October 1, 2008
BROWN NEEDS BIG WIN TO RESUSCITATE IMAGE

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

The 2008 contest for clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court is about vindication, validation and vituperation -- and positioning for other offices in 2010, 2011 and 2014.

Incumbent Democrat Dorothy Brown, after being obliterated by Rich Daley in the 2007 mayoral race, needs vindication. Once touted as a "Great Black Hope" and as a future Chicago mayor, Brown's meager 20 percent of the vote against Daley has dissipated the aura of inevitability that once surrounded her. She's now just an ABL -- "another black loser."

Brown is part of the Chicago netherworld inhabited by such past election losers as Bobby Rush (28 percent), Danny Davis (37 percent), Tim Evans (40 percent), Roland Burris (40 percent), Paul Jakes (14 percent) and the late Gene Pincham (29 percent), Joe Gardner (33 percent) and Gene Sawyer (44 percent). All ran once, lost, and never ran for mayor again.

"She picked the right race at the wrong time," observed one Northwest Side Democratic politician. "Despite 'Hired Truck' and all the city scandals, Daley was enormously popular. By losing, and losing badly, she destroyed her credibility, and she won't get a second chance."

Brown's 89,622 votes were the second least drawn by a black challenger to Daley since 1989, barely topping the unknown Jakes' 61,888 votes in 2003. Brown lost all 20 of Chicago's black-majority wards. At age 55, if she wants to remain in politics, her best option is to be clerk for life. A race for Cook County Board president in 2010 or mayor in 2011 is not feasible, and her best future hope is to run for secretary of state in 2014 when Jesse White retires.

In the panorama of Chicago black politicians, Brown has been eclipsed by Barack Obama, U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-2) and even Todd Stroger, the hugely unpopular county board president. Fresh black Democratic faces include state Senators James Meeks (D-15) and Kwame Raoul (D-13) and state Representative Ken Dunkin (D-5). Should Daley retire in 2011, Jackson definitely will be the "Great Black Hope."

Brown said her 2007 loss has "not affected" her "ability" to be clerk. "I'm still respected in the black community and among public officials," she said.

When longtime clerk (1988 to 2000) Aurie Pucinski retired in 2000, Brown won the Democratic primary with 48.4 percent of the vote, beating three white foes, including the slated Pat Levar. She had 216,631 votes, of which 135,904 came from the black wards. In 2004 she faced former judge Jerome Orbach, a white former 46th Ward alderman, and got 452,360 votes, winning black wards by 6-1 margins and doubling her vote from 2004. That put misbegotten dreams of greater glory into her head.

After she lost to Daley, rumors abounded that the mayor would try to beat her for renomination in 2008. Daley astutely gave her a free pass, and she was unopposed. Instead of giving Brown the opportunity to claim victimhood and to enable her to energize her black base by bellowing about racism, the white political establishment gave Brown that which she craves least -- a complete lack of attention.

There is no doubt that Brown will be re-elected to a third term on Nov. 4. She faces unknown and under funded Republican Diane Shapiro. But the size of her margin is important. Will she run as well as Obama citywide and countywide? Will she top her vote of 2000 and 2004?

Shapiro, age 52, a county adult probation investigator and a former Democrat, is gearing up to run for 46th Ward alderman in 2011. The clerk's race gives her some visibility and validation as a future candidate. Shapiro is not shy on vituperation, ripping Brown as the "second most incompetent office holder in Cook County." The first, she said, is Stroger. "They're all a bunch of 'kleptocrats,'" Shapiro said. "They operate by theft of public funds. They allow corruption to flourish. There are no checks and balances."

Shapiro said that the clerk's office is "nothing more than a cash cow" for Brown. Since taking office in 2001, Brown had raised $2,657,394, much of it reportedly from her office employees. As of June 30, Shapiro, the 46th Ward Republican committeeman, had raised nothing, compared to Brown's $143,280.

Specifically, Shapiro wants mandatory drug testing and a dress code for the office's 1,822 employees. She wants hiring to be "based on qualifications, not political clout." She wants promotions to be "based on skills and experience, not political clout." And she wants diversity in hiring, "not just blacks recommended by South Side Democratic committeemen."

