
And then there’s the $25,000 that dad Thedore donated to governor Pat Quinn in Jan. 2010, after having appointed Mariyana to a MWRD vacancy in the summer of 2009. Mariyana had gotten herself slated to run for that seat in 2010 even though she ran against the slate in 2008. “And they criticize me for doing just that in 2020,” said Martinez. TGS Inc. donated $10,500 to Quinn in Jan. 2013, and the family a total of $133,090 over 4 years.
Outlook: Martinez has digitized 70 million files, created a Call Center and Expungement Center, automated filings and fired 55 employees who committed PPP fraud. But she will spend only $300,000. That’s not enough to establish a “feisty underdog” image. Spyropoulos will win 60/40.
THE NEW DEMOCRATIC IDENTITY PRONOUN: LATINO MEN NOW RANK WITH WHITE MEN.
The 2024 Political Priority Power Rankings are in, and Democrats’ slating and appointing options are as follows.
Whether you like it or not, identity politics is alive and well in the county. Aside from checking all the boxes such as LGBTQ, female and non-White, the old way of doing things is over. Also, if it is a direct choice between a man and woman, the guy always gets a go-to-the-end-of-the-line card.
Any well-to-do pro-Democratic ethnic groups who chip in 100K from time to time also check the boxes. The only box a candidate needs to fill in is “How much donated lately?” remember, no money, no slating, no box.
Jewish Democrats, once a bedrock part of the party coalition, used to get a third of the county judgeships, with Irish the rest. That era is long gone. Of the 22 slated Democrats on the March 19 primary ballot, only one is Jewish. (9) Latinos and Latinas seem like they are galloping downward politically. Exhibits A and B are Iris Martinez and Jesse Reyes. Martinez was dumped as Clerk of Court, and Reyes was rejected at 2024 slating for the vacant IL Supreme Court 1st District vacancy for Joy Cunningham, an Appellate Court justice like Reyes.
Reyes was also rejected in 2020 for another Illinois Supreme Court vacancy; slated was P. Scott Neville. At that time Democratic power brokers assured Reyes in particular and Latinos in general that the “next seat” on the ILSC would be occupied by the first-ever Latino. Sounds sort of like a lie.
And then (10) there are those antiquated, pesky White males, who get picked to fill a quota – usually 20 percent. Of the 11 countywide slots for Circuit Court judgeships this year, 2 went to White guys (one Jewish, one gay). There was no box for qualifications. Why should that matter? But there was a box for “Ideology,” with the choices being (a) Progressive, (b) Woke/Left and/or (c) anti-MAGA.
Reyes, to his great credit, is running anyway. This may be the last ILSC opening this decade. Reyes ran in 2020 and finished second to Neville, 214,066-195,344, getting 22.4 percent in a 872,799 turnout. Two other Black judges ran and their combined percent was 6.9 percent; the White, a woman, got 11.6 percent. Turnout will be under 500,000, and committeemen will crank-out their controlled vote.
Cunningham is up on TV, claiming she will be “the first Black woman” elected to ILSC. A lot of Leftist Whites will vote for her because of her race and gender. Cunninghan will win by at least 60/40.
As for ILSC, in 2025 it will be “diversity, equity and inclusion” on steroids.
Read more Analysis & Opinion from Russ Stewart at Russstewart.com
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