Shapiro expresses exasperation over the lack of an electronic case filing system for civil matters, which is up and running in the federal courts and in DuPage County. "There's no reason why we can't have off-site, online access to all court documents," she said. "There's no reason why documents can't be filed electronically." But Shapiro has her suspicions. "It's because of the low level of skills possessed by all the patronage hires," she said. "I'll change that."

Shapiro also promises to save $1 million by eliminating Brown's "security detail," which consists of 10 employees on the budget books as "investigators" or "analysts," as well as the three vehicles assigned to Brown. She also pledged to audit the clerk's books on bail bonds.

"That's a lie," retorted Brown. "We have merit hiring. We have diversified hiring." As to her security detail, Brown said she has two drivers and that they are "internal investigators" in the office after driving her to the Daley Center. "They investigate sexual harassment and other claims," she added.

As for the "kleptocrat" charge, Brown said that the office's budget has decreased from $9,865,000 in 2001, when she took office, to $8,150,000 in 2008, and that the number of employees has declined from 2,300 to 1,822. "I've been fiscally responsible," she said.

Brown said she expects to have e-filing in the clerk's office by 2009. To do so, she needs authorization by the Illinois Supreme Court and the county's chief judge's office. "There are two million cases filed annually (in Cook County), and 18 million documents filed," Brown said. "In DuPage there are 300,000 cases and one million documents. That's a big difference."

In DuPage County, Brown observed, e-mail filing requires special software to enter data directly into the system. She said that in Cook County the new system will require no software and all entries will flow through the clerk's Web page, which will automatically populate documents and, if needed, provide e-mail notice to opposing counsel.

As for a dress code and drug testing, Brown said such issues are mandated in the office's union contract.

The court clerk manages all county courtrooms, of which there are 200 in the Daley Center and more than 100 elsewhere, distributes funds collected (fines and filing fees) as directed, creates, maintains and manages court records, and oversees bail bond collection and refunds. It is the kind of office where the occupant gets no attention for doing a good job but plenty of headlines for doing a bad job.

A Republican has not been elected court clerk since the 1920s, when the Superior Court then existed and every bailiff and clerk was a political hire. To work for the clerk meant to work a precinct. The 11th Ward controlled the patronage-rich job for decades, most recently with Matt Danaher (1964 to 1974) and Morgan Finley (1974 to 1988). Finley was ensnared in the federal "Operation Incubator" probe, and he was convicted of taking $25,000 in bribes. He was replaced by Pucinski in 1988, and she beat Democrat-turned-Republican Ed Vrdolyak by 1,137,749-790,900, with 59 percent of the vote.

In subsequent elections, the Republican candidate for clerk got 474,295 votes (25 percent of the total) in 1992, 389,549 votes (24 percent) in 1996, 438,057 votes (27 percent) in 2000 and 479,022 (26 percent) in 2004. Cook County is so habitually Democratic that any unindicted Democrat with a pulse beats any Republican.

In 2000 Brown got 1,172,605 votes (73 percent of the votes cast), running 85,547 votes behind Al Gore, and in 2004 she got 1,369,245 votes (74 percent), running 70,479 votes behind John Kerry.

My prediction: George Bush got 597,405 votes in Cook County in 2004, but anti-Obama sentiment among white Kerry voters, particularly in Chicago's ethnic wards, will push John McCain above 750,000 votes. Those white voters, however, will vote Democratic for every other office, including court clerk. A huge surge in black turnout for Obama will offset that defection, and Obama will amass at least 1.5 million votes countywide.

To resuscitate her mayoral viability, Brown needs to run ahead of Obama. That is possible, if not probable. Unfortunately for Brown, if Obama wins the presidency, her feat will go unheralded -- especially if the Democratic candidate for state's attorney, Anita Alvarez, also runs better than Obama. And if Obama loses, black anger will benefit Jackson, not Brown.

As for Shapiro, if she can crack 30 percent of the vote, that would make her a Republican superstar and a credible candidate for alderman in 2011.